Jessie Balmert, and Hannah Sparling

Cincinnati

COLUMBUS — Remember that political grudge match called Senate Bill 5?

A U.S. Supreme Court case on whether government workers must pay union dues against their wills could upend a key part of Ohioans' decisive vote against the anti-collective bargaining law. If the court rules against unions – and it's looking like it might – Ohio's public workers could become "right-to-work" overnight.

The case involves a California elementary school teacher, Rebecca Friedrichs, who does not want to pay dues to her local union because she disagrees with its stances on tenure and seniority. But California law, much like Ohio's, requires Friedrichs to pay a "fair share" fee even if she opts out of full union membership.

Supreme Court seems sure to rule against unions

Union members fear that if Friedrichs is allowed to opt out, Ohio's 318,000 public union members could follow – taking with them money and political clout. Workers would become free riders, receiving the collective bargaining power of the union without paying for it.

"Ohioans voted on this five years ago when they all came together for SB 5," said Tim McAllister, a board member for the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association. "It would fly right into the face of Ohio voters."

But opponents of mandatory union dues argue workers should not be forced to pay money to unions if they disagree with the organizations' actions and political stances. Mount Lookout Rep. Tom Brinkman, who sponsored a controversial bill to prohibit mandatory dues for private-sector employees, hopes the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Friedrichs.

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"It would be very positive for the 318,000-plus workers who are members of public unions in Ohio," Brinkman said. "They would have a choice of whether they want to support certain types of political campaigns or not."

There’s no gloom-and-doom prediction in Cincinnati. Should fair share fall, it would mean diverting more resources to marketing and recruitment, said Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Julie Sellers. It might mean fewer resources for bargaining and less time to help teachers with professional development.

But “I don’t think it would be enough to weaken us and shut us down,” Sellers said.

CFT represents about 2,700 Cincinnati Public Schools employees. Union members pay $34.77 a paycheck; non-members, through fair share, pay $29.75.

Overall, about 90 percent are dues-paying members, Sellers said. And she doesn’t hear complaints from the other 10 percent.

“Nuh-uh. No,” she said. “People are thankful. Especially the ones who have worked in charter schools where they didn’t have a union. They come into the buildings and tell people what it was like at the charter school or in a 'right-to-work' state. ... And they’re like, ‘I don’t want to work under those conditions.’ ”

As a whole, teacher unions are pushing hard to keep the status quo. The American Federation of Teachers, which has more than 1.6 million members, including 20,000 in Ohio, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court regarding the California case. Abolishing fair share, AFT wrote, would be “far more disruptive to state educational systems than petitioners are willing to acknowledge.”

It would be a “constitutional free ride” for people too cheap to pay, AFT wrote.

The plaintiffs want to “have their cake and eat it too, maintaining the benefits of union representation” for free.

Nationwide, states are about evenly divided on the matter. Ohio and Kentucky each require fair-share fees. Indiana and Michigan do not.

In Greater Cincinnati, school representatives who responded to The Enquirer didn’t seem overly concerned one way or the other. They’re watching the case, they said. They’ll wait and see what happens. Then, whatever the law is, they’ll follow.

The Supreme Court's decision is expected in June. It's unclear as of yet exactly how that would affect Ohio workers. It's also not clear how many union members would opt out of dues if they could. Robert Alt, president of the conservative think tank Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, estimated about 10 percent would drop off based on decreases seen when other state implemented "right-to-work" laws.

The goal isn't to end unions, Alt said; it's to give more workers an option.

"The decision offers the individuals who disagree with the unions' positions a voice," he said, "which up until now have been denied."

USA Today contributed to this report.