WASHINGTON, DC – According to the Associated Press, The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback to unions by ruling that in-home care workers in Illinois who are paid by the state are not similar enough to full-fledged government employees to be compelled to pay union dues.
The case, Harris v. Quinn, involves Pamela Harris, a home-caregiver in Illinois who takes care of her disabled son. Harris is among home caregivers who have decided not to unionize through the Service Employees International Union, opting instead to bargain directly with the Medicaid recipients who decide how much money to allocate to their caregivers.
The court held in a 5-4 ruling written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito that those who provide in-home care for family members and others with disabilities were not public employees who could be forced to pay union dues to a public employees union.
The court’s four liberal justices dissented in the case.
Backed by the anti-union National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the employees had asked the court to upend a decades-old practice that lets public-sector unions collect money from workers who do not want union representation, so long as the money is not spent on political activities.
In his opinion, Justice Alito stated that the precedent that had upheld the state of Illinois’ right to require membership dues was shaky. The precedent on public unions, a 1977 case called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, had found that nonunion members may be required to pay membership dues in exchange for collective bargaining. “Abood itself has clear boundaries; it applies to public employees. Extending those boundaries to encompass partial-public employees, quasi-public employees, or simply private employees would invite problems,” Alito wrote in his statement. “If we allowed Abood to be extended to those who are not full-fledged public employees, it would be hard to see just where to draw the line, and we therefore confine Abood’s reach to full-fledged state employees.”
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent calling called Alito’s comments “mistaken” and “gratuitous.” She wrote that the Abood decision provided more than enough basis to uphold Illinois’ law.”
The ruling is considered to be a financial blow to labor unions that have increased their ranks in Illinois and other states by signing up hundreds of thousands of home health care workers.