|Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, activism, Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, Knox v. SEIU, Public Unions
After Janus, What’s Next?
by Mark Pulliam|
After Janus, What’s Next?
Members of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees union at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)Will the Janus Case Strike the Deathblow to Public Sector Unions?
US Supreme Court, Washington DC,The Government is Us. Let’s Unionize!
Happy New Year, and all cheer the arrival of the one and only John McGinnis on this excellent site! His contributions will make it excellenter still. Rummaging around on the Supremes’ docket and among briefs and petitions, I’ve come across Harris v. Quinn. The question is whether it’s okay for a state (Illinois) to authorize unionization, complete with mandatory union fees, for home health care workers who provide in-home care to individual patients under Medicaid-financed programs. Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed. (1977) held that public employers have a “compelling interest” in labor peace and in preventing free-riding by employees. (However,…
Don’t Pay No Union Dues
Here’s a case worth watching: this past April, the Center for Individual Rights (lead attorney Michael Rosman) and Jones Day (Michael Carvin) filed a First Amendment challenge to California’s “agency shops” for public school teachers. (An “agency shop” means that non-union members must still pay a fee to the union for activities related to collective bargaining.) Plaintiffs are teachers who have about had it with the defendant unions. The State of California will likely join the case on the defendants’ side. A recent blog on the case is here; a copy of the complaint here. This baby ought to move fast:…
After Right to Work Takes Effect in Indiana, Unions Seek a Judicial Bailout
Amidst a series of setbacks at both the ballot box and the court house, the fate of the compulsory union movement may depend in large measure on the outcome of two lawsuits currently pending in Indiana. In early 2012, Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a bill that made Indiana the nation’s twenty-third right-to-work state. Unions have filed two challenges to that law, one each in state and federal court. The outcome of those lawsuits will help to determine whether Indiana remains a right-to-work state and whether other states follow Indiana’s lead.
Three Observations About Knox v. SEIU
Even for someone outside the world of legal academics, it was an extraordinarily interesting week at the Supreme Court. I found two of this week’s decisions particularly intriguing. The one I will discuss in this post, Knox v. SEIU, signals the Court’s unwillingness to rely on legal fictions to justify state-compelled speech, and it may also signal a willingness to make a deeper commitment to prohibiting involuntary association, as well. The other, FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., is particularly interest to me because it could have important implications in my principal area of practice (which is about as far removed from broadcast licensing as possible). But I will save a discussion of that decision for another day during my stint as a temp for the vacationing Mike Greve.
