ON MONDAY, we previewed a case the Supreme Court is set to hear on January 11th challenging the regime whereby public-sector employees have no choice but to pay union dues. The plaintiffs are teachers who refuse to join the California Teachers Association (CTA), the union that bargains on their behalf, and want to stop paying the “agency fees” that the CTA bills to non-members. They say that since negotiating with the government over salary, benefits and working conditions is “quintessentially political”, it is a violation of dissenting teachers’ freedom of speech to be coerced to pay “tribute” to unions undertaking that bargaining. In the previous post, we analysed the aggrieved teachers’ brief to the justices. Now we will consider the respondents’ arguments in favour of the arrangement that governs public-sector unions in nearly half of the states.
There are two parties to Friedrichs v California Teachers Association who rise in defence of “agency fees”, also known as...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1ZQbUKM
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