Richard Wolf

USA TODAY

Home-care workers don%27t want union representation

State%2C federal governments oppose their lawsuit

Ruling for workers could decimate union movement

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared close Tuesday — but maybe not close enough — to scaling back the ability of labor unions to represent public employees.

The case before them involved just eight home-care workers in Illinois who don't want union representation, and certainly don't want to pay union dues. But it has escalated into what Justice Antonin Scalia, the potential swing vote, said could amount to "destroying the ability of the union to get money."

For decades, the law has allowed unions to collect dues from all private or public employees they are required to represent. Those who object don't have to contribute to unions' political or lobbying activities, but they must chip in for wage, benefit and working conditions representation.

The home-care workers in Harris v. Quinn say they should not have to join the union — even though the union, by law, is required to represent them. They contend that they work for individuals with disabilities whose funding comes from the state-federal Medicaid program — not the state of Illinois, which signed a contract with the Service Employees International Union.

William Messenger, an attorney with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said public employees are different from those who work for private companies because their unions' demands are a form of "petitioning the government," therefore political in nature.

If the high court agrees, the repercussions could spread nationwide to other public employee unions and workers. "It would radically restructure the way workplaces across this country are run," Justice Elena Kagan said.

All four of the court's more liberal justices appeared to be dead-set against the change. Justice Stephen Breyer said such a ruling would overturn 35 years of established legal precedent that unions and employers have come to rely on.

The best additional hope for the union movement, it appeared, was Scalia, who didn't buy the argument about petitioning the government. He said the workers' best case was based on their First Amendment rights to disassociate themselves from the union's positions — but even then, he cautioned, "I didn't say your First Amendment argument was valid."

Several of the court's conservatives seemed ready to side with the workers — and, perhaps, to overrule long-standing precedent that requires non-union workers to pay for workplace, but not political, representation.

Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that collective bargaining in the public sector impacts the size of government — something that increasingly has political implications "in an era where government is getting bigger and bigger, and this is becoming more and more of an important issue to more people."

Justice Samuel Alito brought politics directly into the debate by noting that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich received major campaign contributions from the labor union before the state recognized the practice as a bargaining agent for home-care workers.

That implication was refuted by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, whose participation on behalf of the state and union indicated the Obama administration's keen interest in the case. He said the action had bipartisan support in the state Legislature.

"States get to make those kinds of policy choices," Verrilli said.