For dissident teachers, the right to limit dues

In the Washington Education Association case argued Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court, most of the justices seemed to side with Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who was representing the rights of the dissident teachers. So do we.

The case has been portrayed as an attack on unions. It really is not. It has no effect on any union's right to spend its members' money on politics. It is only about nonmembers' money. Under federal law, unions have a limited right to nonmembers' money. Once a union has been created by a majority of workers in a vote, it represents all the workers in the unit, including the ones who are hired after the vote, and it can collect dues from all of them. But to protect the rights of dissenters, courts have allowed workers to resign from unions.

These "agency fee payers" are still obliged to pay for labor representation, but they can ask for a refund of the part of their dues the union spends on other things, such as politics. To get their money back, they typically have had to ask every year, in a specific way and by a certain date.

In 1992, the voters of Washington passed an initiative that said that for political contributions, the union had to ask them. This difference — whose pocket the money starts in, and who has to ask — is what was fought over Wednesday at the Supreme Court.

The legal question was whether it was inherently unfair for the state of Washington to say that the money starts in the pockets of the nonmembers, and that if the union wants that money, it has to ask.

We believe that is not unfair. Nonmembers are people who already have taken the trouble to resign. Perhaps when they do this there should be an additional step to opt out of political contributions or, if they want, all nonrepresentation expenses. But they should have to do this only once.

If the union wants to ask nonmembers to donate to a cause, it should be free to do so — but it should not complain that having to ask is an unfair burden, or that it limits its freedom of speech.