As school-district officials weigh whether and how to reopen schools this fall during the continuing threat from Covid-19, negotiations with teachers unions will pose a key challenge. Unions at the local level have already shaped districts’ remote-learning strategies during the shutdown, pushing back in some places against what they see as unfair demands on teachers trying to deliver instruction via videoconferencing. At the national level, leaders of the nation’s two biggest teachers unions warned in April that they would consider strikes and mass protests if schools reopen without adequate safety protections. Buoyed by a series of successful strikes in 2018 and 2019, the unions seem to be negotiating from a position of strength—which is perhaps surprising, in light of a June 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that dealt a serious blow to public-sector unions.
In Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, the court struck down state laws requiring non-union-member public employees to pay “agency fees” to unions that are their “exclusive bargaining representative.” The reason, according to the five-justice majority: such laws violate the First Amendment rights of employees by “compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.”
Read the full article in the Washington Post