Bill McMorris writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a legal filing he describes as “labor’s last stand.”
One of the nation’s largest public sector unions defended mandatory unionism in a brief filed to the Supreme Court Friday.
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 is fighting to maintain a government agency’s right to mandate union dues or fee payments as a condition of employment. Several AFSCME members in Illinois have petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse court precedent set in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) on the grounds that they are being forced to subsidize political advocacy. Twenty-two states mandate those fee payments, while 26 prohibit such fees.
AFSCME said such payments are needed to prevent a free rider problem in which workers benefit from union organizing efforts and advantageous contracts, while refusing to pay for those services. Since union contract terms, including salaries and grievance procedures, extend to all workers in a bargaining unit, rather than just union members, it is only fair for workers to pay for union services. The union argues that disrupting the practice could threaten labor peace in the workforce. …
… Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which represents the workers along with the Liberty Justice Center, said the brief failed to justify continued forced dues payments. Mix said it is time for the Court to end the “anomaly” of forced dues payments, alluding to the court’s 2012 ruling in Knox v. SEIU, which found the SEIU improperly charged a non-member for political activities.
“Nothing in the briefs filed by AFSCME and the Illinois State Attorney General adequately explain why union officials’ demands for forced dues should trump the fundamental Constitutional rights of public employees,” Mix said.
