[EL] Serious Question About Knox v. SEIU

[Scarberry, Mark]

Three quick comments in response to Larry and others:

1. Non-union employees of an union-organized workforce generally must pay their share of the costs of the collective bargaining services provided by the union. That system was devised to keep the employee who refuses to join the union from getting a free ride. Non-members do indeed pay precisely for the collective bargaining services that they are provided. Thus they are in a real sense consumers of such services and are entitled to receive the same benefits that union members receive as a result of the collective bargaining. The question here is whether they should have to pay additional costs such as the costs of union political activity. Knox involved a special assessment solely devoted to political purposes.

2. The idea that it is only union pressure that keeps a 40 hour workweek etc. is difficult to believe these days when so few private employees are union members.

3. It is at least debatable whether the massive increase in unionization in the public sector is beneficial. Even FDR thought that it did not make sense to have public employee unions.

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
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