Sacramento —A recent action by one of nation’s largest public-employee unions illustrates the importance of an Illinois case that might make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court sometime next year. The technical dispute involves the complex process by which public-sector unions assess dues to those who don’t want to be members. But the real issue is more fundamental to a free society: Should people be forced to fund groups they find offensive?
The Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents 95,000 California state employees, earlier this month increased the dues assessed on those employees who are known as “non-germane objectors,” or NGOs. These are people who have opted out of paying for the union’s political activities. Because of a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision, they are still required to pay for expenses related to collective bargaining.
Last year, the SEIU local spent $13.7 million as part of a bargaining process to hike members’ wages. “The union members who voted on the contract favored it by a 90 percent margin,” according to a Sacramento Bee report, “but aspects of the deal were unpopular among some workers.” To pay those costs, the union hiked dues on these NGOs by 6 percent, thus pushing dues payments for nonmembers to 73 percent of the full amount paid by full-fledged members of the union.
That Supreme Court’s 40-year-old Abood decision allows unions to make such dues assessments for so-called “agency fees.” The theory sounds plausible: It’s a violation of the First Amendment to force employees to fund political causes they might oppose, but those same employees benefit when the union secures higher wages and benefits for them. The high court was concerned that, if employees could opt out of all their dues, they would essentially become “free riders” on any contract deals negotiated on their behalf.
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