High court ruling a blow to Big Labor

Unions survive in this country these days only because they’ve organized the public sector. And they retain power in the public sector through compulsion: forced dues and forced funding of political activities and negotiating positions individual members might disagree with. The cycle has driven local and state government budgets ever higher, stymied cost-saving reforms and swung elections for years.

This month, however, the tide has turned. Unions failed to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker after the elimination of mandatory dues sent membership in that state tumbling. Voters in San Diego and San Jose overwhelmingly approved big changes to overly generous pension plans for their public employees. And on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court told unions they can’t collect additional dues for special political campaigns without obtaining explicit approval from individuals.

The decision in Knox vs. SEIU results from a special assessment the Service Employees International Union imposed on thousands of closed-shop, public-sector workers in California in 2005. The union collected an additional $6.45 per month from every employee to raise $12 million for an ad blitz against a government reform election called by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The SEIU imposed the assessment in haste and told nonmembers who opposed the campaign they eventually would be reimbursed.

Those workers were forced to fund political speech they disagreed with, so they sued, alleging a violation of their First Amendment rights. The SEIU asserted it didn’t need to get mid-year approval to take the money, and case law seemed to be on its side. Previous rulings held that after-the-fact refunds of dues spent on political activities were an adequate remedy for workers with philosophical differences. The burden was on workers to opt out. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – which includes Nevada in its jurisdiction – sided with the union.

But the Supreme Court, in what has become common practice for 9th Circuit cases that make it to Washington, reversed the ruling. The vote was 7-2.

However, in a side ruling from the court’s four conservatives and swing Justice Anthony Kennedy, justices also held that it was fundamentally wrong for workers to be forced to opt out of political campaigns they oppose. Going forward, the burden is on unions, which must ask workers to opt in.

“Requiring objecting nonmembers to opt out of paying the nonchargeable portion of union dues – as opposed to exempting them from making such payments unless they opt in – represents a remarkable boon for unions,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. “Courts ‘do not presume acquiescence in the loss of fundamental rights.’ Once it is recognized, as our cases have, that a nonmember cannot be forced to fund a union’s political or ideological activities, what is the justification for putting the burden on the nonmember to opt out of making such a payment? …

“An opt-out system creates a risk that the fees paid by nonmembers will be used to further political and ideological ends with which they do not agree. …

“Public-sector unions have the right under the First Amendment to express their views on political and social issues without government interference. But employees who choose not to join a union have the same rights.”

The ruling is just and proper. And it is significant because when government workers are given a choice in what to do with their money, they’ve consistently shown a reluctance to hand it over to union bosses. That’s bad news for bargaining groups that hope to round up votes for President Obama and other Democrats this fall.

But the implications of this ruling go far beyond the case at hand. The court has put a cap on the gusher of union revenue that many workers don’t want to pay in the first place.