All that being said, this may be some great news:
One bit of bad news - Volokh, who is apparently popular with some of you all, has this to add:Will the Supreme Court deal a blow to trade unions?
OF ALL the blockbuster cases at the Supreme Court this year, Janus v American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is expected to hold the fewest surprises. Janus, which is due to be argued on February 26th, asks whether public employees who choose not to join their designated union may nevertheless be charged “agency fees” to support collective bargaining. Since 1977, when Abood v City of Detroit Board of Education was decided, it has been acceptable to require non-members to subsidise contract negotiations over their salary, benefits and working conditions, but a no-no to make them pay toward a union’s lobbying or political organising. This compromise was teetering on the edge in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died while a case raising the same question, Friedrichs v California Teachers Association, was pending. Bereft of a fifth vote to seal Abood’s demise, the justices split 4-to-4 in Friedrichs and put the 40-year precedent back on life support.
The man everyone expects to help pull the plug this time is Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump’s pick to replace Justice Scalia. Observers think Justice Gorsuch will join his four conservative brethren to say that workers should not be compelled to subsidise union negotiations for higher wages any more than they are required to pay for efforts to elect candidates or advocate for political causes. Undoing that distinction may be how Janus is resolved. But a brief from two libertarian legal scholars, alongside a brief submitted by a bevy of eminent economists, supplies a strong case for preserving what unions call “fair-share fees”. . .
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democra ... their-dues
What say the law-dogs of the forum?Compelling payments is quite common, Messrs Volokh and Baude observe, and usually raises no First Amendment worries. “The government collects and spends tax dollars, doles out grants and subsidies to private organisations that engage in speech, and even requires private parties to pay other private parties for speech-related services—like, for example, legal representation.” These forced payments must satisfy constitutional norms including religious liberty and equal protection, but freedom of speech is neither here nor there: “a compelled subsidy does not itself burden a free-standing First Amendment interest in freedom of speech or association.”
Seems like everyone is expecting the SCOTUS to decide to revoke the mandatory "agency fees".
Will there be an upset, or is this a done deal?
