Mandatory Agency Dues: Beneficial or a First Amendment Violation?

Unions have long been recognized as a major cornerstone to American culture – they have helped ensure fair wages, hours, and benefits for American workers for over a century. However, the question has continuously come up in legal discourse of whether unions modernly maintain their importance and effectiveness as exclusive bargaining representatives. This question raises an array of issues – one of those being whether public employees should be required to pay union dues when they are not members and do not support the union. A case recently before the Supreme Court could end laws in 22 states that requires public employees to pay “agency fees” to a union regardless of whether they are members of the union or wish to support it. The case raised the question of whether unions are adequately and accurately representing the real interests of the public employees they are meant to represent