“The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to labor unions on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the labor organizations representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public-sector workers to pay union fees.
Writing the majority 5-4 opinion, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. concluded that there was a category of government employee — a partial public employee — who can opt out of joining a union and not be required to contribute dues to that labor group.
Justice Alito wrote that home-care aides who typically work for an ill or disabled person, with Medicaid paying their wages, should be classified as partial public employees and should not be treated the same way as public-school teachers or police officers who work directly for the government.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here from Steven Greenhouse / NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/business/supreme-court-ruling-on-public-workers-and-union-fees.html