Limits on the Use of Union Dues: Washington v. Washington Education Association - Event Audio
Labor & Employment Law Practice Group and Free Speech & Election Law Practice Group
Labor & Employment Law Practice Group and Free Speech & Election Law Practice Group
In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Communications Workers of America v. Beck, that employees could not be compelled to pay dues to their union which were being used for political activities. The State of Washington has since enacted legislation prohibiting the use of dues collected from non-union employees to cover political activities without their express consent to do so. The Washington Supreme Court vacated the statute on constitutional grounds, and the State of Washington appealed. The case will be argued next Wednesday before the United States Supreme Court. Our panelists, some of whom will argue the case that morning, will explore the merits of the case, including its First Amendment implications, and answer questions not addressed during the oral arguments.
Speakers Included:
Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Location: The National Press Club
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Since 1976, Milton L. Chappell has been a staff attorney with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a non-profit legsl aid organization located in Springfield, Virginia. During his 38 years of practice, he has specialized in representing nonunion public employees and teachers in litigation before the United States Supreme Court, and other federal and state courts and administrative agencies, against the abuses of compulsory unionism. The litigation has resulted in the establishment of procedures and notices that assist nonunion teachers in reducing the amount of their compulsory union fees the public sector unions spend on political and other non-collective bargaining activities that his clients oppose. In addition to representing clients claiming a political objection to joining or financially supporting a labor union, he has also represented clients claiming a religious objection to unions, as well as defending against numerous union attacks on the Right to Work laws passed in Indiana and Michigan, and Wisconsin’s Act 10, which includes right to work protection for most public employees. Mr. Chappell is an expert in constitutional and labor law, especially the First Amendment. Mr. Chappell has represented clients in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
Mr. Chappell is a member of the following bars: Maryland, the District of Columbia, United States Supreme Court, United States Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and District of Columbia Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Districts of Maryland, Northern California, Western Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. He is the author of “From Abood to Tierney: The Protection on Nonunion Employees in an Agency Shop,” 15 Ohio Northern University Law Review 1 (1988) and “Seeking a New Foundation,” 16 Government Union Review 1 (1995). He is coauthor of “Protecting the Rights of State Employees Against Compulsory Unionism,” California Public Employee Relations 143 (August 2000).
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.