Monday’s Big Supreme Court Case Will Decide the Future of Public Sector Unions
26th February 2018
Mark Janus remembers getting his first pay check from the Illinois Department of Public Health, where he works as a bookkeeper, and wondering about the $50 fee deducted to pay dues to a union he’d never agreed to join.
More than a decade later, the disagreement over that fee has brought Janus before the U.S. Supreme Court, as the plaintiff in a case that could change the landscape of public sector unionism in the United States. The high court will hear oral arguments in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees(AFSCME) on Monday morning. Janus and his attorneys are asking the court to overturn a previous decision and “declare [mandatory public sector union] fees unconstitutional.”