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SALEM, Oregon | US Supreme Court ruling in union dues impacts case in Oregon

SALEM, Ore.  — An Oregon state employee and a labor union have reached a settlement over her lawsuit seeking payback of obligatory union fees, marking the first refund of forced fees since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June that government workers can’t be required to contribute to labor groups, the employee’s lawyers said Monday.

Debora Nearman, an employee of Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in her lawsuit filed in April in federal court that the state’s practice of forcing her to pay fees to fund union activity violated her First Amendment freedoms. She said the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, opposes her political and religious views and even led a campaign against her husband when he ran as a Republican candidate for the state Legislature.

Nearman is a member of a state-wide bargaining unit represented by SEIU but doesn’t belong to the union.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which was involved in both the Supreme Court case and Nearman’s, is handling some 200 other cases across the country, including a class-action lawsuit in California by 30,000 state employees, said Patrick Semmens, the group’s vice president.

If the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules in favor of the plaintiffs in the California case, they stand to be refunded more than $100 million, Semmens estimated.

Melissa Unger, executive director of SEIU Local 503 in Oregon, said the union chose to settle Nearman’s lawsuit rather than go through a costly and time-consuming legal battle.

“The settlement we entered into last week was about being the best stewards of our members’ dues money as possible, period,” Unger said in a statement.

The Oregon branch of the nationwide SEIU claims 72,000 members who work in state, local government, nonprofit agencies and higher education. Its spokeswoman, Jill Bakken, said the Supreme Court’s ruling that eliminated obligatory fees has led to a drop in membership “well within our expectations.”

“While we’re not sure what the long-term impacts will be yet — the case is still relatively new — we’re very encouraged,” Bakken said. Nearman, whose husband Mike Nearman is a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, will be refunded the almost $3,000 she paid over two years. A statute of limitations prevented her from recovering earlier payments, Semmens said.

The Supreme Court ruling on June 27 involved Illinois state government worker Mark Janus, who argued that everything unions do, including bargaining with the state, is political and employees should not be forced to pay for it.

“The Janus case said it violates public employees’ First Amendment rights to be forced to fund a labor union,” Semmens said. “This (Oregon) case takes the precedent and follows it to its logical conclusion.”

The fact that SEIU spent $53,260 to oppose Mike Nearman’s candidacy by campaigning against him and distributing fliers that disparaged him “is a vivid example of why people frequently don’t want to fund a labor union,” Semmens said.

Besides SEIU Local 503, also named as defendants in Nearman’s lawsuit were the heads of the state fish and wildlife department and the department of administrative services. Spokesmen of those agencies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

In its 5-4 ruling in the Janus case, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority scrapped a 41-year-old decision that had allowed states to require public employees to pay some fees to unions that represent them, even if the workers choose not to join.

The decision freed non-union members in nearly two dozen states from any financial ties to unions. It could also encourage members to stop paying dues for services the court said they can get for free. The unions say the outcome could affect more than 5 million government workers in about two dozen states and the District of Columbia. ___

Mitchell Armentrout at Chicago Sun-Times:

Less than a month after he won a Supreme Court case to preserve his First Amendment rights as a state worker not to pay union fees, Mark Janus has announced he’s quitting his job for a position with the conservative think tank that helped bankroll his case.

Janus will start Aug. 1 with the Illinois Policy Institute as a senior fellow, the think tank announced Friday night.

“I’ve respected the work of the Illinois Policy Institute and the Liberty Justice Center since first connecting with them in 2015,” Janus said in a statement. “As I’ve worked with them more closely over the years, I’ve come to admire both the staff and the mission of the organizations. … Every day, their staff is working to turn around the state of Illinois and I am grateful for the opportunity to spend the remainder of my career doing something I believe in.”

The Supreme Court issued their 5-4 decision on Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 on June 27, ruling that non-union government employees’ First Amendment rights shield them from having to pay fees to a union to cover costs to represent them. It dealt a serious financial blow to unions, which rely on membership dues to stay solvent.

“Once again it’s clear that this court case was never about Mark Janus, but about billionaires like Bruce Rauner and big-money corporate funders launching a political attack on the freedom of working people to speak up together through a strong union,” AFSCME Council 31 spokesman Anders Lindall said. “While IPI tries to dupe workers into quitting their union, AFSCME members will continue doing what they’ve always done: providing important public services and building their union to speak up for themselves, their families and communities.”

The Illinois Policy Institute and its affiliated Liberty Justice Center supplied Janus with the legal firepower to bring the case to the nation’s highest court. It resulted in their biggest policy win to date — and potentially bolstered their political influence.

Janus, 65, had worked as a $71,000-per-year child support specialist at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services in Springfield.

“I love my job,” Janus had said in statements before the ruling. “Serving others is part of who I am. But in order to do this type of work, I am forced to check my First Amendment rights at the door.”

Gov. Bruce Rauner had been the initial plaintiff in the case when it was filed in February 2015, but a judge ruled Rauner had no legal standing and Janus was allowed to intervene to object to paying “fair share” or “agency” fees to the union.

Rauner had a public split last year with the Illinois Policy Institute after signing a bill protecting abortion in the state, but he stood alongside the think tank’s CEO John Tillman and Janus on the steps outside the Supreme Court after their win.

As a senior fellow, Janus will serve as a spokesman and workers’ rights advocate, according to the think tank, which didn’t disclose his salary.

Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed News: 

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that public sector unions' "agency fees" — fees required of nonmembers — violate the First Amendment

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court's 5-4 decision, split along ideological grounds.

The decision was a long time coming. In January 2016, the justices heard arguments on the issue — with the court appearing to be headed to a 5–4 ruling against the unions. Then, Justice Antonin Scalia died and the court split 4–4— a ruling that meant agency fees would still be allowed in the public sector for the time.

When President Donald Trump won the election, however, conservatives who had been backing the effort to roll back public sector unions' influence prepared to bring the question back to the high court once a new justice was confirmed. Trump celebrated the decision on Twitter.

Supreme Court rules in favor of non-union workers who are now, as an example, able to support a candidate of his or her choice without having those who control the Union deciding for them. Big loss for the coffers of the Democrats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2018

The Supreme Court granted the case — brought by Mark Janus against the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, in Illinois — in late September, once Justice Neil Gorsuch had joined the court, and heard arguments in February.

Although Gorsuch was at the arguments, he and Justice Clarence Thomas — who generally asks no questions at oral argument — were the only two silent justices for the hourlong arguments that had four different lawyers making their case for or against the agency fees.

Gorsuch on Wednesday provided Alito — who has long sought the court's ruling, to overrule a 1977 case that allowed the fees — with his needed fifth vote to resolve the issue.