SCOTUS Decision: Public Employees Cannot be Required to Pay Union Fees

OMA Connections Partner, Bricker & Eckler, posted: “… the U.S. Supreme Court held in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector employees who are not members of the union do not have to pay so-called “agency fees,” because requiring such payments violates their First Amendment rights.

“In Janus, an Illinois public employee refused to join a union, because he disagreed with many of its positions. State law, however, required that he pay a reduced fee to the union to cover the union’s collective bargaining activities but not its political and ideological projects. This arrangement had been acceptable under an earlier Supreme Court decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which was expressly overruled in today’s opinion.”