KOCH BROS GO AFTER MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES

…The notorious billionaire Koch Brothers, Charles & David

 

Like Donald J. Trump, the conservative Koch Bros inherited their fortunes

 

Well, the billionaire Koch Brothers, Charles and David, are once again using their billions to go after the nation Unions.  This time, it’s the latest case before the US Supreme Court, “Janus v. AFSCME”, which is the: “American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees”.  This case came before the Supreme Court, and the brothers jumped into it front and the center.

For years, these right-wing billionaires have been the major bankrollers for the efforts to kill any and all public-sector unions.

 

The many anti-union demonstrators outside the Supreme Court were seen holding up signs prominently displaying the emblem of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.  (Some admitted that they were paid demonstrators.)

 

But this time, the brothers have obtained some extra, outside support.

 

First, The Trump administration obviously just had to join the cause.

 

In addition, the five conservatives on the Supreme Court are all expected to agree to removing a 50 year old precedent.

 

However, before the justices pick up their pens to sign organized municipal labor’s death certificate, they just may pause to consider as they were warned by the AFSCME attorney, David Frederick, that they will “raise an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”

 

In the decades since the 1977 Supreme Court decision on unions, there has been a relative truce in public-sector labor relations: Unions have received “agency fees” from nonmembers for their collective bargaining efforts and other nonpolitical activities, and subsequently, such unions have generally not gone on strike.

 

The Koch’s now propose abolishing those agency fees, saying they violate workers’ free-speech rights. However, to come to that conclusion requires the justices to declare that basically everything public-sector unions do is covered by the First Amendment.

 

The conservative justices, who tend to boast about bogus judicial restraint, a move to support the Koch’s proposal could blow up those decades of labor-law precedent.  It would also for the first time, re-interpret the First Amendment.  That would not be a minor issue.  (It is the First Amendment for a reason!)  

 

Doing this move would contradict what the court unanimously affirmed only a decade ago.  They also have no real clue as to what the final consequences of such a move would be.

 

As the WAPO’s Dana Milbank mentioned in his column about his latest visit to the Supreme Court, “I noticed that, since my last visit to the court, rodent traps had been placed outside the doors to the Supreme Court chamber. [Apparently,] I’m not the only one who smells a rat.”

The court Justice, Stephen Breyer has inquired whether the union lawyers for Janus would, after dropping the precedent, “would they apply modern frameworks to all old cases, beginning with Marbury v. Madison”, that's from 1803.”

 

The liberal Justice Elena Kagan noted that the court would be “overturning statutes of 23 states and invalidating labor contracts of thousands of municipalities covering perhaps 10 million workers”.   Per kagan, “When have we ever done something like that?”  (Good point!)

This is not being conservative, this is being totally radical.  However, the reality is that there really are probably five Supreme Court votes against unions.  And per the conservative justice Samuel Alito, he is so radical, he compares any non-union workers forced to pay agency fees, even though they reap the positive out-comes from the union’s collective bargaining, he compares it to Thomas More who was killed for refusing to recognize King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.  Now that’s radical!

 

Hopefully, the Koch’s and the five justices will think twice before they go forward, but they probably won't.  When unions are threatened, they usually become somewhat unruly. 

 

 

On the other hand, the stopping of paying agency fees on free-speech grounds could give workers free-speech protection to complain publicly about employers.

 

Former Reagan administration solicitor general, Charles Fried, warned in a brief that the court risks setting in motion “drastic changes in First Amendment doctrine that essentially threaten to constitutionalize every workplace dispute.”

 

The labor unions are already contemplating how they should respond if the five judges go against them.  The will probably seek to overturn laws such as Wisconsin’s limiting what unions can ask for in their bargaining.  They may challenge laws that make public-sector bargaining illegal and for allowing workers to opt out of paying for pension-fund and municipal lobbying.

 

Among the potential responses already being contemplated: “The ruling could both wildly increase workers’ bargaining power and clog the lower courts with First Amendment challenges to routine uses of taxpayer money.”

 

But the chaos won’t be limited to labor law.  Other things that might be challenged if government-imposed payments become unconstitutional include:  “Bar dues, student-association fees, utility bills, auto-insurance premiums, continuing-education requirements for doctors and other professionals, homeowners association dues, training for school-bus drivers and others, vaccinations, attorney-supervised real estate closings.

“There is no principled way to draw a line between these cases and the many instances where the government compels individuals to purchase speech, or to purchase services from private actors who are free to spend the compelled subsidies on speech,” Per University of Berkeley law professor Eugene Volokh, who is no friend of labor, but he wrote this in an unsolicited brief.

 

The latest concept is that some people may decide that they have a free-speech reason to not to pay taxes because that supports the military, or it supports public universities.  And the message listed on those Koch-brothers signs at the court was a sweeping: “No one should be forced to fund causes they don’t believe in.”

The justices can ignore precedent and reinterpret the Constitution. But as Dana Milbank added, “They can’t invalidate the Law of Unintended Consequences.”

 

The Koch’s should be very careful about what they wish and pay for.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2018