Missouri Supreme Court tosses sweeping ‘paycheck protection’ law after unions sued
The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2018 law that imposed major restrictions on public sector labor unions, including a “paycheck protection” provision that required unions to get members’ approval each year before deducting dues and other fees from their paychecks.
That bill included a last-minute exemption for police and other public safety unions, a carve-out that judges found violates the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.
Writing for a 5-2 majority, Supreme Court Judge Mary Russell ruled that the exemption was so central to the intent of the law, which imposes a variety of restrictions on public sector unions, that the entire statute must be thrown out.
The law, signed by then-Gov. Eric Greitens, was decried by opponents as an attempt to undermine collective bargaining in the public sector. Proponents pushed it as a measure to hold public sector unions accountable for their political activity.
It added requirements to the way unions become certified to represent workers, withhold dues and fees and negotiate contracts. It also prohibited union members from picketing. Unions would have had to be re-certified every three years and ask for permission annually to use dues toward political contributions.
The same year it passed, voters defeated a right-to-work law the General Assembly passed in 2017, which would have prohibited requirements for workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
Seven labor unions, representing teachers, bus drivers, maintenance plant employees and other public sector employees in the St. Louis region, sued the state over the public sector law in August 2018, the day before it was set to go into effect. They argued the law violated several Missouri constitutional rights including those of free speech and assembly, protection against impairment of contracts and the right to organize and bargain collectively.
And they said the exemption for public safety employees was added to the bill to help it gain support for passage. That section, the unions argued, would apply to employees unequally. The law defined public safety unions as those that “wholly or primarily” — but not exclusively — represent such government employees as police, firefighters, paramedics and dispatchers.
Lawyers for the state argued public safety workers can be treated differently, because they “provide critical, life-saving services that protect the public safety and public health.”
But the plaintiff unions argued that some unions representing public safety workers would still be arbitrarily subject to the new requirements. One of the unions that sued represents firefighters and police officers in multiple small cities, but those employees were not a majority of the workers in that union.
The Supreme Court agreed with the unions.
“A labor organization composed of 51 percent public safety employees is similarly situated to a labor organization composed of 49 percent public safety employees,” Russell wrote. The law, “however, would treat the two drastically different.”
Jake Hummel, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO and a Democratic state senator when the law was passed, said he was “happy the courts have thrown it out.” He called the legislation part of a nationwide conservative effort to restrict public sector unions.
“It made workers jump through hoops to be able to maintain their union and to collectively bargain,” he said, in ways that are not required or other workers.
The law’s sponsors, Republicans Rep. Jered Taylor, of Republic, and Sen. Bob Onder, of Lake St. Louis, could not immediately be reached for comment.
