A SPECIAL INDEPENDENCE DAY FOR PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS

Port Townsend and Jeffco Contracts Requiring Payment of Union Dues Now Unenforceable 

by Scott Hogenson

Pop quiz: If you belong to a collective bargaining unit in Jefferson County, and if that collective bargaining unit took money from you to support the reelection of President Trump, would you be:

A - Happy

B - Unhappy 

C - Indifferent

Given the results of the 2016 presidential election, my hunch is that most people would choose Response B because a lot of people in Jefferson County do not support the President. Ergo, they probably do not want their hard-earned money used to support someone with whom they disagree. 

To those of you who chose Response B be assured, for whatever it’s worth, that I have your six on this issue. The very idea of taking away somebody’s money and using it to promote something they don’t like is a cringeworthy violation of the First Amendment. It’s not free speech; it’s rather expensive speech and it’s financed by forcing people to pay-up regardless of their beliefs. 

That’s why last week’s Supreme Court decision in the Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees case is so important. This particular case ruled that a 41-year-old Illinois law which forced employees who do not belong to a union, but are represented by a collective bargaining unit, to give their money to that union.

While this decision does not affect union members at the Port Townsend mill or other private employer unions, it does affect anybody who belongs to a union representing government employees, school teachers, fire and police personnel and so forth. 

This decision frees non-union members from being compelled to give their money to a collective bargaining unit in support of something they oppose. This is good news for opponents of President Trump who would not want their paychecks shrunk by force so the money could be used to support the Administration. It is also good news for the workers who like what the President is doing and don’t want a portion of their wages used to undermine policies with which they agree.

It turns out that Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan disagrees with me. She would apparently be happy with unions in Jefferson County and elsewhere supporting Trump with money taken from people who oppose him. Kagan, in her dissent, goes so far as to argue that this decision amounts to, “weaponizing the First Amendment.”

Maybe it’s just me but does anyone else find it peculiar that Kagan would make such a statement given her political leanings? After all, Slate Magazine described Kagan as, “the most influential liberal justice,” on the court. So why is she articulating a position that is in such stark contrast with the greatest liberal Democrat icon of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

The public sector unions that want to take money from non-union members were vociferously opposed by President Franklin Roosevelt. He never even bothered to get around to whether such unions should be able to take money from non-members. He said flat-out that public sector unions are wrong. 

When asked by a reporter in 1937 whether he supported unions for government employees, Roosevelt was unequivocal in his response saying, “Not in the government, because there is no collective contract. It is a very different case. There isn’t any bargaining, in other words, with the government, therefore the question does not arise.”

Perhaps the time has come for Jefferson County Democrats, liberals, progressives and others cut from similar cloth to revisit Roosevelt’s values and take a stand by advocating the elimination public sector unions altogether. That’s what FDR would want. Given that the issue of campaign finance was raised at the June 24 Honesty Forum in Port Ludlow, it’s a fair question for the candidates running for office. 

Scott Hogenson lives in Jefferson County. He is a former Teamster and a former member of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union.

Editor’s Note

The Janus decision will have a substantial impact on the area’s public sector employees.  We took a look at a few of their union contracts.

The city’s contract requires that all its employees join and pay dues to General Teamster’s Local Union 589.  The contract recognizes only religious First Amendment rights in protecting an employee being forced to join.  The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment’s free speech and freedom of association clauses mandate that anyone having an objection to joining a public-sector union may not be compelled to do so. 

The City’s union contract oddly required employees with a religious objection to union membership to give the equivalent of their dues to a non-religious or other charity selected—get this--not by the employee, but by the Teamsters and the City.  If they could not agree, the Washington Department of Licensing and Industry would determine the charity to be paid each month by that employee. That clause is certainly illegal now.

Jefferson County has the same clause in its contracts with Teamster Local 589.  The Port Townsend School District also has a similar clause in its contract with the Port Townsend Education Association.  That clause required the union to participate in the selection of the charity to be paid.  The school district’s contract with the Service Employees International Union and its Local 925 incorporates a similar clause, but allows the employee objecting to forced union membership on religious grounds to steer her dues equivalent to a charity of her choice.

Here is the pertinent clause from the City’s Teamster’s contract:

Here is the equivalent clause from the School District's agreement with the PTEA: