Free Republic

From an email: Dear SEIU Local 1000 Members: Today the Supreme Court issued the long-awaited decision in the case of Janus vs. AFSCME. As expected, we witnessed the highest legal authority in the United States disregard 40 years of their own legal precedents protecting workers’ rights and instead choose to continue to erode unions. The Janus vs. AFSCME case was argued by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation – a group whose sole purpose is to break unions. This case, like many others, is supported and funded by billionaires and corporations who began the “Right to Work” movement....

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that pubic sector unions for state and local employees can’t force non-members to pay a “fair-share” union fee. In a 5-4 ruling Tuesday, the court said the extraction of agency fees from non-consenting public sector employees violates the First Amendment. The case centers on an Illinois law, similar to those in 22 other states, that allow public-sector unions to collect a “fair-share fee” from employees for non-political activities like collective bargaining, regardless of whether those employees belong to the union or not. Mark Janus, a state child support specialist at the center of the case,...

When Mark Janus got his first paycheck working as a child support specialist for the state of Illinois in 2007, he was stunned to see a nearly $50 deduction for union dues. He had worked for the state in the 1980s and didn’t remember anything like it. “I’m going like, ‘I’m not a member of the union. What’s going on here?’” he said. Worse yet was where he saw the union dues going, such as to efforts demanding wage increases at a time when Illinois was struggling with a crippling pension debt. Now Mr. Janus is taking his case to...