I'm not a lawyer and you'll be able to cite a thousand cases to my one. My sister's neighbor is on the state Supreme Court where I live. He's said to me that a good lawyer can argue any case and cite a bunch of reasons to support his/her case.
For me the case is simple. The collectively bargained rules apply to everyone in the workplace. As such those who benefit from said bargaining ought to pay for it. This has been an established practice for many, many years. Each state has the right to negate this and many have enacted misnamed right to work laws. There is no compelling reason to change the current practice. Janus' speech is not currently threatened and the greater public interest should be the one that prevails. It won't though.
I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that this is about the government and government employees everywhere you look.
I never understood how we as a society and how the labor union movement could tolerate the existence of public employee unions in the first place, as they end up intermingling two otherwise very distinct worlds, as I believe has happened here.
What you call "collective bargaining" in this case I could call "pure political pressure", since the "bargaining" is against politicians.
That sounds awfully Constitution-ey to me.
Janus is not really about free speech. It’s an attempt to destroy unions by letting people benefit from collective bargaining without paying for it. It’s called the free rider problem.
> Why shouldn’t a union be political?
By that argument, why shouldn't the government force you to donate money to political advocacy groups that it chooses, whether or not you support the group's agenda?
Heck, what if your employer decided that a portion of your paycheck would be deducted as a mandatory donation to either the Democratic or Republican party, as part of the terms of your employment?
And also negotiates on his behalf for better working conditions and pay.
At the end of the day, that person wants all the benefits of being in the union (enhanced negotiating power, benefits, etc), without any of the cost.
Sounds like he doesn't believe that they do, and would prefer to be left out of the bargaining unit.
> At the end of the day, that person wants all the benefits of being in the union (enhanced negotiating power, benefits, etc), without any of the cost
There's literally no evidence that he wants the union to provide any of that.
If that were true, then he would be suing to be left out of the bargaining unit.
If so, could you point to such lawsuits, especially successful ones?
It's not. The suit Janus actually filed is the closest thing to that.
You keep hammering on this claim, except it's clear Janus doesn't believe that he's benefiting from it. It's actually quite easy to find examples - from the very beginning of the labor movement up through today - of labor unions screwing over certain classes of members for political reasons. So it's pretty easy to imagine how Janus would have reason to believe he's being forced to pay for something that has a net negative impact on him.
He’s already entitled to a refund of the portion of union dues (if he decided to join it) that go to political activities. This is the Beck decision in the late 80s.
Actually, it is the role of the judiciary to determine if the legislature has overstepped the bounds of the authority granted to it by Congress, by providing public labor unions with a degree of special authority granted to no other entity. And, as explained elsewhere in this thread by an actual lawyer, there's a pretty solid case that it has.
Again, if this is what he believed, then he would be suing to get out of the bargaining unit.
The entire suit is a scam to weaken the power of unions. If the union has to act on behalf of you, but you don't have to pay, then very, very few people are going to actually pay for the union, and it will die.
The courts have already ruled that the unions can create contracts that exclude non-members from bargaining units (and therefore refuse representation to non-members) as long as they don't charge the non-members agency fees. If Janus wins the right not to pay an agency fee, that's what they'll do.
The only scam is in pretending that the unions are forced to represent people like Janus whether or not they receive fees. That's nonsense; it's their decision entirely to include non-members in the bargaining unit.
Because one is the government and the other isn't. That's my whole point about it being reasonable that this is a Constitutional issue.
There's also the, arguably separate, issues of incentives and who ultimately pays. In the case of private employers, it is, presumably a powerful few trying to exploit the labor of the many. In the case of government, it's the taxpayer/voter who is ultimately being bargained "against".
What are public employee unions trying to prevent? The exploitation by the many (voters) of the labor of the few? That seems wholly unreasonable to me.
> Why shouldn’t a union be political? Don’t workers have a right to gather in a group and be political? Government workers should be excluded from this activity?
(Again, not a union, but a public employee union:)
Because they are, in effect, circumventing the normal political process. By using the power to strike, they're seizing power from the voters.
Unions do not circumvent the normal political process. They are not seizing power from voters. Your view appears a bit extreme.
> A public employee union is not the government.
I'm not suggesting it is, as such. It is, however, made up of the people who operate the "machinery" of government, and it's the government witholding the dues from the paycheck that funds this union, so, again, of Constitutional significance.
> There should not be distinction between public employee union and private employee unions.
And I say there should. There's my assertion :)
> Unions do not circumvent the normal political process. They are not seizing power from voters. Your view appears a bit extreme.
They may be extreme, but that doesn't make them invalid on their face. I don't have a vested interest here, either.
Here's my vision of public employee unions not circumventing the normal political process:
Instead of "negotiating" with the power to strike, they can just go to the voters (and elected representatives) and campaign for their share of the tax dollars (or working conditions or whatever other legislation), just like every other special interest.
Of course this is just my opinion. I can’t claim it’s objectively correct.
It's one thing merely to disagree, but those words are another matter. They call for a bit more effort, especially since "reason" is usually objective.
I have made a concerted effort to outline how I come to the conclusion of circumvention of political process and Constitutionality, yet you've not directly responded to any of those explanations, especially not how someone reasonable might reach a less extreme conclusion.
> Workers should be able to band together to advance their cause without regard to whether or not they are public employees.
No disagreement there, but that's never been at issue. What's at issue is money, and money that's being forcibly taken. Alternatively, it's workers being forced to "band together".
What I'm saying is really going on is that they're able to "band together" to influence government appropriations in a way other than the normal political process (without saying normal process if fair/effective or not, since that's another topic).
> Working for the government should not necessarily mean that your rights get limited.
Why not? What happened to the notion of public service? No amount of wishing will ever turn it into the same kind of relationship as an employee has to a private employer.
> There are exceptions. Like for the military.
And why the inconsistency with respect to the military? To me, drawing a bright line there (instead of, say, at either, carrying a gun or "critical" public services) approaches a position of extremity.
I don't think those words mean what you think they mean. The word you're looking for is "unpopular".
> Most people do not see unions co-opting the normal political process.
You keep saying "unions", but I allege that this remains a verbal trick on the part of public employee unions, to lump themselves in with other unions.
I'm sure your statement is true on its face, but I'm not so sure it's true when applied only to public employee unions.
I'm much less sure of its truth when applied specifically to local groups of voters. Try asking some of the ones living in bankrupted municipalities.
> The exceptions I mentioned are exceptions in current law
This makes your argument/opinion very hard to follow, since you string together "should" statements with "is". Is that by design?
Since you are making a distinction about public vs. private unions it appears that this is not a constitutional issue. It seems to be one where you don’t like that they generally endorse and support one party over the other. There are very few entities that are neutral. All sufficiently large entities become political to some degree.
This is completely false. People absolutely are forced to join unions.
Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of union members - over 90% - never voted in a certification or authorization election. That means that, even if they're members of the union, their membership cannot in se be considered an endorsement of the union by the bargaining unit. Because it's all-but-impossible to successfully decertify a union in practice[0], it's not uncommon to have the majority of employees oppose union membership, but still be compelled into membership.
> They are, for the time being, in some states required to pay for fair share dues to cover the costs of collective bargaining, grievances, and other administrative costs
People within the bargaining unit are usually forced to pay dues whether or not they are members.
[0] The NLRB has the power to overturn the results of decertification, and a very strong incentive to do so. In addition, unions have learned that they can change the definition of the bargaining unit after an election is held in order to invalidate the election retroactively.
Why are you asking me? Go find some conservatives and ask them.
Perhaps asking someone who has actually made both those statements would be more helpful than asking me.
This is absolutely not true in the least. Unions tend to support candidates that will help and support them, just like anyone else who backs any other candidate.
Private entities can limit free speech all they want; public entities cannot.
Disagree with your ipse dixit labeling. The FAA is broad and general, at least according to SCOTUS precedent, covering all contracts between all parties, covering all types of conduct in all industries, as long as "commerce" is involved. In contrast, NLRA § 7 was targeted to one specific category of contractual parties, namely employees and employers, and protected employees' right to engage in one specific type of conduct, namely concerted activity in two specific areas, namely (1) wages and (2) the terms and conditions of employment.
Moreover, as Ginsburg's dissent correctly pointed out, as the later-enacted statute, § 7 implicitly overruled anything to the contrary in prior legislation — because it's risible to think that Congress, in enacting a court-enforceable right to concerted action by employees, intended to allow the very target of employees' concerted action, namely the employer, to unilaterally strip away that right as a practical matter, whether by insisting on a no-class-action arbitration provision or by any other means.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had many years ago as a law student: Knowing little (then) about litigation, I innocently asked a litigation partner: "A nonsuit [a unilateral dismissal of a case in Texas state court] can only be filed by the plaintiff, right, and not by the defendant?" He laughed and said "Right; otherwise I'd be hurrying back to my office and dictating a whole lot of defendants' nonsuits." But now under this SCOTUS decision, employers get to do essentially much the same as a defendant unilaterally dismissing a plaintiff's case, without so much as a by-your-leave to a court or anyone else.
I dunno about that — my guess is that Congress intended a heavy presumption: Anything that materially diminishes the right to concerted action is unlawful. I know, materiality will often be hotly contested. Here, though, an employer's ability to unilaterally take away one of employees' key enforcement weapons, viz., the class action, seems pretty freakin' material.