WASHINGTON D.C. - The U.S. Supreme Court slammed the door shut this year on the possibility of it overturning one of its most significant pro-union legal decisions in decades.

On June 28, the High Court denied a petition from nine California public school teachers to rehear their First Amendment challenge to mandatory union fees. The first key decision in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case, handed down March 29, upholds lower court rulings for the teachers and for unions’ right to collect agency fees.

The Friedrichs case is important to workers nationwide because dissenters claimed that even “agency fees” – fees that non-members of bargaining units, called “free riders” – pay to cover required union services like contract bargaining and grievances violated their free speech rights. They sued to overturn the fees.

The anti-union, anti-worker National Right to Work Committee funded the dissenting California teachers who sued, and had the RTW committee, Rebecca Friedrichs and the other complainers won, every state and local worker would potentially be a free rider, depriving unions of millions of dollars they need to defend all workers. Lower federal courts sided with the teachers association.

Unions appeared headed for a 5-4 loss in the High Court after the Jan. 11 argument of the case. But Justice Antonin Scalia, leader of the court’s conservative bloc, all named by Republican presidents, died a month later, and no successor has been confirmed. But the 4-4 Supreme Court decision upheld a lower court ruling, giving labor unions and workers a huge victory.

Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, the nonprofit public interest law firm representing the plaintiffs in the case, told EdSource he “was greatly disappointed” in the court’s decision not to rehear the case and added, "today’s decision was not a decision on the merits of our case nor was it accompanied by an opinion,” he said. “We continue to believe that forcing individuals to subsidize political speech with which they disagree violates the First Amendment. We will look for opportunities to challenge compulsory union dues laws in other cases and continue our efforts to stand up for the rights of teachers and public sector workers across the country.”

On Labor said that while the June 28 Supreme Court announcement effectively brings the case to a close, the questions presented by Friedrichs including whether public-sector “fair share” payment of union dues arrangements should be invalidated under the First Amendment, and whether it violates the First Amendment to require that public employees affirmatively opt out of subsidizing nonchargeable speech by public-sector unions — may be litigated again and brought back before a (presumably full) Court in the future."