Janus v. AFSCME

On June 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Janus v. AFSCME¹. By a 5-4 vote, SCOTUS ruled that public employee unions cannot require non-members to pay union dues, even if those employees are benefiting from the services provided by the union. 28 states already had “right-to-work” laws on the books, meaning that unions in those states were already precluded from collecting fees from non-union members. This ruling makes that ban a national standard.

The case centered on a child-support specialist for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, Mark Janus, who argued that he should not, as a non-member of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (the union representing him) be required to pay even a limited fee to cover the cost of collective bargaining. Janus argued that the $45 in union dues deducted from his paycheck each month violated the First Amendment because it forced non-members to associate with political ideas with which they did not agree.

Justice Alito, writing for the majority, agreed with Janus that government “extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public-sector employees violates the First Amendment.” In doing so, the court overruled its 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, in which it held that a union could require non-members to pay agency fees as long as it did not use the fee to advance political or ideological issues. The Court in Janus found that Abood did not provide a “clear or easily applicable standard” to separate fees for collective bargaining from those from political activities.  In her dissent, Justice Kagan accused the court of “weaponizing the First Amendment in a way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy.” “Its decision will have large-scale consequences,” Kagan said. “Public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support. State and local governments that thought fair-share provisions furthered their interests will need to find new ways of managing their workforces.”

Although the decision only affects public sector employees, some early commentators such as Kenneth Thomas², executive director for the New York Construction Alliance, have argued that Janus does not signal the end for organized labor and construction trade outfits. Thomas said it could spark a discussion within the private sector about how construction trade unions collect and spend dues and how they engage with private-industry players.
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¹ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/janus-v-american-federation-state-county-municipal-employees-council-31/
² https://commercialobserver.com/2018/06/nyc-construction-alliance-on-janus-the-sky-isnt-falling/