Teachers union dues case at the Supreme Court.

Teachers union dues case at the Supreme Court.:

What Would Happen if the Court Kneecapped the Unions?

We’re about to find out.

As is often the case with the most transparently partisan appeals argued at the Supreme Court, Monday’s session on Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association—a case challenging the fair-share fees public-sector unions require nonmembers to pay in exchange for collective-bargaining benefits—makes most sense if you simply take your head off and refasten it again, upside down. In this world, embraced in full by the court’s right wing Monday, money always equals speech; unions won’t suffer at all for losing millions of dollars or much of their membership; precedent is only binding if you luuurve it; and the crushing harm caused by paying fees to an entity espousing messages with which you disagree far outweighs the harm arising from dismantling the nation’s public-sector unions. And anyhow—how can we know how bad it would be to kneecap public-sector unions until we try it? Hey! Let’s find out!

California and 22 other largely blue states require that public employees who are all represented by unions can choose not to join those unions but must nevertheless pay a “fair-share” or “agency” fee, which is directed toward the union’s collective-bargaining activities. Because these unions are the exclusive bargaining representative for all employees—whether they join the union or not—they must bargain for all employees, not just members. Nonmembers may still opt out of any fees associated with the union’s overtly ideological and political activities. Although this arrangement implicates some speech of the nonmembers, the Supreme Court determined in a landmark 1977 case called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that this arrangement is constitutional. By asking nonmembers to contribute fees only for collective bargaining, the court sought to discourage free riders and to ensure “labor peace.”

Abood has been good law for the intervening four decades, although in 2014, in Harris v. Quinn, the five conservatives on the Supreme Court flirted with overruling it, and then in the opinion invited a challenge that would allow them to do away with the fees rule once and for all. The Center for Individual Rights, funded by a host of right-Teachers union dues case at the Supreme Court.:

 Big Education Ape: Who's Behind Friedrichs? The right-wing one-percenters who are funding a mega-attack on unions http://bit.ly/1OgRdT7