State workers previously paying “fair share” fees no longer have money deducted from their paychecks on behalf of a union.
On June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court declared forced union fees violate the First Amendment rights of government workers.
And some state workers are already taking home more money.
Prior to the court’s decision, Illinois state workers who opted out of union membership still had to pay “fair share” fees to the union. Those fees totaled over $700 a year on average, according to an email sent by the Illinois Department of Central Management Services to state employees on June 27.
But after the court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that those fees violate workers’ rights, the state announced it would stop deducting fair share fees from workers who had already opted out of the union.