On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which disallowed public-sector unions from extracting agency fees from non-consenting employees, two class-action lawsuits were filed in federal court in Ohio.
Nathaniel Ogle, an employee of the Ohio Department of Taxation, filed the first suit, Ogle v. Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, AFSCME, Local 11, Case No. 2:18-CV-1227. He did not agree to be a member of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 11 (and was never a member) but was still charged agency fees for union representation. He is asking the court to require his union to refund the fees, with interest, that were unconstitutionally extracted from his paycheck. Although not entirely clear at this early stage of the lawsuit, Ogle may be making a case that he is owed a refund for deductions he believes were unconstitutional even before Janus was decided in June 2018. He is also asking the court to declare unconstitutional the Ohio statute that requires employees to pay fair share fees as a condition of employment and to permanently enjoin his union from requiring nonmembers to pay union dues without their consent.
The second suit was filed by a group of individuals employed by various state and local Ohio government agencies, also claiming violations under the new ruling outlined in Janus. In Smith v. ASFCME Council 8, Case No. 2:18-CV-1226, seven government employees resigned their membership from their union after Janus was decided, but their union continued to deduct dues. The union claims that its policy requires an employee seeking to change his or her dues deduction to do so with a 15-day period before the new collective bargaining agreement takes effect. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the union’s resignation policy unconstitutional and are seeking an injunction to stop the union from collecting the agency fees from non-consenting employees.
These cases are two of many filed nationwide by the National Right to Work Foundation on behalf of public employees after the Janus decision. The results of these suits, as well as those filed in other states, will provide guidance about the true impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus.