Is 4th time the charm in anti-union challenge?
Supreme Court could deal a fatal blow to ‘fair share’ fees
WASHINGTON – Dianne Knox describes herself as “a child of the ’60s.” Pam Harris grew up a butcher’s daughter in a union household. Rebecca Friedrichs was secretary of her local teachers’ union. Mark Janus supports the rights of workers to organize.
But as lead plaintiffs in four successive Supreme Court cases challenging the power of public employee unions, Knox, Harris, Friedrichs and Janus take pride in helping conservative groups reach a tipping point in their decade-long, anti-union campaign.
What Knox in 2012, Harris in 2014, Friedrichs in 2016 and Janus in 2018 have done is put the justices within one vote of overruling a 40-year-old precedent that allows the unions to collect fees from non-members for the cost of representation. In a case that will be heard this month, the court appears to have that additional vote in the form of Justice Neil Gorsuch.
A 5-4 decision against the unions would free about 5 million government workers, teachers, police and firefighters, and others in 22 states from being forced to pay “fair share” fees — a potentially staggering blow to public employee unions.
The challengers’ battles against the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers are based on disagreements with the political and policy priorities of the national leadership.
“This is not my father’s or my grandfather’s union,” says Harris, recalling the Amalgamated Meat Cutters to which they belonged. “This is a money-making scheme. It is a way to advance political agendas.”
Union leaders see the opposite — a power grab by what they call corporate billionaires and right-wing special interests to cripple the unions.
“It is a defunding strategy,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Wednesday. “They want the economy to be further rigged in their favor.”
It’s no coincidence that the four cases have emerged from California and Illinois, states with strong public employee unions and strained state budgets. They are among 22 states without so-called “right-to-work” laws, which make union membership and contributions voluntary.
Already in the 22 states, workers do not have to contribute to the unions’ political activities. A ruling by the Supreme Court that they do not have to contribute anything at all could save objecting workers $1,000 or more annually — at a huge cost to unions.
“The point is, who decides whether the union is worthy of their support — the workers themselves or the state on their behalf?” says Jacob Huebert of the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing Janus.
Janus, 65, claims no malice toward unions. “All I’m trying to do is level the playing field and let the worker decide whether they want to join.”