The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Wednesday in Janus v. AFSCME that nonunion workers cannot be forced to pay fees to public sector unions.
The case, one of the most hotly anticipated of the term, is the second in two days to hand a major victory to conservatives, following Tuesday’s ruling by the high court that President Donald Trump’s travel ban is constitutional. Some experts had said a finding in favor of the plaintiff, Mark Janus, would be the most significant court decision affecting collective bargaining in decades.
Janus, an employee at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, asked the court last summer to overrule a 40-year-old Supreme Court decision. It found that public sector unions could require employees affected by their negotiations to pay so-called agency fees, which have also been called “fair share fees.”
