Now, as John Hinderaker reports at Powerline, another case is making its way before the court and it’s dealing with the same set of issues. Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31 is expected to be heard by the Supremes and this time Neil Gorsuch is on the case and the unions are bracing for defeat. If the practice of mandatory dues (which is actually much closer to extortion than anything else) is shot down, unions around the country will be in for some hard times.

As John explains, this has some of them making preemptive moves to avoid bleeding out all that money.

This is a remarkably sneaky maneuver on the part of the teachers union there. Rather than allowing the teachers to decide on how their money will be spent in the political arena themselves, the union is asking teachers to sign a pledge effectively locking them into mandatory dues contributions for years to come. Here’s the pledge in question: (Emphasis in original)

If, as the unions anticipate, many of the teachers simply sign the card as one more piece of typical union business, they will lock themselves into having the cash deducted from their paychecks (even if they leave the union entirely). The only way out of the contract is to remember to submit a formal written request and they are only giving themselves a one week period each year to do so. And that one week window opens at the end of September, just when teachers are probably getting into high gear with their students shortly after the start of the new school year.