LOCKE v. KARASS

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether a local union could constitutionally require non-members to pay agency fees that funded the local union's share of national litigation expenses, even when that litigation did not directly benefit the local union or its members. 

Action

Affirmed (includes modified). Petitioning party did not receive a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

The state of Maine has designated the Maine State Employees Association as the exclusive bargaining agent for certain executive branch employees. A collective-bargaining agreement between Maine and the State Employees Association requires nonmember employees whom the union represents to pay the state employees union a “service fee,” which included a charge that represents the affiliation fee to its national union, the Service Employees International Union. The included charge takes account of the affiliation fee, however, only insofar as the fee helps to pay for the national’s activities that are of a chargeable kind, such as collective-bargaining or contract administration activities. The state employees union does not charge nonmembers for the portion of the affiliation fee that helps pay for the national’s activities of a kind that would not normally be chargeable, such as political, public relations, or lobbying activities.

The Supreme Court has held that, in principle, the government may require this kind of payment without violating the First Amendment. At the same time, the Court has considered the constitutionality of charging for various elements of such a fee, upholding the charging of some elements, such as those related to administering a collective-bargaining contract, while forbidding the charging of other elements (e.g., those related to political expenditures). 

In December 2005, nonmembers challenged in arbitration several aspects of the local’s service fee, including the element at issue here. In 2006, the arbitrator found all aspects of the service fee lawful. Before the arbitrator reached his decision, however, the petitioners, who are nonmembers of the local union, brought this lawsuit in Maine’s federal District Court — also challenging various aspects of the service fee. In particular, petitioners claimed the First Amendment prohibits charging them for any portion of the service fee that represents what we have called “national litigation,” such as litigation that does not directly benefit the local. The District Court, finding no material facts at issue, upheld this element of the fee. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed.

Because of uncertainty among federal courts as to whether (or when) the Constitution permits charging nonmembers for the costs of national litigation, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.