The Supreme Court Case Against Teachers' Unions Could Have a Far-Reaching Impact
If the Supreme Court overturns Abood, will the middle class suffer?
People for and against unions hold up signs in front of the Supreme Court building on January 11, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The case—which was brought by veteran fourth-grade teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and nine other California teachers, andorganized by the libertarian-leaning Center for Individual Rights—asks the Courtto overturn the 1977 Abood v. Detroit of Education ruling in favor of the constitutionality of mandatory union fees. There's a dearth of data available on how the elimination of mandatory union fees would affect union membership, but a ruling in favor of Friedrichs and her fellow petitioners at least has the potential to shrink public-sector union budgets around the country, which has troubling consequences for an already-struggling middle class.
While the Abood decision concluded that so-called "agency fees"—payments that non-union member public sector employees are required to dish out to unions to cover their portion of the union's collective bargaining expenses—were legal, it also determined that non-union employees must be permitted to opt out of any fees that were dedicated to a union's "political activities." The California teachers in the Friedrichs case are arguing that everything public-sector unions do is, in fact, political, and that agency fees thus constitute a violation of their First Amendment rights.
"In this era of broken municipal budgets and a national crisis in public education, it is difficult to imagine more politically charged issues than how much money local governments should devote to public employees, or what policies public schools should adopt to best educate children," the teachers' lawyers write in the opening brief. "Yet California and more than twenty other states compel millions of public employees to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to fund a very specific viewpoint on these pressing public questions, regardless of whether those employees support or benefit from the union's policies."
Only 11.1 percent of American workers in 2014 were unionized, as compared to 34.8 percent of workers in 1954.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Rebecca Friedrichs and her fellow teachers, which legal analysts currently expect it to, public-sector unions will no doubt have to trim their budgets, although it's not clear by how much. Unions argue that eliminating mandatory agency fees will create an incentive to opt for free rides: Union members, no longer subject to mandatory union fees, would be able to quit their unions, saving themselves hundreds of dollars a year, but still benefit from The Supreme Court Case Against Teachers' Unions Could Have a Far-Reaching Impact - Pacific Standard:
