10-3835 Harris v. Quinn

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Labor
First Amendment; state employees

A collective bargaining agreement that requires Medicaid home-care personal assistants to pay a fee to a union representative does not violate the First Amendment, regardless of the amount of those fees or how the union uses them.
“Given our conclusion that the State employs the personal assistants, with extensive control over the terms and conditions of employment, and has chosen (wisely or not) to establish some of those terms and conditions through negotiation rather than regulation, the interests identified by the Court in Abood are identical to those advanced by the State in this case. The plaintiffs’ attempts to distinguish Abood are unavailing.”

“Thus, because of the significant control the state exercises over all aspects of the personal assistants’ jobs, we conclude that personal assistants are employees of the State and reject the plaintiffs’ arguments that the State’s interests in collective bargaining do not apply to the unique circumstances of personal assistants. As such, the fair share fees in this case withstand First Amendment scrutiny—at least against a facial challenge to the imposition of the fees itself.”  Affirmed and Remanded.

10-3835 Harris v. Quinn

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Johnson-Coleman, J., Manion, J.

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