The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a union fee case on Monday, Jan 11. A group of California teachers have sued a labor union over violations on the First Amendment, saying that they are being forced to pay dues - about $1,000 a year for full time teachers - to a union they don't support.
Rebecca Friedrichs and nine other California teachers are suing the California Teachers Association (CTA) to end compulsory union dues. Friedrichs wrote in New York Daily News that the teachers ask the court to allow public sector employees including teachers, police officers and firefighters to opt out of paying dues to unions when they don't want to be members.
Friedrichs wrote that this case is not about ending unions. She and other teachers are asking the court to exempt non-members from paying union fees since all union spending is political. She wrote that compelling dues to support a union agenda at the bargaining table has the same First Amendment implications as compelling fees that support a patently ideological agenda.
Such union fees are constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled in 1977 in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that it allows unions to collect agency or fair share fees from public employees who are not union members to cover spending for collective bargaining and other nonpolitical functions.
According to Education Week, Friedrichs and nine other teachers are asking the Supreme Court to overrule the Abood precedent. But the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the U.S., argues that overruling Abood precedent would call into question thousands of contracts between government agencies and public-employee unions, governing not just teachers but also law-enforcement officers, firefighters, and others.
Friedrichs cited the First Amendment which ruled that unionized employees can opt out of paying the portion of their dues that funds overtly political activity, like contributions to candidates and Political Action Committees (PACs).
The Supreme Court has twice suggested that the First Amendment bars forcing government workers to make payments to unions, according to New York Times. In one of the cases in 2012, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority, "Because a public-sector union takes many positions during collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences, the compulsory fees constitute a form of compelled speech and association that imposes a significant impingement on First Amendment rights."
But inviting Friedrichs case, Justice Alito wrote that the court does not revisit whether the former cases have given adequate recognition to the critical First Amendment rights at stake.
