SCOTUS Tie Preserves Fair Share Union Fees

This is very good news for unionized workers who benefit from collective bargaining:

The Supreme Court announced a tie vote today in what labor law experts had called a "life-or-death" case for public employee unions.

The split decision preserves a long-standing rule that requires about half of the nation's teachers, transit workers and other public employees to pay a "fair share fee" to support their union.

The tie vote will come as a relief to union officials who feared the conservative court was on the brink of striking down the pro-union laws that authorized these fees.

...The National Education Assn.—the nation's largest union, with 3 million members—hailed the decision as a victory.

"The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected a political ploy to silence public employees like teachers, school bus drivers, cafeteria workers, higher education faculty and other educators to work together to shape their profession," said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García.

The justices, following their usual practice, issued a short statement saying they had affirmed the lower court ruling by a tie vote.

In this case, Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Assn., the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected the claim of an Orange County teacher who contended it violated her free-speech rights to be forced to support the union she opposed. The appeals court judges said they relied on a Supreme Court ruling from 1977 which had upheld laws that required public employees to help pay the cost of collective bargaining on the theory that all benefit to some degree.

However, employees who do not support their union do not have to pay dues to support the union's political activity.

...If the high court had overturned its 1977 precedent and struck down these fees on 1st Amendment grounds, the decision could have had a [deleterious] effect on public employee unions. Their officials feared that many employees, even those who favored the union, would choose not to pay the fees to support one if they were free to do so.

There are some union members who oppose fair share fees because they don't like their benefits negotiated by their unions; not all objectors do so on free speech grounds. But the collective bargaining power comes from the collective. So, ultimately, the better way to address those disagreements is to campaign for better union representatives, not to dilute the power of the union.

In any case, this is a very important decision for working people, both those already in unions and those who need them. Unions are dwindling across the nation, and if there is a hope for more working people to unionize, it was contingent on this decision. Phew.