Why the SCOTUS Janus decision is a landmark case for workers’ rights
Jun 28, 2018, 8:34 AM
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, right, accompanied by plaintiff Mark Janus, left, speaks outside the Supreme Court after the court rules in a setback for organized labor that states can't force government workers to pay union fees, Wednesday, June 27, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The United States Supreme Court drastically impacted government workers on Wednesday when it ruled 5-4 that public sector employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues.
Erin Shannon, director of the Center for Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center, told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that the decision was an “immense victory protecting the First Amendment right of these workers.”
“It’s a landmark decision, it’s better than we even anticipated or dared to dream it would be,” Shannon said.
Besides opting out of paying union dues, workers will also be free to withdraw from unions entirely. Shannon said that for public employees, unions — because of their political nature — are “representation that many of these folks don’t even want and don’t agree with.”
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According to the First Amendment of the Constitution, the government cannot compel anyone to make political speech.
“What the court recognized is, that the business of a public sector union is politics … and therefore, it constitutes forced political speech if a worker required to pay that union as a condition of employment,” Shannon said.
She does not feel that this means workers will take advantage of union gains without paying their fair share, because, as she noted, union bargaining is “not a benefit for everyone.”
“No worker should be forced to pay anyone for the privilege of getting and holding a job in this country,” Shannon said. “It’s the antithesis of everything that we believe in this country.”
She also pointed out that unions are not forced to represent every worker, but tend to do so in order to be the exclusive representative of workers.
The news of the Supreme Court’s ruling on union workers came at the same time that Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, announced that he is retiring. This means that President Trump will have the second opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice.
Shannon called Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, a “very well-reasoned, fair-minded justice” and said that she “wouldn’t expect that [Trump] would nominate anyone without those same attributes.”
“It can only improve our court — make it fair-minded and balanced, and really engaged in supporting our constitutional rights,” Shannon stated.
