The state of Alaska is arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court should safeguard state employees’ constitutionally protected free speech rights by preserving a requirement that unionized employees re-register with their union each year.
Janus stands for the proposition that states cannot compel public employees to support, through their paychecks, union speech with which they disagree.
The state is appealing a ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court that enjoined the requirement.
Labor unions oppose the requirement, saying it goes beyond what the Janus decision mandates, and is part of an anti-union push by Republican state officials.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, said in a statement that the government is looking out for the interests of its employees.
“Before we take any money from the paychecks of state employees, we need to ensure that the employees were properly advised of their rights and consented to the deduction,” he said.
“And if employees disagree with union speech, they need to be given an opportunity to opt out. Our payroll system does not adequately protect the constitutional rights of our employees and changes must be made.”
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, also a Republican, said: “The promise of Janus is unfulfilled.
“States across the country, including our own, continue to deduct money from the paychecks of state employees without clear and compelling evidence demonstrating the employees’ knowing consent. This needs to change, and we need the highest court in the country to step in.”
According to the petition, in Janus, the U.S. Supreme Court “gave clear directions to any state that takes money from employees’ paychecks to subsidize union speech.”
Because unions take positions during the collective bargaining process that carry with them powerful political and civic consequences, “states cannot force public employees to subsidize union speech.”
“Nor can states assume that employees have consented to do so. Instead, states need ‘clear and compelling evidence’ that employees have waived their First Amendment rights before deducting ‘an agency fee or any other payment,’” the petition says.
But many states are defying these instructions. “Instead of demanding clear and compelling evidence of an employee’s consent, they blindly defer to unions, deducting dues whenever the union produces the smallest evidence of consent,” it says.
This has led to “predictable” results, the petition states.
“States deduct dues even when unions never notify employees of their First Amendment rights. States allow unions (rather than the employees) to deliver dues-deduction forms, thus depriving them of proof that the employees’ signatures are genuine and that their choice was voluntary," the petition reads.
“And states continue deducting dues even when employees protest that their money was improperly used to subsidize union speech—because the employees were coerced, they never consented, or their signatures were forged.”
But Alaska respects Janus and, after reviewing its dues-deduction system, concluded that it wasn’t protecting the First Amendment rights of state employees, according to the petition.
Although the law provided that the state must deduct union dues whenever a union provided the employee’s “written authorization,” the labor unions could still “impose harsh terms preventing employees from ending their subsidization of union speech.”
To deal with this problem, state officials said they would no longer take out dues based solely on receipt of a dues-deduction form created by unions. Instead, the state would design its own form that would remind employees of their First Amendment rights and allow them to opt out of the deduction process.
The state supreme court affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of the union, saying the lower court was correct in finding that “the State breached the collective bargaining agreement and violated relevant statutes.”
“Neither Janus nor the First Amendment required the State to alter the union member dues deduction practices set out in the collective bargaining agreement” in place between the government and the union, it said.
The Alaska Supreme Court also said that the state’s changes to the labor relations framework showed an “anti-union animus.”
The state was wrong to interfere with the operations of the union “when it unilaterally told ASEA members they could stop deducting dues, and actually ceased collecting dues from some members, in violation of the members’ dues authorization agreements with ASEA and the State’s collective bargaining agreement with ASEA.”
But in the view of the state, Alaska, like many other states, is continuing to flout the Janus ruling and is forcing employees to subsidize “union speech without sufficient evidence of employee consent,” the petition says.
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, states and unions “will never change.”
“The Court should vindicate the promise of Janus: that employees cannot be compelled to subsidize union speech,” it says.
On behalf of ASEA, attorney Matthew Murray filed a document on Aug. 25 waiving the union’s right to respond to the petition unless a response “is requested by the Court.” The association is also AFSCME Local 52.
Often, a respondent in an appeal in the Supreme Court will waive the response in the expectation that the court is disinclined to take the case, but it’s unclear what the respondent’s thinking was here.
The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Murray, who works at the law firm of Altshuler Berzon in San Francisco, but didn’t receive a reply by press time.
Heidi Drygas, executive director of ASEA Local 52, questioned the motives of Mr. Dunleavy, saying that the idea that he’s protecting the interests of public employees is “laughable.”
“This administration’s record is one of privatizing services, outsourcing jobs to other states, furloughing employees, and chronic understaffing among many other anti-worker policies,” she told the Alaska Beacon.
If at least four of the nine Supreme Court justices vote to grant the state’s newly filed petition, oral arguments could be scheduled. If that happens, a decision in the case could come by June 2024.
It’s unclear when the justices will consider the petition.
The court is currently in recess for the summer. It resumes oral arguments on Oct. 2.
