On June 30th the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled in Harris v. Quinn that home health care workers in Illinois cannot be compelled to pay dues to a union they don’t wish to join. That ruling is a blow to the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers and other unions that have organized tens of thousands of home health workers in states including Illinois, California and Connecticut. Those workers can now decide whether they want to pay dues.
It is predicted that public union membership and finances will suffer under this ruling by giving workers the option of not paying dues and joining. With this precedent future cases could strip the unions of even more power.
ReplyDeleteHeld: The First Amendment prohibits the collection of an agency fee from Rehabilitation Program PAs who do not want to join or support the union. Pp. 8–40.