Justices take up dispute over union fees

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will consider limiting the power of government employee unions to collect fees from nonmembers in a case that labor officials say could threaten membership and further weaken union clout.

The justices said today they will hear an appeal from a group of California teachers who say it violates their First Amendment rights to have to pay any fees if they disagree with a union's positions and don't want to join it.

The teachers want the court to overturn a 38-year-old legal precedent that said unions can require no-members to pay for bargaining costs as long as the fees don't go toward political purposes. Public workers in half the states currently are required to pay "fair share" fees if they are represented by a union, even if they are not members.

But the high court has raised doubts about the viability of that regime in two cases over the past four years. The court has stopped short of overturning the 1977 case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education case, but in a 5-4 opinion last year, Justice Samuel Alito called Abood "questionable on several grounds."