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Few institutions have done more to improve working conditions for the middle class than labor unions. Their efforts, of course, cost money. To fund union activities, thousands of collective bargaining agreements across the nation have long included provisions permitting employers to require employees to pay "fair share" or "agency" fees. In public unions--when the employer is the government--this arrangement creates tension between two important values: the First Amendment's protection against compelled expression and the collective benefits of worker representation. When confronted with this tension forty years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Court struck an uneasy compromise, allowing public sector unions to recoup expenses for collective bargaining but not for political activity. For decades, the decision has been a lightning rod with some scholars calling for its reversal and others insisting on its preservation. In the meantime, the realities of modern public sector collective bargaining have changed, and First Amendment jurisprudence has evolved. The Supreme Court, which recently granted certiorari in Janus v. AFSCME, now has the opportunity to reconsider Abood's fragile compromise. This Article offers a new way forward within the First Amendment that honors the importance of both union activity and free expression. It proposes a method to reconcile these twin interests while also updating the doctrine to account for state legislative efforts, modern union realities, and First Amendment jurisprudential developments. The Article argues that agency fees should be brought into step with current political contribution and campaign finance jurisprudence. Under this middle-ground approach, some agency fees, but only those that are "closely drawn" to avoid unnecessary expressive infringement, will remain lawful. This approach may not satisfy those who ardently oppose agency fees of any kind or those who want Abood's rule fully upheld. Still, it emerges as the best way forward through a difficult terrain: It avoids the false dichotomy between union and political activities, respects state legislatures that craft innovative collective bargaining statutes, and grounds public sector agency fees with other coherent aspects of First Amendment jurisprudence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in American labor unions has changed radically, albeit incrementally, over the last fifty years. Private-sector union density has declined five-fold, whereas public-sector density has increased almost as significantly. Today, unions rarely strike, and in much of the country, they are politically impotent. As traditional manufacturing declines and is replaced by on-demand work, unions risk becoming a historical footnote. This Article ties the decline in union density and power to macroeconomic trends that are highly troubling in an advanced democracy, such as rising income inequality and the failure oj wage growth to keep pace with gross domestic product ("GDP") growth. It next reviews the traditional prescriptions that laborscholars have advocated to reverse labor's decline. Finally, it proposes three new radical fixes: authorizing criminal prosecution for willful violations of labor law, expanding labor protections to ondemand workers, and reversing the legal presumption that workers are not represented by a union unless they affirmatively opt in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association on arrangements be invalidated under the First Amendment on subsidizing nonchargeable speech by public-sector unions violate the First Amendment. It also mentions decision of U.S. Supreme Court in the case Abood v. Detroit Board of Education on constitutionality of compelling employees to pay agency fees to their collective bargaining.

The article discusses the court case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that affirms, challenge to long-standing union "Agency-Shop" arrangements and court cases Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and Mitchell v. Los Angeles Unified School District on March 29, 2016. It mentions that public school teachers or nonunion members has objected to pay agency fee and opt out process, which were required for agency-shop arrangement, because it has violated their rights to free speech.

The article discusses a U.S. Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association in which plaintiffs requested Court to arrange invalidations in public sector. Topics discussed include decisions of court in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, permissions granted by Michigan law, and characterization of public employees.

Labor laws in twenty-two states permit government employers to compel all employees to pay "fair share fees" to support a union's collective bargaining activities, even if the union advocates policies to which some workers are ideologically opposed. Thousands of collective bargaining agreements include provisions to this effect, and hundreds of thousands of objecting workers are forced to pay such fees each year. At its core, this practice implicates a significant tension between two important principles: the First Amendment's objective of protecting individuals from compelled support of unwanted messages, and labor law's concern with fostering the collective benefits of worker representation. When confronted with a challenge to fair share fees nearly forty years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that labor law takes precedence, such that the First Amendment intrusions produced by fair share fees are constitutionally justified. Twice in the past four years, however, the Supreme Court has indicated that it is poised to reverse course and strike down fair share fee clauses under the First Amendment, overruling Abood in the process. And on the last day of the 2014 Term, the Court granted certiorari in a case presenting just that opportunity. In this Article, I challenge the conventional wisdom that public sector union financing implicates an inevitable trade-off between First Amendment principles and labor law's core objectives. There is a simple alternative to the fair share fee union financing model that would permit public employers to pursue their broad interests in effective workplace representation without sacrificing the individual expressive interests of objecting employees: In lieu of fair share fee clauses, government employers can negotiate provisions under which they reimburse a union for its collective bargaining costs directly. Such an approach would free objecting workers of the compulsion to support an objectionable message and ensure that unions have the financial security they need to zealously represent worker interests. Moreover, the government can implement this alternative in a cost-neutral fashion, reducing future wage raises or gratuitous benefits to offset the added costs of union reimbursement. But this government-payer alternative is not just a theoretical solution to what has been widely understood as an intractable debate--it has doctrinal significance, too. For once identified, the government-payer workaround becomes part of the constitutional analysis itself. That is to say, under First Amendment doctrine, the government's ability to reimburse a union for its bargaining costs directly is a less restrictive alternative that renders fair share fees unconstitutional by comparison. This Article explores the theoretical and doctrinal consequences of the governmentpayer alternative to fair share fees. In doing so, it proposes an answer to a longstanding puzzle in the Court's First Amendment jurisprudence regarding the proper standard of scrutiny for compelled fees--a puzzle that the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized yet left unresolved. The Article concludes by offering a few observations concerning the impact of the government-payer alternative for the future of public sector labor unions and the First Amendment more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Supreme Court case Harris v. Quinn, examines the U.S. constitutional principle of freedom of association under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and argues that the U.S. Congress should amend the legislation the Employees' Rights statute in order to improve working conditions within the public sector. It also discusses the U.S. Supreme Court case Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and the history of the controversial principle of public workers paying an agency fee to representative unions.

The article discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's (USSC's) ruling in the 2014 case Harris v. Quinn which deals with a prohibition against the assessment of a fair-share fee against in-home caregivers under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. American freedom of speech rights and the legal aspects of compelled subsidization are mentioned. The 1977 USSC case Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which deals with public-sector union dues and collective bargaining units, is also examined.

The article presents a historical overview of unionism in America's public sector as of 2012, and it mentions the impacts of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in public-sector union-related cases such as Knox v. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1000, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, and Davenport v. Washington Education Association on public-employee unions. A battle over public-sector union rights in Wisconsin is examined, along with differing ideologies in America.