Flathead reacts to court's union ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled against public-sector unions, striking down 40 years of precedent that allowed states and municipalities to require non-union employees to contribute money to collective bargaining. In the aftermath, lawyers, union leaders and public employers in the Flathead assessed that while the law of the land may change immediately, it will take time to see how those changes will affect organized labor in the valley.

The 5-4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 declared that public-sector unions — such as those organizing teachers, firefighters, police officers and city-county workers — can no longer collect agency fees. The fees, mandatory in 22 states, required public workers who chose to not join a union to pay a “fair share” fee to compensate for a union’s legal obligation to negotiate for all workers, regardless of membership. The fees were intended to counter the “free rider” issue, in which non-union employees enjoy the benefits obtained by collective bargaining without any participation. Wednesday’s decision, however, struck down mandatory fees as a condition of employment on the ground that contributions to a union, no matter the purpose, constitute political speech protected under the First Amendment.

In Montana, where agency fees are left up to the municipality, this means that public employees can, effective immediately, opt out of union membership without expecting a financial penalty.

Duncan Scott, a Kalispell lawyer and vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which represented plaintiff Mark Janus in the Supreme Court case, lauded the decision as “a spirited defense of public employees’ First Amendment rights.”

Scott, who has been involved in the nonprofit advocacy group for over 20 years, said the decision affirms a worker’s right to employment without commitment to a union. “My involvement arises from my belief that nobody should be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. It should be a voluntary arrangement, not a coerced one,” he said.

Others involved in public sector negotiation were more reserved in their judgment.

The ruling will have no immediate impact for the Kalispell city government, according to city attorney Charles Harball. The city contracts with three unions — the fire, police and AFSCME — representing a total of 134 employees.

At this point, employees looking to leave the union would need to indicate that they were opting out of the agreement, said Harball. Regardless, “they would currently be under the current contract,” which expires next year, at the earliest. “Nothing changes in terms of pay schedules or anything else,” he said.

Doug Schwartz, president of the IAFF Local 547, Kalispell’s chapter of the fire department union, expressed disappointment in the ruling but did not see any imminent changes in the membership of the fire union. “In the foreseeable future, I don’t see this having a huge impact for us locally or in our area,” he said.

“People in our local know about it, and the biggest message for our folks is that we want people to see the value of being a member of our unit, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of accomplishing that over time.”

Eric Feaver, president of the Montana Federation of Public Employees — an umbrella organization with 25,000 members which includes all school districts in the Flathead, the Whitefish Police Department, and FVCC employees — said that the ruling’s bottom line is simple, and applies in the Flathead as it does across Montana and the country at large: those who did not join the union but paid agency fees to go toward collective bargaining no longer have to pay. Those fees, he said, were roughly 70 to 75 percent of union membership dues, which are calculated on a sliding scale based on what an employee earns.

Looking ahead, Feaver said, the MFPE union will have to adjust to a dip in revenue as some of the 2,000 fee-paying nonmembers cease to contribute financially. “We actually receive revenue from fee-payers that we spend on their behalf. Now we don’t get that but we still bargain on their behalf,” said Feaver. “It does depress our budget. But I think we will survive.”

In the Flathead, leaders of the teachers’ union and contract negotiators are waiting for the dust to settle on what some have characterized as a serious blow to collective bargaining rights, but maintain cautious optimism regarding union participation.

“Right now, I think all of us are waiting to see how [the Janus decision] will impact,” said Tracy Scott, human resources director for Kalispell Public Schools. “We won’t know until we see how employees react.

“The one thing that we are hoping as a district is that employees understand the value of unions and what they bring to the organization,” she added.

Lynn Ryder, president of the Kalispell Education Association, which represents Kalispell public school teachers, said that there would be no immediate effect for teachers, but expressed concern over future contract benefits if union participation waned. “Without collective bargaining and without union support,” she said, “there probably isn’t going to be the cost of living raises and the job security and the benefits.”

“You don’t want to have a group of people who are negotiating for you and not put anything into it. I really believe in my heart that people don’t want a free ride. If there’s a negotiating body that’s helping them and supporting them, that they’ll pay that fair share.”

Reporter Adrian Horton can be reached at ahorton@dailyinterlake.com or at 758-4439.