The other day, these pages called for New York to stand up for teachers by letting them decide for themselves whether they are going to pay their union dues.
We were referring to the automatic deduction on teacher paychecks, which the city pays for and manages — and which guarantees the union money for all its political efforts whether or not its members approve.
The day The Post editorial appeared, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that takes this issue far beyond teachers.
In Harris v. Quinn, plaintiff Pam Harris is an Illinois mother who cares for her developmentally disabled son, Josh, at home. Josh receives Medicaid money. Though his mom never joined the Service Employees International Union — with whose politics she disagrees — thanks to decrees by Govs. Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn, she was declared a public employee.
Translation: She has to pay union dues. Which means that some of Josh’s payments from Medicaid are siphoned off and sent to the SEIU.
Harris says this is unfair, and violates her rights to both free speech and free association. She is absolutely right.
In a decision back in 1977, the high court said workers could be forced to pay dues that go to collective bargaining, but that they didn’t have to pay for money used for political activities.
But as we see in New York, when the union is a public-workers union, this line between political and non-political becomes harder to draw.
For example, when the SEIU calls on Mayor de Blasio — its choice in the last election — to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund universal pre-K, how is that not political speech?
In many ways, the Supreme Court case echoes Mayor BloomÂberg’s parting warning about the labor-electoral complex that cannot function without forced dues.
Bloomberg was right. And as more and more workers like Pam Harris are effectively forced into public-sector unions they must financially support, it’s time for the Court to restore the balance in favor of their First Amendment rights to decide what organizations they want to join and which they will financially support.