Supreme Court’s Conservatives Attack Public-Sector Unions’ Power, Cutting Dues-Paying Requirement

By Steven Rosenfeld

June 30, 2014 | The U.S. Supreme Court vastly undercut the power of public-sector unions Monday, with the right-wing majority limiting which government employees must pay union dues—cutting into their operating funds for lobbying and other political activities.

The case, Harris v. Quinn [3], concerned the constitutionality of “agency fees,” which are charged by these unions to all workers in a unionized setting, even non-union members.

“This case presents the question whether the First Amendment permits a State to compel personal care providers to subsidize speech on matters of public concern by a union that they do not wish to join or support. We hold that it does not,” Justice Samuel Alito, writing [3] for the Court’s five-member conservative majority, held. “If we accepted Illinois’ argu­ment, we would approve an unprecedented violation of the bedrock principle that, except perhaps in the rarest of circumstances, no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.”