On June 14th the Supreme Court handed down it’s unanimous decision in the case of Petitioner Gary Davenport et al Vs Washington Education Association. The case relates to labor unions ” using the agency-shop fees of a nonmember for election related purposes unless the nonmember affirmatively consents.”
In the Syllabus it reads: “contrary to respondent’s argument, 760 is not unconstitutional under the Court’s campaign-finance cases. For First Amendment purposes, it is immaterial that 760 restricts a union’s use of funds only after they are within the union’s possession. The fees are in the union’s possession only because Washington and its union-contracting government agencies have compelled their employees to pay these fees. The campaign finance cases deal instead with governmental restrictions on how a regulated entity may spend money that has come into its possession without such coercion.”
In the closing Opinion of the Court it reads:
“We hold that it does not violate the First Amendment for a state to require that its public -sector unions receive affirmative authorization from a nonmember before spending that nonmember’s agency fees for election-related purposes. We therefore vacate the judgement of the Supreme Court of Washington and remand the cases for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered”
Stop for a moment and think back to Prop 75, the “paycheck protection Initiative”, where we wanted to mandate similar authorization before the CTA could use a portion of member dues for political purposes without authorization.
Although we carried that Initiative in Orange County garnering 63.8 percent of the vote we eventually lost statewide.
Based on today’s US Supreme Court ruling I would encourage activists to reconsider another Initiative to address this abuse. Union members should not be expected to show their position by making personal Op-Out requests.
Another example of 1) the Supreme Court engaging in judicial activism(but you won’t hear the conservatives crying about this one) and 2) how this Court has moved further to the right.
The decision guarantees that labor will double its efforts to elect a Democrat as President in 2008.
And Larry, one of the big reasons this continues to fail is that people see through these efforts–they are pushed and paid for by anti-union people, putting up Potkeim Village people bemoaning money coming out of their paychecks to help people they don’t like. And of course, no effort to similarly require corporations to obtain the affirmative approval of shareholders before they plop down the big bucks to the GOP’s Flag Day or other event.
Go ahead, make my day. Every time Ury and Ringheimer and fellow travelers pull this out of the right wing bag they get beat and it creates a huge turnout of labor votes to help Democratic candidates. They should be listed as in kind contributors to the Democratic Party.
Bladerunner.
Tyhere is one minor difference in your argument.
We are talking about the “public” school system which is a government function. As such you cannot make an apples to apples comparison to the private sector shareholder. I do not recall reading about a single shareholder complaining that his or her dividend was impacted by said expenditures.
Perhaps you can send back an example.
Larry,
You might be advised to consider that the recent court decision may not get you where you want to be.
My understanding of the decision is that it DOES NOT impact dues paying members of union or labor organizations and the current practice to provide for “opting out” is still permissible.
The court decision you cite applied only to dues used for political purposes of non-members without their consent.
Prop 75 wanted to change the rules for dues paying members of public sector unions, I think.
In other words, the facts of the case may be different.
If you care…which I doubt.
Anonymous. I do care.
You are welcome to borrow a pair of my glasses. Re-read the post. I clearly stated NON MEMBERS.
However, this decision may open the doors for every union member to have the same freedom to oppose that use of their dues without the need to file an Opt-Out request.
Larry—The shareholders don’t have to complain about impact to dividend—the problem is that they may not want their money to go where the corporate directors want.And I know of several instances and have had that happen with some of my stocks. That happens just as union dues are spent on campaigns that some union members don’t like. And of course they can sell their stocks in the company and the employee can opt out of paying anything that would go to campaigns.
The public issue is a distinction without a difference. Public and private employees have the ability to opt out of paying any union dues that would go to politics. You friends want to have an activist government get involved and dictate what an association wants to do. If you were honest about it you’d admit that your real agenda is to break unions. otherwise you’d heed GOP pollster Arnold Steinberg’s advice and be consistent–apply the same rules to corporations as you do to unions. it still would be big government intervention but at least you’d be consistent in your dictating to the marketplace.