Supreme Court Will Hear Case Attacking Unions This Week

This week, the Supreme Court will hear a very important case on unions, and their right to collect fees from all workers that benefit from the union's collective bargaining. It is Janus vs. AFCME.

The case has been brought and is being funded by several organizations that claim to protect worker rights. But make no mistake -- these organizations were created, and are being funded, by billionaire corporatists (like the Koch brothers). Their main purpose is not to protect workers, but to weaken and eventually destroy unions.

A previous case, Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education, upheld the right of public-sector unions to collect a fee from non-union employees, because those employees enjoy all the rights and benefits that the union's collective bargaining has achieved -- and it is only fair that they should pay for some of the expense of achieving those benefits.

Janus is an effort by corporations to overturn Abood, and to damage unions. It is one more step in the decades-long war on labor unions.

Here is a small part of an excellent article from the Economic Policy Institute about the case. I hope it helps you understand the importance of it:

Janus v. AFSCME District Council 31

On February 9, 2015, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner issued an executive orderinstructing all state agencies to stop enforcing fair share union contract provisions and required that all such deductions be placed into an escrow account instead of being turned over to unions representing those workers. That same day, Governor Rauner filed suit in district court challenging the constitutionality of public-sector unions’ collection of fair share fees from nonmembers. The unions moved to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and standing. While those motions were pending, Mark Janus and two other state employees filed a motion to intervene in the case. On May 19, 2015, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ruled that Governor Rauner did not have standing to file suit and granted Janus permission to intervene.

The plaintiffs in Janus are attempting to pick up where Friedrichs left off, and are making the same argument that was addressed over 40 years ago in Abood. As in other cases challenging the collection of fair share fees, the plaintiffs in Janus have acknowledged that they could not prevail in the district or appellate court, which are bound by the Supreme Court precedent in Abood. As a result, the case has been rushed through the courts. On June 6, 2017, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the case (a document filed by the losing party in a case asking the Supreme Court to review the decision of a lower court). The Supreme Court granted the petition on September, 28, 2017, and will hear oral arguments in the case on February 26, 2018.

How fair share fees work

Just like in any democratic institution, when a majority of employees in a bargaining unit choose to be represented by a union, the union then becomes the exclusive bargaining representative of all workers in the unit. The union has a responsibility to represent all workers in the unit, union members and employees who decide not to join the union alike, and the employer has a duty to bargain with the union over employees’ wages and working conditions. Unions may bargain to include union security agreements, which allow them to collect fair share fees (also known as “agency” fees) from employees who do not join the union but are part of the bargaining unit (employees in a bargaining unit but not union members are referred to as nonmembers). Nonmembers’ fair share fees cover the union’s expenses related to collective bargaining and contract administration, but not expenses for political or ideological advocacy. These fair share or agency fees ensure that every employee represented by the union simply pays her fair share of the cost of representation. The fees are calculated as a percentage of union dues. Fair share fees can only fund activities related to collective bargaining and contract administration and are expressly prohibited from funding the union’s political advocacy.

How fair share fees prevent “free riding”

A union is required to represent a nonmember worker who is mistreated by the employer as the nonmember pursues a costly grievance process, even if it costs the union tens of thousands of dollars. Fair share fees enable the union to charge nonmember workers for the right to access that service if they need it. Without the ability to collect fair share fees, the nonmember worker could access these expensive representation services without having paid a dime.

Workers who choose not to pay union dues also receive the higher wages and benefits that the union negotiates on behalf of its members. Eliminating fair share fees encourages “free riding”: workers paying union dues see coworkers who are paying nothing but getting the same benefits, and they decide to leave the union and stop paying union dues. Public-sector unions have worked for decades to protect the rights of the teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and other public servants that communities depend on. Taking away unions’ ability to collect fair share fees—while they are nonetheless required to provide services and representation to nonmembers—would threaten the very existence of unions by weakening their financial stability.

The possibility that workers could decide not to pay for the union benefits they receive if fair share fees are outlawed does not mean that they do not value these benefits. This proposition was explained in an amici curiae brief to assist the Supreme Court in understanding the free-rider problem at issue in Janus v. AFSCME, which was signed by 36 distinguished economists and professors of economics and law, including three Nobel laureates. The scholars explained that the free-rider problem is a well-established concept in economics. In particular, the brief shows it is widely accepted that if an individual chooses not to pay for a resource provided to him or her for free, it does not mean the individual does not value the resource, and that when individuals who benefit from a resource do not pay for it, the resource will be underprovided.