GIG H A RBOR VO T ES FOR T R A NSPA RENCY [4] SE AT T LE INCOME TA X A PPE A L E XPEC T ED [5] UNIONS GLOAT OV ER OREGON WAGE HIK E [6]
LIVINGLIBERTY A PUBLICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION | SEPTEMBER 2019
SCOTUS COULD HEAR FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S CASE TO BAN FORCED UNION REPRESENTATION
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
T
he same U.S. Supreme Court that last summer correctly affirmed in Janus v. AFSCME the right of government employees to keep their jobs despite refusing to participate in or financially support a labor union could soon be asked to ban one of the schemes frequently employed by labor leaders to undermine the ruling’s unequivocal intent. The outcome of the case could keep hundreds of dollars a year in the pockets of the workers who earn them rather than those of labor leaders and their allies in elected office. Among the most persistent — and persistently dishonest — arguments marshaled by government employee unions to preserve their monopoly over the public workforce and the billions of dollars that accompany it is the so-called “free-rider” argument. Because unions are often “required” under state law to represent even nonmembers, labor leaders disingenuously claim that a worker who reaps the benefit of a contract without paying at least a share of what it cost a union to negotiate it is getting something for nothing. Their preferred remedy for this perceived injustice, of course, is empowering unions to seize money from every single
By JEFF RHODES Managing Editor
worker in the bargaining unit — including those who’ve deliberately opted out of their designated union — in the form of dues or so-called “agency fees.” There is, of course, another answer. States could simply: n acknowledge the requirement to represent even nonmembers was a red herring all along, imposed at the urging of unions to justify deducting money from as many paychecks as possible; and, n recognize that laws allowing a union to speak for anyone other than its paid members are just as unconstitutional under Janus as those requiring nonmembers to pay “agency fees” in lieu of regular dues. A case the Supreme Court could soon be considering would do just that. In Miller v. Inslee, Katherine Miller, who works as a taxpayer-compensated home childcare provider in Washington state, is challenging laws that authorize SEIU 925 to represent her in contract negotiations even though she’s long since opted out of the union. Miller, represented by attorneys from the Freedom Foundation and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, argues a union with an exclusive bargaining agreement has a monopoly on providing workplace representation services to the employees it represents. Consequently, a represented employee cannot decide to forgo union representation, cannot negotiate his or her own wages or benefits directly with their employer and cannot choose to be represented by an attorney or alternate union. The Janus ruling exposes just how destructive such an arrangement is. Forced
See REPRESENT Page 4