The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a union at a public university is violating employees’ First Amendment rights by requiring them to affirmatively object on a yearly basis to paying certain union fees.
As a geology professor at Brooklyn College, David Seidemann was obliged to pay “agency fees” to the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York (PSC/CUNY) to help cover the cost of the union’s collective bargaining activities. But Seidemann, who did not wish to join the union, objected to additional charges he claimed were not related to the collective bargaining process.
