YSURSA v. POCATELLO EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether public sector unions could require non-union members to pay agency fees to cover the cost of collective bargaining, even if the non-members did not want to support the union.

Action

Reversed. Petitioning party received a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

Idaho’s Right to Work Act permits public employees to authorize payroll deductions for general union dues, but prohibits such deductions for union political activities. Respondents — a group of Idaho public employee unions — sued, alleging that the ban on payroll deductions for political activities violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The federal District Court upheld the ban at the state level, but struck it down as it applies to local governments. In affirming, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that, while Idaho has the ultimate control over local governmental units, it did not actually operate or control their payroll deduction systems. The Ninth Circuit applied strict scrutiny to hold that the statute was unconstitutional as applied at the local level.