Contact: Will Potter  (202) 822-7823

January 10, 2007 

Supreme Court Hears Challenge to Union's Method of Collecting Agency Fees

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a case that anti-labor groups are using to attack the basic First Amendment rights of unions they oppose.

“If you don’t support advocating for quality public schools for every child, you can opt-out, it’s that simple,” said Charles Hasse, Washington Education Association president at the Supreme Court.

The case involves nonmember agency fees in Washington state, but anti-labor groups hope it will lay the foundation for pushing their conservative political agendas nationally,” said Reg Weaver, National Education Association president. “Some of the same groups that have decried ‘judicial activism’ are urging the Supreme Court to play political games with educators’ First Amendment rights.”

At issue in Washington v. Washington Education Association is the manner by which the Washington Education Association, an NEA affiliate, collects so-called “agency fees” from nonmembers. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that unions, such as WEA, can require nonmembers to pay agency fees to help defray the costs of certain bargaining-related services that the union is required to provide all employees it represents, including nonmembers.  

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the union must give nonmembers written notice that they have the option of not contributing to the union’s political activities. 

In this case the question before the Supreme Court is whether it is sufficient for WEA to notify nonmembers annually that they can opt-out of having any portion of their fees support the union’s political activities or whether the state can impose an “opt-in” requirement by compelling the union instead to obtain the affirmative authorization from nonmembers prior to expending any nonmember agency fees on political activities.

In a March 2006 decision, the Washington state Supreme Court held that the “opt-in” requirement violates the First Amendment because it infringes on the free speech rights of WEA’s 80,000 dues-paying members.  The court also specifically ruled “there is no indication or argument that WEA is compelling non-members to support political activities or preventing non-members from asserting their First Amendment rights." 

Since 1998, WEA has prevailed in every court challenge filed by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation—the anti-union organization behind this lawsuit. Undeterred, a small but vocal minority continues to challenge the court rulings for precisely the reason noted by the state Supreme Court: They hope to exploit an unclear, flawed state law to silence thousands of educators with whom they disagree and potentially set a national precedent.

There are only about 3,400 nonmember fee payers in Washington, compared to some 80,000 members of WEA. Of those agency fee payers, a minority have chosen to opt-out of having any part of their agency fees used for political purposes. And, of those that do not want their fees used for political purposes, an even smaller minority claim that the opt-out procedures do not go far enough.

“If you don’t support advocating for quality public schools for every child, you can opt-out, it’s that simple,” said Charles Hasse, WEA president. “WEA has fought these politically motivated lawsuits for almost 10 years now to protect the right of educators to speak out collectively on political issues that fundamentally affect public education and their employment. We are hopeful the Supreme Court will uphold the decision in our favor."

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The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and
students preparing to become teachers.