From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
WASHINGTON D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling on Wednesday morning that non-union workers are no longer required to pay fees to public sector unions.
The ruling was made in a case called Janus vs. AFSCME. Mark Janus, who is an employee of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, asked the Supreme Court to overrule a decision made in 1977 requiring “agency fees”.
Janus was paying $45 a month to the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) but argued that it was unconstitutional and that the payments were similar to political advocacy.
The ruling was praised by President Donald Trump on his Twitter account.
“Supreme Court rules in favor of non-union workers who are now, as an example, able to support a candidate of his or her choice without having those who control the Union deciding for them. Big loss for the coffers of the Democrats!” it reads.
SCOTUS gave its opinion, saying that the 1977 ruling, known as Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education, was wrong:
“For these reasons, States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees. Under Illinois law, if a public-sector collective-bargaining agreement includes an agency-fee provision and the union certifies to the employer the amount of the fee, that amount is automatically deducted from the nonmember’s wages. No form of employee consent is required.
This procedure violates the First Amendment and cannot continue. Neither an agency fee nor any other payment to the union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay. By agreeing to pay, nonmembers are waiving their First Amendment rights, and such a waiver cannot be presumed.
Rather, to be effective, the waiver must be freely given and shown by “clear and compelling” evidence. Unless employees clearly and affirmatively consent before any money is taken from them, this standard cannot be met.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said that the 1977 ruling did not violate the First Amendment:
“For over 40 years, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, struck a stable balance between public employees’ First Amendment rights and government entities’ interests in running their workforces as they thought proper. Under that decision, a government entity could require public employees to pay a fair share of the cost that a union incurs when negotiating on their behalf over terms of employment. But no part of that fair-share pay-ment could go to any of the union’s political or ideological activities.”