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Tuesday’s Mail Tribune had a story about an Oregon state employee who sued SEIU over payback of obligatory union fees. This was following the recent Janus vs. AFSCME decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that government workers can’t be required to contribute to labor unions. Does this mean that past Oregon state employees can seek recovery of union fees that were withheld from paychecks, even though they did not choose to join the union? — Ted K., Medford That issue, Ted, no doubt will have to make another visit to the halls of justice before it’s finally decided. But at least some legal scholars say their reading is that the Janus ruling would apply retroactively to previously required contributions to public sector unions. In the blog The Volokh Conspiracy, hosted by the Washington Post and written “mostly by law professors,” it states: “Janus makes it likely that unions can be sued for agency fees they collected in the past. The case for liability has three key steps. “First, Janus applies equally to conduct before it was decided as it does to conduct in the future. Under standard retroactivity doctrine, Supreme Court decisions are taken to state the true law as it has always been, rather than to change the law. ... “Second, even though unions are themselves private organizations, not the government, they can still be sued for constitutional violations because of the way they used the power of the state to collect money. “Third, unions do not have the qualified immunity defense that is available to government Section 1983 defendants. Most government officials have a qualified immunity defense when they were doing something that was thought to be constitutional at the time. But in a (case) called Wyatt v. Cole, the Supreme Court said that private entities do not get the same kind of defense.” The blog author, Will Baude, notes that retroactive payments could be substantial, potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars across the country. But he notes that statute of limitations laws in most states would limit the retroactive payments to two or three years. Baude is a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and also contributes to the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. It’s also worth noting that he was honored in 2017 by the Federalist Society, whose members are primarily conservative or libertarian. He did, however, file a brief in support of AFSCME, saying the required payment of union dues posed no First Amendment issue. In the Oregon case you referenced, Ted, the Service Employees International Union agreed to settle out of court with a state employee, refunding her the $3,000 she paid over two years. There are numerous other lawsuits across the country demanding reimbursements for dues previously paid. In Janus vs. AFSCME, the Supreme Court essentially ruled that it was a violation of public employees’ First Amendment rights to require them to pay union “agency fees” even when they do not belong to the union. Unions have argued that those employees should pay the fees because they benefit from the work done by the union to enhance working conditions, pay and benefits. Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.