Union Fees On SCOTUS Docket

In its next term, the Supreme Court will hear a California case challenging a law that compels teachers to pay fees to a union they have opted not to join. Union leaders say that the compulsory fee is vital, and both non-union and union teachers reap benefits that the union negotiates. A group of teachers challenged the fees, claiming that paying violates their free speech rights when they disagree with stances the union takes. The Court heard a similar case in 2014, and ruled 5-4 that Illinois health-care workers could not be forced to pay. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. made it clear in that ruling that he sought a wider case to consider, and called compulsory fees, “an unprecedented violation of the bedrock principle that, except perhaps in the rarest circumstances, no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.”