MORE C A L S C HO OL E MP L O Y E E S F IL E S UI T [5] F RE E D OM F O UND AT ION A P P E A L S T O S C O T U S [5] S E IU 7 7 5 PAY S F OR F OR G ING S IG N AT URE [ 9 ]
LIVINGLIBERTY A PUBLICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION | MAY 2019
the
UNION
in the
ROOM
ELEPHANT
LABOR’S CRONIES IN WASHINGTON LEGISLATURE PASS ANTI-JANUS BILL
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
T
he Washington State Senate on April 12 voted to approve House Bill 1575, a union-backed measure intended to kneecap Janus v. AFSCME, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling from last summer that recognized public employees’ First Amendment right to make their own decisions about whether to financially support a union. Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch) joined the chamber’s Republicans in voting against the bill. Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle) voted against the legislation because of his philosophical opposition to removing now-unenforceable mandatory union fee requirements from state laws. The remaining Democrats voted to pass it. HB 1575 contains a series of modifications to state law that would: n make it easy for unions to initiate dues deductions from public employees’ wages but difficult for those same employees to cancel the deductions; n make it easier to unionize public employees; and, n shield unions from legal liability under state law for illegally seizing money from nonmember’s wages. “Union-backed lawmakers in Olympia are establishing quite a track record of passing illegal and unconstitutional laws to benefit their political allies at the expense of public employees’ civil liberties,” said Maxford Nelsen, the Freedom Foundation’s director of labor policy.
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
“We won’t stand by and allow the unions and the Legislature to run roughshod over the Constitution,” he said. “We look forward to challenging this power grab in court at the first possible opportunity.” For decades, state law required public employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. That changed when the U.S. Supreme Court held in June 2018 that the First Amendment prohibits governments and unions from imposing such requirements on public employees. Anticipating the Janus decision would end compelled union payments, the Washington State Legislature in 2018 passed HB 2751, sponsored by teachers’ union activist Rep. Monica Stonier (D-Vancouver), which would have required government employers to withhold union dues from public employees’ wages automatically and without authorization unless and until the employee objected. Fortunately, HB 2751 never took effect. In an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of plaintiff Mark Janus, the Freedom Foundation urged the court to not only find mandatory dues requirements unconstitutional, but to require that unions receive affirmative consent from public employees before deducting dues from their wages. In its decision, the court held that, “(Neither an agency fee nor any other payment to the union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.” See ANTI-JANUS BILL Page 10