Supreme Court will hear challenge to public union fees

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a challenge to the so-called “fair share” fees public employee unions collect from non-members, posing a major threat to organized labor.

Unlike the past three times the court has considered similar cases, its five-member conservative majority appears poised to rule that workers opposed to union representation cannot be forced to pay for collective bargaining and other benefits.

The new case comes from Illinois and raises the same issues as a California case on which the court deadlocked, 4-4, following the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.

Since then, Justice Neil Gorsuch — a Scalia acolyte — has joined the court, likely giving conservatives the fifth vote they need to deal a potentially crushing blow to public unions’ pocketbooks.

In fact, the court appears poised to deal another setback to organized labor in the term that opens next week. The first case to be heard will decide whether millions of employees who sign individual arbitration agreements, often unknowingly, can be barred from banding together with other workers. It, too, looks to be a 5-4 victory for employers.

Claire Prestel, associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union, predicted that the term stands “a real chance of being a one-two punch against workers’ rights.”

 

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