Supreme Court rules against goverment unions
The leftist losing streak continues: The Supreme Court today ruled that government employees cannot be forced to pay dues to government unions.
The court’s conservative majority scrapped a 41-year-old decision that had allowed states to require that public employees pay some fees to unions that represent them, even if the workers choose not to join.
The 5-4 decision fulfills a longtime wish of conservatives to get rid of the so-called fair share fees that non-members pay to unions in roughly two dozen states. Organized labor is a key Democratic constituency.
The court ruled that the laws violate the First Amendment by compelling workers to support unions they may disagree with. “States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees,” Justice Samuel Alito said in his majority opinion in the latest case in which Justice Neil Gorsuch, an appointee of President Donald Trump, provided a key fifth vote for a conservative outcome.
Since government workers tend to be leftist anyway, especially in the federal government, I don’t expect this ruling to impact their fund-raising that much, initially. Over time, however, the unions are going to see their power recede as more and more employees decide they don’t need, or want, the unions.
The leftist losing streak continues: The Supreme Court today ruled that government employees cannot be forced to pay dues to government unions.
The court’s conservative majority scrapped a 41-year-old decision that had allowed states to require that public employees pay some fees to unions that represent them, even if the workers choose not to join.
The 5-4 decision fulfills a longtime wish of conservatives to get rid of the so-called fair share fees that non-members pay to unions in roughly two dozen states. Organized labor is a key Democratic constituency.
The court ruled that the laws violate the First Amendment by compelling workers to support unions they may disagree with. “States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees,” Justice Samuel Alito said in his majority opinion in the latest case in which Justice Neil Gorsuch, an appointee of President Donald Trump, provided a key fifth vote for a conservative outcome.
Since government workers tend to be leftist anyway, especially in the federal government, I don’t expect this ruling to impact their fund-raising that much, initially. Over time, however, the unions are going to see their power recede as more and more employees decide they don’t need, or want, the unions.