Janus v. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, Council 31

POSNER-, Circuit Judge.

In Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209, 97 S.Ct. 1782, 52 L.Ed.2d 261 (1977), the Supreme Court upheld, against a challenge based on the First Amendment, a Michigan law that allowed a public employer (in that case a municipal board of education), whose employees (public-school teachers) were represented by a union, to require those of its employees who did not join the union nevertheless to pay fees to it because they benefited from the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the employer. The fees could only be great enough to cover the cost of the…