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A Supreme Court case that will most likely be?decided upon by the end of this month?could effectively kill public unions throughout the country. The expected ruling in the case of?Harris v Quinn?has the possibility of?converting the entire country to right to work status as far as public unions are concerned.

The Supreme Court is hearing the case of Pam Harris, a mother in Illinois whose son has?Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome. The State of Illinois provides financial assistance for people with disabilities to hire home healthcare services?on a contract basis. Harris opted to be his caregiver as part of this state benefit. While Harris isn’t an employee for a unionized home healthcare provider, many of the other providers in Illinois are represented by unions. In these labor forces, all members of a unit which are covered under the collective bargaining agreement must pay a fee, either union dues or a smaller agency fee. Harris is asking the Supreme Court to label these?fees as unconstitutional.

The case primarily deals with the legality of agency fees –?Fees that non-union workers pay in exchange for benefiting from collective bargaining contracts. Whenever a labor force becomes unionized, the collective bargaining agreement put in place benefits all workers, not just those active in the union. While the non-union members typically don’t pay union dues, they pay a smaller agency fee as part of a fair-share agreement. Since they benefit from the work of the union, they pay this fee in exchange?for the representation they receive.



However, in states where right to work laws are in place, these fair-share agreements are illegal. This?creates a “free rider problem,” where large portions of a unionized work force decide to opt out of paying the fees altogether. This almost always causes the unions in a state to fold, since union membership drops and the unions can no longer maintain themselves. Depending on how they handle it, a Supreme Court opinion in favor of Harris’ position could essentially outlaw fair-share agreements and lock the entire nation into a right to work status.

While private sector union membership has been on a steady decline since the 1970s, public sector unions have done surprisingly well. Their union coverage percentage as part of the public sector workforce has held steadily in the 38%-45%?range since the mid-1970s. Beyond that, membership expansion campaigns, such as the “50,000 Stronger” campaign launched by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), are working to raise that percentage of public union coverage.

With all of this progress being made to strengthen the voice of public sector workers, let’s hope the Supreme Court doesn’t roll that progress backwards.

H/T?VOX

edited by tw