24
NEW JERSEY COPS ■ AUGUST 2014
U.S. Supreme Court decides Harris v. Quinn
The U.S. Supreme Court in its opinion in Harris v. Quinn has
declined to extend its earlier ruling in the 1977 Abood v. Detroit
Board of Education case to allow public sector employee unions
to charge an “agency fee” or “fair share” fee to certain “personal assistant” (“PA”) employees
who are in a state-recognized
The
bargaining unit, but who choose
to not join the union.
The Court did not overrule
Representing
Abood, which does allow public
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sector unions to charge an
agency or fair share fee to nonunion members of the bargaining unit, but the Court did call
the rationale underlying Abood into question.
The very limited specific holding in the case seemed to turn
on the fact that the home health care providers, (“Personal
Assistants” or “PAs”), were not traditional public employees,
and the union (in this case SEIU) was not functioning as a fullfledged labor union with respect to the PAs.
NAPO filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the Court”) brief with
the Supreme Court in this case, urging the Court not to overrule
Abood, and in that regard we were successful. However, the very
likely upshot of the Court’s limited ruling will be increased challenges by public employers, including police departments, to
agency fees and fair share fees collected by public unions,
including police unions and associations.
Report
Police unions and associations will need to be prepared to
argue persuasively that law enforcement officers are certainly
core public employees, much different than the PAs in this case,
and also argue that the police unions and associations themselves effectively provide a far greater scope of services in terms
of bargaining, contract enforcement, grievances and arbitrations than did the PAs’ union.
Here is a link to the Court’s opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/11-681_j426.pdf.
NAPO Attends CPRS Board Meeting & Hill Meetings
NAPO’s Executive Director, Bill Johnson, attended a Coalition
to Preserve Retirement Security (CPRS) Board Meeting on July
9. Johnson serves as the national Public Safety representative to
the Coalition. The Board discussed the state of the mandatory
Social Security issue. The meeting included the Vice Chair of the
El Paso County, Colorado Board of County Commissioners, Ms.
Amy Lathen, who discussed her group’s desire to enact legislation that would reinstate the Section 218 Option – effectively
reestablishing the ability of public employees to opt out of
Social Security. The Senior Vice President of SEGAL, Ms. Cathie
Eitelberg, also provided information on the impact of mandatory