Union-friendly lawmakers in several states have been working to make it harder for public-sector employees to opt out of paying union dues, even if the Supreme Court allows them to.
Washington state adopted such a law last month, and similar efforts are under way in New York and New Jersey. In all three cases, the laws appear designed to undermine any additional rights workers could receive as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in a case called Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The court’s ruling is expected in June.
“The state lawmakers are trying to counter the Supreme Court even before they make a decision in the Janus case. They are trying to limit the potential expansion of First Amendment rights the Supreme Court may give workers,” said Vincent Vernuccio, senior fellow with the nonprofit Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
The Janus case involves whether an Illinois state government employee can be forced to a pay his workplace’s union a regular fee even though he declined to become a member. Such fees — dubbed “security clauses” — are a common feature of labor-management contracts. The Janus case could overturn a 1977 Supreme Court precedent that said such fees are legal for government workers. The court is expected to rule narrowly against unions. It split 4-4 on a similar case last year called Friedrichs before Justice Neil Gorsuch was confirmed.
A decision against AFSCME could be a devastating financial blow to public-sector unions, which often depend on security clauses as a key source of revenue. An internal survey by the union, which has 1.6 million members, found that only a third of them would voluntarily pay dues no matter what, and half of its membership couldn’t be counted upon to do that, according to a 2015 Bloomberg report.
Such losses will be limited for public-sector unions in Washington state, thanks to a law signed last month by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, a law that requires employers to automatically deduct union fair share fees from worker paychecks regardless of whether the workers themselves authorize it. The workers would have to opt out in writing.
A spokesman for Inslee did not respond to a request for comment.
A bill pending in the New Jersey statehouse and sponsored by Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Cumberland, would limit workers to a single, once-a-year 10 day window to opt out. That window would be based on when each individual worker was hired. Sweeney boasted last year: “No one can question my loyalties to organized labor.” A spokesman for the Senate president could not be reached for comment.
Legislation in New York sponsored by State Sen. Marisol Alcantara, D-Manhattan, a former teachers union organizer, doesn’t specify an opt-out time frame. That would be left up to the fine print the union puts in the initial authorization form the worker must sign to have the dues deducted. A representative for Alcantara could not be reached for comment.
