There was a second major decision from the Supreme Court last Monday, not as bright a bauble as HobbyLobby but with equally dark implications. In Harris v. Quinn, the court holds that a public employees union may not collect an "agency fee" from a group of home health care providers who do not wish to join or support a union.

Quinn is the Governor of Illinois. Because payment to the system of home-health workers is through Medicaid, they are paid by the state, but their "employers" are considered to be the shut-ins and elderly whom they tend. Ms Harris provides health care in a home (her own home, as it happens). The rate at which she is paid was negotiated with the state by the SEIU, a public service employees union, on behalf of all the home-healthcare workers, many of whom are members but some of whom are not.

Union members pay dues, but non-members in the same job categories receive the negotiated compensation, and benefit in other ways from union representation. The union has been collecting an "agency fee" from non-members (withheld from their paychecks) for this representation, under a 1977 ruling. The State of Illinois is happy to have a single representative of the workers with whom to deal, and happy to have the services provided in-home at significantly lower costs than would be the case in nursing homes.

This again was a 5-4 decision, and once again offers justice writ small, finding that the group are only partially public employees, and therefore not really covered by the existing law. The Court held that the contract provision requiring payment of the fair share of the costs of the services violated the government employees' First Amendment rights to be free from providing financial support to collective bargaining.

This rather than justice writ large, where the state, the people doing the work, and the community all benefit from the present arrangement. And a (new for the Court) intrusion into state law. Justice Alito and his colleagues, five men, find another opportunity to go small, in a decision affecting low-wage, mostly women, mostly women of color.

Dave Sagarin (July 3, 2014)