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March 2, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
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... Decision in Janus v AFSCME is expected by end of June
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140
Amendment free speech rights.
The group is asking the Court to
overturn its unanimous 1977
Abood decision, which ruled
that union-represented employ-
ees who don’t want to join the
union can’t be required to pay
for union political speech, but
can be required to pay a “fair
share” or “agency” fee covering
the costs of negotiating con-
tracts and representing workers
in grievances.
National Right to Work Legal
Foundation attorney William
Messenger argued that the
Abood decision was in error be-
cause everything a public sector
union does is political speech —
since government is the em-
ployer. Therefore, union-repre-
sented employees who object to
the union shouldn’t have to pay
for any of it, even grievance
handling or contract negotiation.
“You’re basically arguing,
‘do away with unions,’” Justice
Sonia Sotomayor told Messen-
ger.
During the hour-long hearing,
several Democratic-appointed
justices made points about the
potential consequences of undo-
ing 40 years of precedent.
“Twenty-three states, the Dis-
Outside the U.S. Supreme Court, about 500 union supporters rallied Feb. 26
with signs that said, “Unrig the System.” They greatly outnumbered about
100 union opponents carrying signs saying, “Stand with Mark.” Mark Janus
is the union-represented Illinois public worker in the case Janus v AFSCME.
trict of Columbia, Puerto Rico,
all would have their statutes de-
clared unconstitutional at once,”
said Justice Elena Kagan.
Trump’s U.S. solicitor gen-
eral Noel Francisco, arguing in
favor of Janus, suggested that a
win for Janus won’t be as dis-
ruptive as some unions have
said: In the federal sector, no
workers are required to make
payments to the union, and yet
about 80 percent of union-repre-
sented federal employees pay
union dues voluntarily, Fran-
cisco said. At the Postal Service
it’s even higher — about 94 per-
cent voluntarily pay union dues.
Meanwhile, lawyers for AF-
SCME and for Illinois Attorney
General’s office argued that the
fair share fee requirement actu-
ally benefits public employers.
“We have an interest at the
end of the day in being able to
work with a stable, responsible,
independent counter-party that’s
well-resourced enough that it
can be a partner with us in the
process,” said Illinois Solicitor
General David L. Franklin.
“There are plenty of studies that
show that when unions are de-
prived of agency fees, they tend
to become more militant, more
confrontational. They go out in
search of short-term gains that
they can bring back to their
members and say ‘stick with
us.’”
Illinois and 20 other states
have asked the Court to respect
states’ rights to decide how to
manage their own employment
relations.
AFSCME attorney David C.
Frederick suggested that over-
turning Abood could lead to
more public employee strikes:
“The key thing that has been
bargained for in this contract for
agency fees is a limitation on
striking. And that is true in many
collective bargaining agree-
ments. The fees are the tradeoff.
Union security is the tradeoff for
no strikes. And so if you were to
overrule Abood, you can raise
an untold specter of labor unrest
throughout the country.”
The hearing came after sev-
eral days of protest rallies
around the nation by unions and
their allies.
The court is expected to rule
on the issue by the end of June.