THINKING ETHICALLY Respond to the Ethical Dilemma Case titled: FREE RIDE OR FREE SPEECH

FREE RIDE OR FREE SPEECH? As this chapter explains, union goals include security provisions, such as agency shops, to ensure a regular flow of union dues. Right-to-work states forbid these provisions, but in Illinois (which is not a right-to-work state), personal care assistants providing services through the state-run programs serving people with disabilities or in rehabilitation were required to pay union dues, whether or not they wanted to join the union. A majority of the personal care assistants had voted to make the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) their representative in 2003. The collective bargaining agreement included a “fair share” provision that required nonmembers of the union to pay not the full amount of dues, but a proportionate share of union costs for collective bargaining and contract administration. Several of the personal care assistants sued the state government, saying the “fair share” provision violated their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association. They lost the case in district court and in the appellate court, but the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed in a 5–4 vote. According to the majority, the concern that workers should not get a free ride does not override concern for workers’ First Amendment rights. Their ruling applied to the particular case of “quasi-public” workers who are paid by but not directly supervised by the government. When a person’s employer is a government entity, the union’s stance in bargaining with that government could conflict with a worker’s political views. The court saw the requirement to support the union by paying dues as potentially forcing people to support the union’s political message over the workers’ own views. The dissenting view emphasized the fairness and protection provided by a system in which a single body representing workers’ interests bargains with the government entity and no workers can take advantage of the resulting benefits for free. According to the SEIU, it could lose up to one-third of the revenue from the affected personal care workers. Given that these workers can continue to enjoy any benefits that the SEIU negotiates on their behalf without paying (their wages have almost doubled since the SEIU started representing them), the union anticipates that it will have many free riders. Some union workers believe that organizing is actually easier without an agency shop, because organizers can point out that no one will be forced to join the union or pay dues. The SEIU’s challenge now is to persuade these workers that union dues are worth the cost.