Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-1121c4d6.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

Cite as:  567 U. S. ____ (2012) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

the auditors take the union’s characterization for granted
and perform the simple accounting function of “ensur[ing] 
that the expenditures which the union claims it made for 
certain  expenses  were  actually  made  for  those  expenses.” 
Andrews  v.  Education  Assn.  of  Cheshire,  829  F. 2d  335, 
340 (CA2 1987).  Thus, if a union takes a very broad view
of  what  is  chargeable—if,  for  example,  it  believes  that 
supporting  sympathetic  political  candidates  is  chargeable 
and bases its classification on that view—the auditors will 
classify these political expenditures as chargeable.  Object-
ing  employees  may  then  contest  the  union’s  chargeability 
determinations, but the onus is on the employees to come 
up  with  the  resources  to  mount  the  legal  challenge  in  a 
timely fashion.8  See,  e.g.,  Lehnert, 500 U. S., at 513; Jib-
son  v.  Michigan  Ed.  Assn.,  30  F. 3d  723,  730  (CA6  1994).
This is already a significant burden for employees to bear
simply  to  avoid  having  their  money  taken  to  subsidize
speech  with  which  they  disagree,  and  the  burden  would 
become  insupportable  if  unions  could  impose  a  new  as-
sessment  at  any  time,  with  a  new  chargeability  determi-
nation to be challenged. 

2 
The SEIU argues that objecting nonmembers who were
required  to  pay  56.35%  of  the  special  assessment,  far 
from  subsidizing  the  union’s  political  campaign,  actually 
received a windfall.  According to the union’s statistics, the
actual  percentage  of  regular  dues  and  fees  spent  for
chargeable  purposes  in  2005  turned  out  to  be  quite  a  bit 
higher  (66.26%),  and  therefore,  even  if  all  of  the  money 
obtained  through  the  special  assessment  is  classified  as 
nonchargeable,  the  union’s  total  expenditures  for  2005 
—————— 

8 The  dissent  is  comforted  by  the  fact  that  the  union  “has  offered  to
pay  for  neutral  arbitration  of  such  disputes  before  the  American  Arbi-
tration Association,” post, at 9, but the painful burden of initiating and
participating in such disputes cannot be so easily relieved.