Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-1121c4d6.pdf
Page Number: 24

20 

KNOX v. SERVICE EMPLOYEES 

Opinion of the Court 

were  at  least  66.26%  chargeable.    See  Brief  for  Respond- 
ent  5,  n. 6.    This  argument  is  unpersuasive  for  several 
reasons. 

First, the SEIU’s understanding of the breadth of charge- 
able  expenses  is  so  expansive  that  it  is  hard  to  place
much  reliance  on  its  statistics.    In  its  brief,  the  SEIU 
argues  broadly  that  all  funds  spent  on  “lobbying  . . .  the 
electorate”  are  chargeable.    See  id.,  at  51.  But  “lobbying 
. . . the electorate” is nothing but another term for support-
ing  political  causes  and  candidates,  and  we  have  never 
held that the First Amendment permits a union to compel
nonmembers  to  support  such  political  activities.    On  the 
contrary,  as  long  ago  as  Street,  we  noted  the  important 
difference between a union’s authority to engage in collec-
tive  bargaining  and  related  activities  on  behalf  of  non-
member  employees  in  a  bargaining  unit  and  the  union’s
use  of  nonmembers’  money  “to  support  candidates  for 
public  office”  or  “to  support  political  causes  which  [they] 
oppos[e].”  367 U. S., at 768. 

The sweep of the SEIU’s argument is highlighted by its 
discussion of the use of fees paid by objecting nonmembers 
to  defeat  Proposition  76.    According  to  the  SEIU,  these 
expenditures were “germane” to the implementation of its 
contracts  because,  if  Proposition  76  had  passed,  it  would 
have  “effectively  permitted  the  Governor  to  abrogate  the 
Union’s  collective  bargaining  agreements  under  certain
circumstances, undermining the Union’s ability to perform 
its  representation  duty  of  negotiating  effective  collective 
bargaining  agreements.”  Brief  for  Respondent  49–50
(internal quotation marks omitted).

If  we  were  to  accept  this  broad  definition  of  germane-
ness,  it  would  effectively  eviscerate  the  limitation  on  the
use  of  compulsory  fees  to  support  unions’  controversial
political  activities.  Public-employee  salaries,  pensions, 
and  other  benefits  constitute  a  substantial  percentage  of 
the  budgets  of  many  States  and  their  subdivisions.    As  a