The Supreme Court ruled today that government workers can't be forced to contribute to labour unions that represent them in collective bargaining, dealing a serious financial blow to organised labour.
The justices are scrapping a 41-year-old decision that had allowed states to require that public employees pay some fees to unions that represent them, even if the workers choose not to join.
The 5-4 decision fulfils a longtime wish of conservatives to get rid of the so-called fair share fees that non-members pay to unions in roughly two dozen states. The court ruled that the laws violate the First Amendment by compelling workers to support unions they may disagree with.
"States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees," Justice Samuel Alito said in his majority opinion for the court's five conservative justices.
President Donald Trump weighed in minutes after the decision was handed down, while Alito still was reading a summary of it from the bench.
"Big loss for the coffers of the Democrats!" Trump said in a tweet.
In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote of the big impact of the decision.
"There is no sugarcoating today's opinion. The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation's law - and its economic life - for over 40 years. As a result, it prevents the American people, acting through their state and local officials, from making important choices about workplace governance. And it does so by weaponising the First Amendment, in a way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy."
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