Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf
Page Number: 72.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

17 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

tices  who  originally  objected  to  Abood  conceded  that  the 
use of agency fees for bargaining on “economic issues” like 
“salaries and pension benefits” would not raise significant 
First  Amendment  questions.  431  U. S.,  at  263,  n. 16 
(Powell,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment).    Of  course,  most  of 
those  issues  have  budgetary  consequences:  They  “affect[ ] 
how public money is spent.”  Ante, at 29.  And some raise 
important  non-budgetary disputes; teacher  merit pay is  a
good  example,  see  ante,  at  30.
  But  arguing  about  the 
terms  of  employment  is  still  arguing  about  the  terms  of 
employment: The workplace remains both the context and
the  subject  matter  of  the  expression.    If  all  that  speech
really  counted  as  “of  public  concern,”  as  the  majority 
suggests, the mass of public employees’ complaints (about
pay  and  benefits  and  workplace  policy  and  such)  would 
become  “federal  constitutional  issue[s].”    Guarnieri,  564 
U. S., at 391.  And contrary to decades’ worth of precedent,
government  employers  would  then  have  far  less  control 
over  their  workforces  than  private  employers  do.    See 
supra, at 9–11. 

Consider  an  analogy,  not  involving  union  fees:  Suppose
a government entity disciplines a group of (non-unionized) 
employees for agitating for a better health plan at various
inopportune times and places.  The better health plan will
of  course  drive  up  public  spending;  so  according  to  the 
majority’s analysis, the employees’ speech satisfies Picker-
ing’s “public concern” test.  Or similarly, suppose a public 
employer  penalizes  a  group  of  (non-unionized)  teachers
who protest merit pay in the school cafeteria.  Once again,
the majority’s logic runs, the speech is of “public concern,”
so the employees have a plausible First Amendment claim. 
(And indeed, the majority appears to concede as much, by
asserting  that  the  results  in  these  hypotheticals  should
turn on various “factual detail[s]” relevant to  the interest 
balancing  that  occurs  at  the  Pickering  test’s  second  step. 
Ante,  at  32,  n. 23.)    But  in  fact,  this  Court  has  always