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Supreme Court to Weigh Dispute Over Union Fees

June 30, 2015 / Phil Lesch

New York Times
June 30th, 2015

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a challenge to the way public-sector unions finance their operations. Union officials said a ruling against them would deal a blow to organized labor.

The case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, No. 14-915, was brought by California teachers who said being compelled to pay union fees to subsidize activities they disagreed with violated their First Amendment rights.

Limiting the power of public unions has been a long sought goal of conservative groups, and they welcomed Tuesday’s development.

“The question of whether teachers and other government employees can be required to subsidize the speech of a union they do not support as a condition of working for their own government is now squarely before the court,” Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said in a statement.

The challengers say that some collective bargaining with a government employer amounts to lobbying and that forcing them to pay for those activities violates their First Amendment rights.

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