Anticipating a SCOTUS decision going against it in the case Janus v. AFSCME, which challenges the right of government unions to charge non-members for representing them, the National Education Association (NEA), which embraces a host of leftist positions, is poised to cut its budget by $50 million. In addition, NEA’s budget committee believes it will lose 307,000 members over the next two years because if SCOTUS rules against it, the fees in 22 states derived from workers who don’t become union members but are covered by union agreements will be eliminated.
In 1977, in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, SCOTUS stated that opponents of unions didn’t have to pay the purely political part of union dues, but had to pay the “fair share” portion. But Janus and others supporting his position aver that the kind of issues public employee unions negotiate are inherently political.
As The74million reports, “NEA’s leaders will also propose a change to who counts as a member. A new category called ‘community ally’ would be open to ‘any person who demonstrates support in advancing the cause of public education, who advocates for the mission, vision, and core values of the Association, and who is not eligible for any other membership category.’”
But the idea of a “community ally” may not fly because of the federal Landrum-Griffin Act which states: “Every member of a labor organization shall have equal rights and privileges within such organization to nominate candidates, to vote in elections or referendums of the labor organization, to attend membership meetings and to participate in the deliberations and voting upon the business of such meetings, subject to reasonable rules and regulations in such organization’s constitution and bylaws.”