Jodee Wright v. Service Employees International Union Local 503, et al.

Oregon’s collective bargaining system puts unions in exclusive control of deducting union dues from public employees’ wages. State employers must presume the accuracy of a union’s representation that employees have consented to dues payments, even if employees in fact have not consented to such deductions. Or. Rev. Stat. § 243.806. Neither Petitioner Wright nor Petitioner Zielinski ever consented to union membership or dues payments. Yet under Oregon’s system, their State employers deducted union dues from their wages relying on the list provided by Service Employees International Union, Local 503 (“SEIU” or “union”). Petitioners brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to challenge Oregon’s dues deduction procedure and seek repayment of unlawfully deducted dues. The Ninth Circuit declined to apply constitutional scrutiny to Oregon’s union dues deduction procedure, holding that the Constitution imposes no duty on government entities to ensure employees affirmatively consent to the government’s deduction of union dues from their wages. Petitioners challenge this holding. The question presented is: Do the constitutional guarantees of Freedom of Speech and Due Process of law create an affirmative duty for government employers to ensure employees’ consent before deducting union dues from employees’ wages? (i)