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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums This Supreme Court Case Could Make All Public Unions ‘Right to Work’
(The Nation) On January 11, the Supreme Court will hear argument on Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a full-bore attack on public-sector unions. The lead Friedrichs plaintiffs, a group of fiercely anti-union California public-school teachers, seek to reverse Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) on First Amendment grounds. Abood has provided the bedrock constitutional analysis and recommended administrative structure for public-sector unionism for nearly 40 years. Its reversal would trigger an earthquake in American labor relations. The legal foundations of thousands of public-sector bargaining agreements, covering millions of workers providing all manner of public services, will disappear. The whole of American public employment, at all levels of government, will become a right to work (i.e., right not to pay for service) killing field for unions.
The Court has revisited Abood six times since its first announcement, most recently in last years Harris v. Quinn. Strong majorities on the Court have reaffirmed the rulingfive times unanimouslyin all of those cases. Every member of the present Court has either authored or joined in at least one of those reaffirmations. But back in Harris, Justice Samuel Alito effectively invited the current challenge: He spent nearly half of his lead opinion attacking Abood on First Amendment grounds before getting to the Courts decision that it didnt cover the state-supported homecare workers at issue there.
The right answered this invitation immediately. Friedrichs was thrown together by a variety of business-backed anti-union advocacy groups led by the hard-right Center for Individual Rights. The suit raced through the District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals without full evidence or oral argument. (Both courts dismissed it.) With obvious confidence that they would soon be moving up the judicial chain, the Friedrichs lawyers actually asked for this unusual process. And sure enough, despite unanimity among the Circuit Courts against their position, they gained review by the Supreme Court on their first try. Theres an unpleasant, piscine smell to all of this.
Two considerations are important to understanding the substance of Friedrichs. The first is that the First Amendment prohibits compelled political speech. This means the government cannot make you pay for advocacy you disagree with. The second is that American labor law requires that any union certified as the exclusive bargaining representative of a group of workers must equally represent and service all of those workersdues-paying union members and non-paying nonmembers alike. This immediately creates a free-rider problem for unions that, left unattended, will kill their capacity. Why pay for something when you can get its services for free? ...................(more)
http://www.thenation.com/article/this-supreme-court-case-could-make-all-public-unions-right-to-work/
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