Recently National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix spoke to WISN’s Vicki McKenna about two cases that could have major implications for public sector workers if the Supreme Court decides to hear them. Janus v. AFSCME and Casanova v. International Association of Machinists both deal with employees seeking refunds of dues unconstitutionally seized before the 2018 Janus decision.

When Janus v. AFSCME was originally decided, the court held that public sector workers can’t be forced to support a union as a condition of their employment, and that nonmembers can’t have dues deducted from their paychecks without their consent. As Mix said in the interview, “When you rule on the first amendment there’s a legal concept called black letter law, which means ‘as if it was the law from the beginning’. These workers ought to be able to go back and get their money back through the statute of limitations.”

He also pointed out that the Supreme Court specifically recognized in Janus that unions have known since the 2012 Foundation-won Knox v. SEIU case that mandatory union fees for public sector employees likely did not comply with the First Amendment.

In the majority opinion in Janus, Justice Alito wrote:

public-sector unions have been on notice for years regarding this Court’s misgivings about Abood. In Knox, decided in 2012, we described Abood as a First Amendment “anomaly.” 567 U. S., at 311. Two years later in Harris, we were asked to overrule Abood, and while we found it unnecessary to take that step, we cataloged Abood’s many weaknesses. In 2015, we granted a petition for certiorari asking us to review a decision that sustained an agency-fee arrangement under Abood. Friedrichs v. California Teachers Assn., 576 U. S.___. After exhaustive briefing and argument on the question whether Abood should be overruled, we affirmed the decision below by an equally divided vote. 578 U. S. ___(2016) (per curiam). During this period of time, any public sector union seeking an agency-fee provision in a collective bargaining agreement must have understood that the constitutionality of such a provision was uncertain.

If the Supreme Court takes one of these cases and rules in favor of the workers seeking refunds, it would set a precedent that would result in the return of hundreds of millions of dollars in dues for workers around the country.

You can listen to the entire interview below:

Right to Work President Mark Mix discusses Big Labor hand-outs embedded in pending health care legislation:

Following his CPAC panel discussion, Right to Work President Mark Mix was interviewed by Jerry Doyle on Big Labor’s political influence and the Right to Work movement. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:

You can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.

Two New Jersey teachers are challenging a state law that they called out as “un-American” during a recent television interview.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Janus v. AFSCME decision in June declared that public employees should be allowed resign their union membership and stop paying union dues whenever they choose. But union officials blocked teachers Susan G. Fischer and Jeanette Speck from doing just that.

Fischer and Speck recently filed a class action lawsuit, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, after school district officials in the Township of Ocean refused to allow them to stop paying union membership dues.

During an interview with NJTV, a PBS affiliate based in New Jersey, Fischer clarified that she is not opposed unions. Instead, Fischer said that she and Speck filed their lawsuit out of a sense of basic fairness.

“I am not anti-union. I am a team player. I’ve been a teacher for 30 years,” Fischer explained. She later added: “You have to pay if you join and pay if you don’t join. That was so un-American to us.”

School district officials had claimed that the teachers could only stop payments and withdraw during a 10-day “window period” every year.

Foundation staff attorney William Messenger explained that this “window period” scheme was allowed under a New Jersey law. Messenger said this “basically means for 355 to 356 days of every year, public employees in New Jersey can’t exercise their Janus rights.”

The lawsuit challenges the New Jersey law as unconstitutional under Janus. The High Court said that union bosses cannot force public-sector workers to pay union membership dues and fees, since this violates the First Amendment.

The teachers are suing New Jersey Governor Phil Murphey, the New Jersey Education Association, and the Township of Ocean Education Association, seeking a refund of membership dues forcibly taken after they resigned their union membership, as well as for all other public employees who attempted to resign following Janus.

Right to Work President Mark Mix is scheduled to make a national TV appearance on "Your World W/Neil Cavuto" on the Fox News Channel shortly after 4:00 Eastern today. He will be discussing union political involvement and the abuses many workers aided by National Right to Work face at the hands of union officials. UPDATE: Watch Mark’s appearance below, note that no union official came forward to defend denying America’s workers a true choice.

Speaking of the economic benefits of Right to Work, here’s another recent national television appearance by Mark Mix on CNBC’s "Power Lunch" discussing that very topic.

Right to Work President Mark Mix made a national TV appearance on "Fox and Friends" on the Fox News Channel last week. He discussed the so-called "Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act" with Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA).

Right to Work President Mark Mix discusses Obama’s upcoming appointment of forced unionism activist Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor with Neil Cavuto of Fox News:

For more on Solis, here’s some background on her career and political views.