Public Unions vs. the First Amendment

Wall Street Journal:

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the landmark First Amendment case Janus v. Afscme that challenges whether public employees can be compelled to subsidize union advocacy. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, requiring “a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical”—and unconstitutional.

Janus gives the Supreme Court another crack at its flawed Abood (1977) precedent that let governments force nonunion public employees to pay “agency fees.” A 4-4 Court split in Friedrichs v. CTA (2016) after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death left Abood standing, but perhaps not for long.

In 2015 Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner sued to overturn a state agency-fee law. Child support specialist Mark Janus and two other state workers later joined the case, arguing that they shouldn’t be required to support collective-bargaining positions with which they disagree. Mr. Janus must fork over $44.58 of each paycheck to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme).

In Abood, the Supreme Court mistakenly concluded that there’s no practical difference between collective bargaining by public and private unions since both negotiate over wages, pensions and work conditions. But collective bargaining in government is intrinsically different because it implicates public policy and political issues.