This week the Supreme Court held, in a case called Janus v. AFSCME, that public employees could not be compelled to pay "fair share" fees to the unions that negotiate their contracts with the government, overturning 40 years of precedent. The majority said that to compel public employees to pay anything to the union is a form of compelled speech that violates the First Amendment, because it requires people to subsidize a message with which they may disagree. The decision is likely to weaken the economic power of the unions that represent state and local government employees, which mostly support Democratic candidates.
I oppose forced speech of all kinds, and the decision doesn't bother me -- if we can extend it to other forms of forced economic speech. Consider retirement funds. Private individuals can invest in all sorts of things, but as a practical matter a large pension fund (think of Oregon's Public Employment Retirement System or California's even larger CALPERS fund) must invest most of its capital in the stock market, which more than any other investment provides a reasonable amount of income, appreciation, and liquidity. The stock market is simply a collection of corporations, most of which engage in political speech through lobbyists, public relations, and affiliated political action committees. If we are going to give people the right to opt out of subsidizing political speech with which they disagree, then let's expand the principle, and allow pension funds to compel the corporations in which they hold stock to lay the cost of their political efforts on only those shareholders who agree with them. There's no reason for a government pension fund that holds shares in Wal-Mart to subsidize any of Wal-Mart's political efforts with which the fund's governing board disagrees, for example, efforts to oppose increasing the minimum wage. If compelled political speech is bad when unions do it, it must be equally bad when management does it.
Imagine the fun if PERS could tell Wal-Mart that its board disapproves of Wal-Mart's lobbying efforts and that it insists on being excused from paying for them. If Wal-Mart's political speech costs the shareholders 3 cents/share/year, then PERS could insist on Wal-Mart paying it a special dividend of 3 cents/share/year to compensate for the expense. Shareholders who support Wal-Mart's politics could still pay for the work; shareholders who oppose Wal-Mart's politics wouldn't have to bear the expense.
Fair, as the wags occasionally note, is fair. Why should the law deny government retirement funds a right that the court has granted to government employees? I wouldn't want to suggest that the court's majority might be two-faced about the issue, but the case, fittingly, is named after a plaintiff named Janus.
Recent Comments