Janus v. AFSCME
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 authorized trade unions in the private sector to be established to represent employees in collective bargaining for wages and other benefits from employers.[1] Since about 2006, with the appointment of Justice Samuel Alito, which gave the Court a conservative advantage, groups opposing agency fees, such as the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, have brought cases challenging Abood.These groups contended that within the public sector all union activities could be considered political, since they ultimately seek to influence government policy, and thus violate the First Amendment.[2] In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298 (2012), which considered a "Temporary Special Assessment to Create a Political Fight-Back Fund" imposed upon a class of 42,000 State of California employees who were nonmembers, the Court held that a union had violated their rights by collecting fees in the absence of the notice and procedural requirements of Teachers Local No.... [A]s state and local expenditures on employee wages and benefits have mushroomed, the importance of the difference between bargaining in the public and private sectors has been driven home.Rauner used the decision from Harris to support these actions, arguing that agency-shop agreements violate nonmembers' right to free speech.In May 2015, the District Court judge found that Rauner lacked sufficient standing to issue the challenge, as he had "no personal interest at stake."[14] Observers believed that based on the past deliberations, the decisions in Harris and Friedrichs, and Gorsuch's conservative jurisprudence, Janus would likely prevail before the Supreme Court.Kagan criticized the majority opinion as one that "overthrows a decision [Abood] entrenched in this nation's law — and in its economic life — for over 40 years."[15] Justice Sotomayor wrote her own separate dissent, critical of the weight given to First Amendment protections that had been established in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., No.Public-sector union officials predicted that they would lose 10 to 30 percent of their members and tens of millions of dollars in revenue in the states that would be affected.