The Supreme Court’s decision, handed down on 27 June, deals a severe blow to public sector trade union piggy banks. The ruling concerns ‘fair-share fees’, also known as ‘agency fees’, which are mandatory contributions paid to trade unions by public sector workers, who although not union members per se are covered by a relevant collective agreement. The contributions are a way of paying trade unions for basic costs related to their representation function. Twenty or so US States now apply legislation to this effect.
These ‘union dues’ are a way of avoiding the ‘free-rider’ effect, or in other words the fact that non-union members can enjoy the benefits of the collective agreement and of individual trade union support for the rights stemming from the collective agreement, as well as covering trade union costs. It is precisely this mandatory contribution being levied on non-union members that a worker in the child support services in the State of Illinois contested in the courts. The childcare worker argued
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