Steelworkers union fires back at U.S. Supreme Court decision

The United Steelworkers (USW) union has strongly condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s Wednesday (June 27) 5-4 Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 decision prohibiting unions from collecting fees from non-union members. In a prepared statement, USW President Leo W. Gerard called it an “attack on unions.”

Gerard said the union “strongly condemns today’s split decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to side with big-money interests and harm the ability of public sector workers to collectively bargain for their members’ futures.”

“The 5-4 vote in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 drastically curtails the rights of public sector workers under the law and could trigger a downward spiral in union membership and finances, which is exactly what Janus’ backers hope will happen. Make no mistake, this case was an attack on unions, working people and the causes that the labor movement fights for every day. But no court case will stop unions and their supporters from fighting back against efforts to weaken and divide us.”

Gerard called it an “assault on workers” that was financed “by conservative, right-wing billionaires and the organizations they support, including the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, to undermine the labor movement and the quality family-sustaining jobs that have developed over decades of collective bargaining.”

Gerard said the issue at hand was “the ability of unions in the public sector to collect agency or fair share fees from non-members who benefit from the higher negotiated wages, benefits and working conditions in unionized workplaces.”

Gerard continued: “No worker was required to join a union under this system, and both union members and non-members could opt out of political and other costs not directly associated with bargaining. Yet unions are required to represent those non-member free riders in bargaining and settling work-related problems with employers. If this sounds like an attack to defund unions, that’s because it is.”

Gerard decried the ruling’s overturning of precedent established in 1977’s Abood v. the Detroit Board of Education, which basically affirmed that a union shop, then legal in much of the private sector, was legal in the public sector.

In conclusion, Gerard said this “attack on public sector workers, including teachers and emergency service personnel, must be a wakeup call for all union members and their supporters to stand with our brothers and sisters.”

He concluded: “Now that the anti-union movement has gotten its way in the Janus case, the next likely step for Republicans and the conservative rich is to propose a national right-to-work (for less) law. Unions have proven to be one of the most effective ways to move people from poverty into the middle class, especially for women and minorities. They sustain families and make communities stronger.”

The USW represents 850,000 workers in manufacturing, metals, mining, pulp and paper, rubber, chemicals, glass, auto supply and the energy-producing industries, along with a growing number of workers in public sector and service occupations.