Maddy Joseph is a student at Harvard Law School.
The Supreme Court decided yesterday to hear Janus v. AFSCME. The Court seems poised to hold that agency-fee agreements for public sector workers are unconstitutional. Since the order, reports and commentaries have analyzed Janus‘s threat to public sector workers, and its stakes for U.S. organized labor.
The Chicago Tribune explains that the case began when Illinois’ Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, a former private equity executive, attempted to stop the state from dispensing agency fees to unions, clashing with the state’s Attorney General. The Governor eventually filed the suit that would become Janus, asking a federal court to rule that his actions were valid and that fair-share agreements are unconstitutional. When Gov. Rauner was dropped from the case, Mark Janus and other state employees took over as plaintiffs. The Tribune also has an editorial that supports the union’s argument only on the “narrow” point that “[s]omeone who benefits from a union’s contract negotiations should pay for collective bargaining activities, if not for the union’s political activities.” It notes that an AFSCME loss in Janus would lead to a decline in union membership, like the decline seen “in Wisconsin, with Gov. Scott Walker leading the charge.”
Making the stakes concrete, the Washington Post gives the union membership statistics: “Union membership in the U.S. declined to just 10.7 percent of the workforce last year, and the ranks of private-sector unions have been especially hard hit. About half of all union members now work for federal, state and local governments.”
And The Atlantic recounts AFSCME’s predictions about who would pay fees under a public sector right-to-work regime: “only about a third of the workers they represent would pay fees ‘no matter what’ and . . . about half were on the fence about it. In other words, if given the option to leave the union and avoid paying dues, many could take it and still be supported by collective-bargaining efforts.” The article also nicely summarizes the Court’s recent “signal flares on Abood” in Knox and Harris.
The New York Times calls the period since the Court’s 4-4 deadlock in Friedrichs v. CTA “a brief reprieve for unions.” (Find our coverage of Friedrichs here.) According to the Times “[u]nion leaders reacted to the court’s decision to hear [Janus] with dismay bordering on alarm.”
At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern predicts that “while Janus will be a crushing blow to unions, it probably won’t be the last one dealt by the Supreme Court,” arguing that the First Amendment analysis used to reject agency-fee agreements in the public sector could easily be modified and extended to compel a right-to-work regime in the private sector. For a preview of Janus’s argument, see the cert petition.
Daily News & Commentary
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July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.
July 4
The DOL scraps a Biden-era proposed rule to end subminimum wages for disabled workers; millions will lose access to Medicaid and SNAP due to new proof of work requirements; and states step up in the noncompete policy space.
July 3
California compromises with unions on housing; 11th Circuit rules against transgender teacher; Harvard removes hundreds from grad student union.
July 2
Block, Nanda, and Nayak argue that the NLRA is under attack, harming democracy; the EEOC files a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former EEOC Commissioner Jocelyn Samuels; and SEIU Local 1000 strikes an agreement with the State of California to delay the state's return-to-office executive order for state workers.
July 1
In today’s news and commentary, the Department of Labor proposes to roll back minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by public defenders over a union’s Gaza statements, and Philadelphia’s largest municipal union is on strike for first time in nearly 40 years. On Monday, the U.S. […]
June 30
Antidiscrimination scholars question McDonnell Douglas, George Washington University Hospital bargained in bad faith, and NY regulators defend LPA dispensary law.