The Teacher Who Could Gut Unions

摘要

A Supreme Court decision coming by the end of June could be devastating for organized labor. The case, Friedrichsv. California Teachers Association (CTA), challenges a 1977 ruling allowing public-sector unions to charge nonmembers covered by union contracts mandatory fees to pay for the costs of collective bargaining. The lead plaintiff, Rebecca Friedrichs, is an elemen- tary school teacher. She claims that being forced to pay money to California's politically power-ful and overwhelmingly Democratic teachers' union as a condition of her employment vio- lates'her First Amendment rights.