Credit: zimmytws/Shutterstock First Circuit Rejects UMass Law Professor's First Amendment Claims Against Union
"Our conclusion that Peltz-Steele is overreading the passages from Janus in question draws further support from another passage in Janus itself that Peltz-Steele ignores. In explaining that the union's asserted need to charge nonunion employees agency fees to cover the costs of representing such employees in grievance proceedings did not supply a sufficiently compelling state interest to overcome heightened review, the Court noted that unions could instead use a 'less restrictive' system in which nonmember employees pay for such services only if they use them—or simply deny representation to nonmembers in grievance proceedings altogether," Chief Judge David J. Barron wrote on behalf of the unanimous panel.
February 17, 2023 at 09:21 AM
5 minute read
For a third time, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has held that a public employee's First Amendment rights are not infringed when a public employer authorizes a union to serve as the exclusive representative in collective bargaining for employees within that unit.
In the present case, three-judge appellate panel considered an appeal involving a lawsuit filed by Richard J. Peltz-Steele, the chancellor professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth School of Law, who claimed that he was compelled against his will to accept the UMass Faculty Federation, Local 1895, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, as well as his exclusive collective bargaining representative for terms and conditions of his employment. The law professor has declined to join the union or have the union serve as his "'exclusive bargaining representative.'"
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