Republican candidate Allen Skillicorn, running for Illinois’ 66th State House district, supported teacher Rebecca Friedrichs's union-related fight for fundamental free speech — a case that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court — today from East Dundee.
Friedrichs, the lead plaintiff of a California teachers group, alleges compulsory union dues violate First Amendment rights, forcing individuals to financially back an organization they disagree with. Although geographically distant, the case could have repercussions in Illinois, Skillicorn said, because an old law on the books currently permits public sector unions to force membership and deduct dues from paychecks.
“Teachers like Rebecca Friedrichs have the right to freedom of speech and the freedom to associate just like non-union employees,” Skillicorn said. “They shouldn’t be forced to subsidize a political organization that violates their core [principles]. This is about the basic freedom of individual citizens.”
If Friedrichs’s case is successful, it will set an historic precedent for a new level of autonomy among workers to freely choose their affiliations and not be governed by automatic obligations. Unions are said to oppose the case, based on the obvious financial impacts that would result in lost revenue to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of Friedrich and her peers, it would reverse a previous decades-old decision that has allowed not only teachers, but also police, firefighters, health-care workers and government staffers to pay “fair share fees” to unions nationwide since 1977.
In that year, the Supreme Court maintained that demanding fees for non-union members was constitutional. But in recent times, at least five justices of the nation’s highest court have indicated willingness to reverse the decision.
Friedrichs teaches third grade in Buena Park, California, a suburb of Anaheim.
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