Labor Activism Case Goes to High Court
    By Sean Lengell
    The Washington Times

    Thursday 04 January 2007

    The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next week on whether public employee unions must receive permission before spending workers' dues on political causes.

    The case is expected to test the limits on labor activism just before the 2008 presidential campaign.

    Washington state in 1992 adopted a campaign finance law that required labor unions to get the consent of each worker before spending a portion of their dues for political purposes. The law also required unions to refund money to those who didn't agree with the political activity of the union.

    But in March, the state's supreme court overturned the law, saying the union's annual offer to reduce fees for nonmembers who register an objection to the political spending was sufficient.

    About 4,000 teachers who declined to join the Washington Education Association appealed to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear the case Wednesday. The court also will hear a related class-action lawsuit by five teachers to recover their fees.

    The workers still can be charged dues by the union to help pay for such items as labor negotiations that affect them, supporters of the teachers' lawsuit have said. But they argue they can't be forced to pay for the union's political activism.

    The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is representing the teachers, has said allowing the union to spend employees' money against their will is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

    The amount of union money used for political purposes is about $10 to $25 per person, the foundation said.

    If the state's decision is upheld, the foundation said it would give union activists a legal precedent to challenge right-to-work laws across the country.

    "If we lose this, the ramifications will be very dramatic," Mark Mix, president of the anti-union group, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times yesterday.

    Nationally, organized labor contributed almost $50 million to U.S. House and Senate candidates during the 2006 midterm elections, with 86 percent of the money going to Democrats, said the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

    The state court's decision "is bad public policy," said Stefan Gleason, the foundation's vice president. "If people really want to protect rank-and-file workers' rights, the answer is to eliminate, not regulate, union special privileges."

    But the Washington Education Association said the 1992 law created unnecessary regulatory burdens and was a bureaucratic nightmare.

     "It seems on the surface very simple: to not use nonmember funds for political purposes," association President Charles Hasse said. "But you can have narrow or broad definitions of 'political,' and also how do you demonstrate use? Those were the technical issues that made this really turn into an infringement of our First Amendment rights."

    The union is the state's largest teachers union, representing teachers and other employees of public schools and colleges. Less than 5 percent of the 83,000 people the union represents choose not to be members, the union said.

    The AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor organizations filed a joint brief to the Supreme Court in support of the Washington Supreme Court, saying that the 1992 law unfairly restricted the rights of unions to contribute money as they saw fit.

    The AFL-CIO declined to comment on the case. Change to Win officials were not available for comment late yesterday.

    In addition to seeking to overturn the Washington court's ruling, the legal defense foundation is asking the justices to clarify a 45-year-old Supreme Court ruling that the group has said discourages nonunion employees in non-right-to-work states from exercising their rights to refrain from supporting union political activity.

    The foundation said if it prevails on this issue, a million nonunion workers nationwide would be eligible to rebates of past union dues of up to $200 per year.