A public-sector union allegedly violated an employee's First Amendment rights when it denied her request to stop paying union dues, according to a recent ruling from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case challenged a New Jersey law that limited employees to a 10-day window each year to revoke their union dues authorization.
On Nov. 7, the circuit court partially agreed with the plaintiff and sent the case back to the lower courts to be reviewed. It rejected the employee's petition for a preventive injunction to stop the future collection of union dues from her paycheck. It also rejected her call for a declaratory judgment that the state's 10-day requirement was unconstitutional.
"It really was a matter of standing, whether she had standing to sue, and the court found she did," said Melody Rayl, an attorney with Fisher Phillips in Kansas City, Mo.
Background
In July 2018, a nurse at the county-run Essex County Hospital Center in New Jersey requested to resign from her union and cease paying union dues. A state law required such requests to be made within a 10-day period each year. The time window had expired when she made her first request, so the union denied it. The next time the 10-day period opened, the nurse asked again to stop her payments to the union, and her request was granted.
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