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12  JANUS v. STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES 

Opinion of the Court 

that the pandemonium it imagined would result if agency
fees  were  not  allowed,  and  it  is  now  clear  that  Abood’s 
fears  were  unfounded.  The  Abood  Court  assumed  that 
designation  of  a  union  as  the  exclusive  representative  of 
all the employees in a unit and the exaction of agency fees 
are inextricably linked, but that is simply not true.  Har-
ris, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 31). 

The  federal  employment  experience  is  illustrative. 
Under  federal  law,  a  union  chosen  by  majority  vote  is 
designated  as  the  exclusive  representative  of  all  the  em­
ployees, but federal law does not permit agency fees.  See 
5 U. S. C. §§7102, 7111(a), 7114(a).  Nevertheless, nearly a
million federal employees—about 27% of the federal work 
force—are  union  members.1    The  situation  in  the  Postal 
Service is similar.  Although permitted to choose an exclu­
sive  representative,  Postal  Service  employees  are  not 
required  to  pay  an  agency  fee,  39  U. S. C.  §§1203(a), 
1209(c),  and  about  400,000  are  union  members.2    Like­
wise,  millions  of  public  employees  in  the  28  States  that 
have laws generally prohibiting agency fees are represented 
by  unions  that  serve  as  the  exclusive  representatives  of
all the employees.3  Whatever may have been the case 41 
years  ago  when  Abood  was  handed  down,  it  is  now  unde­
niable that “labor peace” can readily be achieved “through
means  significantly  less  restrictive  of  associational  free­
doms” than the assessment of agency fees.  Harris, supra, 
at ___ (slip op., at 30) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

—————— 

1 See  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  (BLS),  Labor  Force  Statistics  From 
the  Current  Population  Survey 
(2017),  https://www
.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm (all Internet materials as visited June 26, 2018). 
2 See  Union  Membership  and  Coverage  Database  From  the  Current 

(Table  42) 

Population Survey (Jan. 21, 2018), unionstats.com. 

3 See National Conference of State Legislatures, Right-to-Work States
http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-to­

(2018), 
work-laws-and-bills.aspx#chart;  see  also,  e.g.,  Brief  for  Mackinac 
Center for Public Policy as Amicus Curiae 27–28, 34–36.