Alaska Employment Law

The Court ruled this Thursday morning, in Davenport v. Washington Education Association, 2007 WL 1703022 (June 14, 2007),  that a state may prohibit a public employee union from using the agency-shop fees of a non-member for election-related purposes if the nonmember hasn’t affirmatively consented.  The Court (via J. Scalia) characterized the law as essentially a limitation on a state-conferred right to tax members of the bargaining unit.  “The notion that this modest limitation upon an extrordinary benefit violates the First Amendment is, to say the least, counterintuitive,” he says.  The court emphasized that its holding was limited to restrictions on unions in the public sector, not the private sector. 

The challenge was a project of the National Right to Work Foundation, whose Legal Defense arm is ecstatic.  The NRTWF was active in Alaska several years ago, litigating the procedures used by public unions at the State and the University of Alaska to determine what percentage of dues non-member employees must pay to their unions.  The ideological opposite of the NRTWF is the Association for Union Democracy, which characterizes itself as a pro-union advocate for the rights of union members.  (Disclosure: I’m on the AUD Advisory Board.)

Update: ScotusBlog has more in depth.