Who's Behind Friedrichs?
The right-wing one-percenters who are funding a mega-attack on unions
As the current term of the U.S. Supreme Court opens this autumn, looming on the docket is Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case designed to decimate public-sector unions. While it may not come to that—even the most knowledgeable Court-watchers are unsure how the justices will rule—the stakes are high. A decision is expected before the term ends in June.
The case was, in effect, invited by Justice Samuel Alito, who penned the majority opinion in Harris v. Quinn, a 2014 case in which the court ruled against the union representing home-care workers in Illinois. In Harris, as Harold Meyerson wrotehere, Alito devoted half of his opinion to considering the constitutionality of public-sector unions’ right to collect “fair share” fees from those who have opted out of union membership. These fees cover the worker’s share of the resources the union spent on negotiating a contract, representing workers in grievance procedures, and other services that benefit the entire workforce. They are lower than the dues assessed the union’s members, whose payments also cover the cost of their union’s political activities.
The right of unions to collect fair share fees was settled by the court’s unanimous decision in 1977’s Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. In her dissenting opinion inHarris, Justice Elena Kagan noted that the fair-share issues Alito brought up were not even before the court in Harris. Alito’s questioning of the Abood precedent, however, signaled an inclination by the conservative majority to revisit it.
Alito’s invitation to reconsider Aboodhelped ensure that Friedrichs tore through the legal system at high speed. But the real force propelling Friedrichs’gallop through the courts was the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), the right-wing pro-bono law group that is representing teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and her fellow plaintiffs: At each stage in the legal process, CIR attorneys asked the courts to rule against their own clients, with the apparent interest of moving the case up to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.
“It just seems really nefarious,” says Frank Deale, a professor at the CUNY School of Law. “In fact, it’s collusive, in a way. You’re setting up this false scenario, this false conflict, in order to get a Supreme Court ruling. The Center for Individual Rights didn’t even make an argument [in the lower-court filings]. They asked for the court to rule for the defendant, and then they got rewarded for it.”
In addition to Rebecca Friedrichs, the plaintiffs include nine other California schoolteachers, who have all opted out of union membership. They’re bringing suit against the California Teachers Association in a bid to relieve themselves of having to pay their fair share, via agency fees, for the services the union is required by law to provide to them, including contract negotiation and adjudication of grievances. But the Court’s ultimate decision could reach further than the issue of agency fees, in ways that could threaten the very existence of unions. A narrow ruling, of course, could have a lesser effect.
Should the Friedrichs plaintiffs succeed in all their claims before the high court, they could cause public-sector unions to have significant drops in membership, since all the workers covered under their union contract could cease payment of any dues or fees to the union, even though the union would still be legally obligated to provide them with services. The unions would have to sign up their current members to collect payments from them again, causing them to devote additional staff and resources to organizing. As well, the resources unions could devote to political action could be substantially diminished—a possible reason why, with the 2016 elections looming, right-wing organizations have been so determined to fast-forward the case to the Supremes.
WHEN THE CENTER FOR Individual Rights first came on the scene in 1989, Frank Deale was on the staff of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization that made its mark in the field of civil rights. “When I first heard their name I said, ‘For Who's Behind Friedrichs?:
