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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2018)
PAGE 8 | July 6, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS ... Supreme Court delivers blow to union movement sion a huge blow to working America—masterminded by the privileged and powerful. “Last year, the powerful few com- pleted the theft of a Supreme Court seat,” Merkley said. “Now, as planned, they are reap- ing the rewards with a decision designed to cripple workers’ ability to come together to insist on a fair shake.” From Page 1 Reactions to the decision were widespread and fierce, starting with the Court’s own minority. Justice Elena Kagan said in Janus, the court’s major- ity is “weaponizing the First Amendment, in a way that un- leashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy.” The ruling is “politics, not law,” said Alice O’Brien, top lawyer for the National Educa- tion Association. “Rather than precedent or principle, what ap- pears to drive the Janus majority is barely concealed animus to- ward public sector unions and their advocacy.” “This is not just an attack on public-sector workers,” said IBEW International President Lonnie Stephenson. “It is an at- tack on every single American The Janus v. AFSCME case gets its name from Illinois child support spe- cialist Mark Janus, a union objector represented by AFSCME Council 31. But it’s a fitting name for the case for another reason: Janus was the Ro- man god of beginnings and transi- tions, always depicted as having two faces, one looking at the past and one looking at the future. who works for a living, and it is only the first step in an effort to repeal every right won by work- ing people in this country.” U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D- Oregon) called the Janus deci- Not our opinion: The dissenting minority speaks Below is an excerpt of the fiery dissenting opinion Obama appointee Elena Kagan wrote on behalf of the four Supreme Court justices who opposed the majority in Janus v AFSCME. T here is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The ma- jority overthrows a deci- sion entrenched in this nation’s law, and in its economic life, for over 40 years. As a result, it pre- vents the American people, act- ing through their state and local officials, from making impor- tant choices about workplace governance. And it does so by weaponizing the First Amend- ment, in a way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy. … The majority has overruled Abood … because it wanted to pick the winning side in what should be—and until now, has been—an energetic policy de- bate. Some state and local gov- ernments (and the constituents they serve) think that stable unions promote healthy labor re- lations and thereby improve the provision of services to the pub- lic. Other state and local govern- ments (and their constituents) think, to the contrary, that strong unions impose excessive costs and impair those services. Amer- icans have debated the pros and cons for many decades—in large part, by deciding whether to use fair-share arrangements. Yesterday, 22 States were on one side, 28 on the other (ignoring a couple of in-betweeners). Today, that healthy—that democratic— debate ends. The majority has adjudged who should prevail. And maybe most alarming, the majority has chosen the win- ners by turning the First Amend- ment into a sword, and using it against workaday economic and regulatory policy. Today is not the first time the Court has wielded the First Amendment in such an aggressive way.… And it threatens not to be the last. Speech is everywhere—a part of every human activity (employ- ment, health care, securities trad- ing, you name it). For that rea- son, almost all economic and regulatory policy affects or touches speech. So the major- ity’s road runs long. And at every stop are black-robed rulers overriding citizens’ choices. The First Amendment was meant for better things. It was meant not to undermine but to protect demo- cratic governance—including over the role of public-sector unions. Impact The Janus decision will reduce the income of unions represent- ing an estimated 5 million state and local government workers in 22 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In those places, workers who choose not to become union members have been paying fair share fees that typically amount to 80 percent of full union dues; now they’ll pay nothing. The other 28 states had no provision for mandatory union fees. Public employee unions could see the Janus decision was coming, and have had time to get ready by reaching out to represented workers to commu- nicate why becoming a union member is important. But the public employee unions also have a new adver- sary. Groups like the Freedom Foundation — financed by a small group of billionaire-sup- ported foundations — paid for the Janus lawsuit, and now are trying to capitalize on it by ap- pealing directly to union-repre- sented public employees to drop out of their unions. On the day the Janus ruling was announced, the Freedom Foundation said it sent emails to more than 90,000 public em- ployees, which it said resulted in 800 workers completing opt-out forms in the first 24 hours. The group also said it was immedi- ately deploying 80 people in Washington, Oregon, and Cali- fornia to canvass public em- ployees outside their work- places. Several states with pro-union governors or legislatures have taken action to shield public em- ployees from anti-union propa- ganda or otherwise soften the blow of Janus. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ordered state agen- cies that receive public records requests for large amounts of in- formation about public employ- ees to contact the governor’s of- fice before making the information public. In Califor- nia, a new law keeps public em- ployee phone numbers and email addresses private. And in California and New Jersey, new laws guarantee that unions have the right to meet with newly hired public employees.
