Melodie DePierro v. Las Vegas Police Protective Association Metro, Inc., et al.

Melodie DePierro is a police officer in the State of Nevada who exercised her First Amendment right not to support union speech under Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448, 2486 (2018). She did this by resigning her union membership, by revoking any authorization for her government employer to deduct union dues from her wages, and by objecting to subsidizing union speech. The government and union defied DePierro’s demands and continued to seize union dues from her pursuant to a provision in their collective bargaining agreement that prohibits employees from stopping deductions of union dues except during a twenty-day window period. DePierro never consented to this restriction on when she could exercise her First Amendment right to stop subsidizing union speech. The question presented is: Can the government and a union restrict when employees can exercise their First Amendment right not to subsidize union speech without the employees’ affirmative consent to the restriction?