http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/11-681_j426.pdf
"ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined."
The court held that the First Amendment prohibits the collection of an agency fee from Rehabilitation Program Personal Assistants (PAs) who do not want to join or support a union.
The case is fascinating in that it has generated so much controversy, while at the same time being so simple in its facts.
The group of plaintiffs included individuals like Pam Harris, who care for a disabled family member at home, and who receive a subsidy from a Medicaid-waiver program to do so.
Here's the basic description of the program from the majority opinion in the decision document --
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/11-681_j426.pdf
...
Millions of Americans, due to age, illness, or injury, are unable to live in their own homes without assistance and are unable to afford the expense of in-home care. In order to prevent these individuals from having to enter a nursing home or other facility, the federal Medicaid program funds state-run programs that provide in-home services to individuals whose conditions would otherwise require institutionalization. See 42 U. S. C. §1396n(c)(1). A State that adopts such a program receives federal funds to compensate persons who attend to the daily needs of individuals needing in-home care. Ibid.; see also 42 CFR §§440.180, 441.300–441.310 (2013). Almost every State has established such a program. See Dept. of Health and Human Services, Understanding Medicaid Home and Community Services: A Primer (2010).
One of those States is Illinois, which has created the Illinois Department of Human Services Home Services Program, known colloquially as the state “Rehabilitation Program.” Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 20, §2405/3(f) (West 2012); 89 Ill. Admin. Code §676.10 (2007). “[D]esigned to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of individuals who may instead be satisfactorily maintained at home at a lesser cost to the State,” §676.10(a), the Rehabilitation Program allows participants to hire a “personal assistant” who provides homecare services tailored to the individual’s needs. Many of these personal assistants are relatives of the person receiving care, and some of them provide care in their own homes. See App. 16–18.
Illinois law establishes an employer-employee relationship between the person receiving the care and the person providing it. The law states explicitly that the person receiving home care—the “customer”—“shall be the employer of the [personal assistant].” 89 Ill. Admin. Code §676.30(b) (emphasis added). A “personal assistant” is defined as “an individual employed by the customer to provide . . . varied services that have been approved by the customer’s physician,” §676.30(p) (emphasis added), and the law makes clear that Illinois “shall not have control or input in the employment relationship between the customer and the personal assistants.” §676.10(c).
...
In no way is Pam Harris, or any of the other plaintiffs in her situation, an employee of the state, or even an employee at all, so it's a complete non-sequitur to claim that she is any way represented by a union --
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/a-moms-fight-for-justice-harris-v-quinn/
Of course, that didn't stop many people from making that argument.
From economics, the idea of 'Free Riding' is typically used as the basis for that argument. For example, it's not hard to find articles similar to this one, written by Nina Totenburg, the award winning NPR reporter --
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/21/264257440/illinois-case-brings-new-union-questions-to-supreme-court
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No one is forced to join the union, but non-union members — and there are three in this case — do have to pay the costs of negotiating and administering the contract. Under long-established labor law, when a majority of workers approve a union, those who do not join cannot be forced to pay for political activities of the union. But if the union is accepted by the state, as it was in Illinois, non-members still have to pay their fair share of the expenses of negotiating a contract. That's to prevent them from free-riding on the dues of members.
...
It's perversely fascinating that someone would make a reference to free riding in regard to contract negotiations, when this case deals with one or more individuals who are not employees and do not have an employment contract with anyone. That the state regulates the minimum qualifications for PAs doesn't alter this fact -- anyone who can prove that they have the minimum competence required to perform as a PA can care for a disabled family member -- they don't need formal employment with the state at a negotiated salary to do so.
Claiming the plaintiffs in this case are employees of the state, is equivalent to saying that all licensed taxi drivers, that are paid by a disabled person to transport them with Medicaid funds, are also employees of the state, because they had to pass a driving test administered by the state, and their qualifications as a driver are subject to periodic state review.
A more relevant question here is: 'Why is a union organization, that represents state employees, trying to force payments from individuals, for something those individuals don't want, and that the union did not, and could not, provide?'
And note the false distinction Nina makes in the quote above regarding so-called 'fair share' fees --
'No one is forced to join the union, but non-union members do have to pay the costs of negotiating and administering the contract.'This is a distinction without a difference -- that is, what's the difference between being forced to pay fees to a union, and being forced to become a member?
But there is an important difference, and it makes the situation even worse for individuals who don't want to deal with a union organization. By only paying the so-called 'fair share' fees, individuals aren't considered union members, so they have no say regarding union activities.
So, the 'fair share' fees are not fair at all, in that they force individuals to pay for something they have specifically stated they don't want (since they didn't want to join the union to begin with), while at the same time removing their ability to express any say in union activities.
Now that's what I call free riding, it's just that it's the unions doing the riding.
What a deal for the unions -- having government force the payment of fees from individuals who don't want to be represented by the organization, while at the same time allowing them to deny those individuals any say regarding the organization's activities.
King George would have blushed.
Of course, union supporters are quick to point out supposed benefits everyone in a unionized field receives from union activities, while ignoring the harm that unions cause, and how union influence has been critical in the failure of certain companies, like Hostess --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Featherbedding
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/11/28/more-hostess-liquidation-to-come-micro-unions/
Well, someone did originally get this issue right. In 1961 the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 7-2 ruling for the case International Association of Machinists v. Street. In this ruling, the Court held that it is NOT unconstitutional for unions to collect fees from dissenting nonmembers, but only to perform bargaining duties.
Of course, union organizers loved that decision, but notice this statement from Hugo Black, one of the dissenting judges in Machinists v. Street --
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16218813564309818799
http://supreme-court-cases.findthebest.com/l/1768/International-Association-Of-Machinists-v-Street
...
Unions composed of a voluntary membership, like all other voluntary groups, should be free in this country to fight in the public forum to advance their own causes, to promote their choice of candidates and parties and to work for the doctrines or the laws they favor. But to the extent that Government steps in to force people to help espouse the particular causes of a group, that group— whether composed of railroad workers or lawyers—loses its status as a voluntary group. The reason our Constitution endowed individuals with freedom to think and speak and advocate was to free people from the blighting effect of either a partial or a complete governmental monopoly of ideas. Labor unions have been peculiar beneficiaries of that salutary constitutional principle, and lawyers, I think, are charged with a peculiar responsibility to preserve and protect this principle of constitutional freedom, even for themselves. A violation of it, however small, is, in my judgment, prohibited by the First Amendment and should be stopped dead in its tracks on its first appearance. With so vital a principle at stake, I cannot agree to the imposition of parsimonious limitations on the kind of decree the courts below can fashion in their efforts to afford effective protection to these priceless constitutional rights.
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Notice his statement that any violation of the freedoms described by the First Amendment 'should be stopped dead in its tracks on its first appearance.'
Obviously, that didn't happen, but at least the recent decision on Harris v. Quinn is a move in the right direction.
I'm so happy that I've never worked in a field dominated by unions.
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