Public Employees Deprived of Stolen Dues Refunds in California

Under the 2018 National Right to Work Legal Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Local 31 landmark Supreme Court ruling, public employees won the right to discontinue having to pay dues to a labor union against their will.  National Right to Work Legal Foundation attorney William Messenger continued the battle with lawsuits to recover forced dues already taken from their paychecks, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied employees this right.  Bob Egelko has the story on the sfchronicle.com.

Nonunion government workers who won a Supreme Court decision last year exempting them from paying unions for the cost of representing them at the bargaining table are not entitled to refunds of the dues they’ve already paid, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

Nonunion members then filed damage suits to recover past dues payments, sums estimated by their lawyers at more than $120 million nationwide. The suits have been unsuccessful in lower federal courts so far, and on Thursday the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco became the second appellate circuit to reject the nonmembers’ claims.