Oral arguments in Locke v. Karass, the Foundation’s latest Supreme Court case, occur on Monday, October 6. Just in time, the October issue of Labor Watch features a cover story on the case by Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation:

The U.S. Supreme Court has so far refused to recognize that all compulsory union dues, no matter how they are spent, violate workers’ First Amendment rights and that no compelling state interest exists to justify subverting these rights. However, the Court has concluded that forced union dues for certain union expenditures violates nonmembers’ First Amendment rights. U.S. Supreme Court rulings have established that union officials cannot compel nonmembers to support union lobbying, political activities and other forms of ideological expression.

On behalf of Daniel Locke and 19 other current and former Maine state employees, NRTW Foundation attorneys will argue this month that because litigation is also inherently expressive, unions cannot compel nonmembers to pay for it. Moreover, because litigation regarding a union’s affiliates in another state does not affect the union’s own collective bargaining process, there should be a bright line drawn to ensure that no extra-unit litigation is ever subsidized by objecting nonmembers.

Union lawyers insist workers must pay for litigation activities that unions undertake outside their own bargaining unit using a pooling arrangement that union bosses analogize to insurance. If union bosses get their way, unions will be permitted to seize dues from members and nonmembers alike – even from employees who never wanted a union’s “representation” – and pool them together in a giant slush fund to subsidize Big Labor’s lawsuit machine.

Read the full article online (PDF only).