Supreme Court majority is critical of compelled public employee union fees

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Supreme Court majority is critical of compelled public employee union fees

By Robert Barnes January 11 at 12:19 PM

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed ready Monday to agree with a group of California teachers who say it violates their First Amendment rights to be forced to pay dues to the state’s teachers union.

A 40-year-old precedent allows states to permit unions to collect a so-called agency fee from non-members to support collective bargaining activities, and California is one of about 20 states that allow it.

Public employee unions say such fees are essential to their well-being, and that challenges to the arrangement are born of conservative efforts to weaken their strength. Liberal justices during an hour and a half of oral arguments said the challengers had not supplied the kind of evidence required for the court to overturn a precedent.

But the court’s conservative majority in 2012 and 2014 expressed grave doubts about the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, and there seemed little reason after the oral arguments for unions to think the majority was not ready to now finish it off.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-majority-is-critical-of-compelled-public-employee-union-fees/2016/01/11/80437fde-b7cb-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. I wonder how long it'll be before unions, on their own initiative, will tell the free-loaders ...

"Fine ... you don't want to pay dues; then, you will no longer be covered by the labor contracts that we negotiate. Please feel free to bargain with management for the best deal you can get ... and then, good luck enforcing the agreement that you strike."

[Starry Messenger]

2. We're so fucked.