The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments today on a case that could end mandatory union dues and fees for public sector workers, which are currently required in about half the states in the country.

The case is Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, and involves whether requiring teachers and other government employees to pay union dues or fees violates their right to free speech. Rebecca Friedrichs and her fellow plaintiffs are California teachers who have been forced by law to pay a union as a condition of their employment in a public school.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are expected to emphasize that when the employer is a government entity, collective bargaining becomes an inherently political act, and cannot be funded with coerced union dues without violating workers’ free speech rights.

Because public employee unions collectively bargain with governments over taxpayer money, public workers, and public services, they are inherently political organizations and are engaging in political speech, the plaintiffs assert. For this reason, forcing employees to pay for such speech violates their rights.

Attorneys for the unions defend mandatory dues on the grounds of contributing to labor peace. They insist that the government’s interests as an employer outweigh any First Amendment concerns from workers who disagree with union negotiating demands or tactics.

In recent weeks, union officials have organized a public-relations campaign to portray the case as an attack waged by shadowy CEOs who want to limit workers’ ability to unionize.

But the plaintiffs aren’t asking the Court to make it more difficult for anyone to form, join, or collectively bargain through a union. The case is about giving every worker a choice, Mackinac Center labor policy director Vinnie Vernuccio said.

“For unions themselves, this is not a huge deal,” Vernuccio said.

“We’re talking about workers in roughly half the states in the country getting the same rights as workers in the other half,” he said. “Of those workers, about 20 percent are likely to exercise those rights.”

Vernuccio agrees with the Friedrichs plaintiffs that collective bargaining by public employee unions is inherently political. Taxpayer resources are finite and any debate over their use amounts to politics workers should not be required to support, he said.

“From a public policy standpoint, do you do merit pay? Pay based on seniority? All those are political questions when it comes to the public sector,” he said.

Vernuccio emphasized that a victory for Friedrichs would not restrict unions’ ability to negotiate over pay, benefits, or working conditions. It would simply let public employees choose whether to financially support the union’s positions. He believes this could give public employee unions an incentive to be more responsive to their members. A ruling for the plaintiffs “isn’t going to be a huge death knell to the unions like they’re trying to make it out to be,” Vernuccio concluded.

Friedrichs and two of her co-plaintiffs explained their position in a recent video.

Public employee unions have a legal precedent on their side with the Court’s 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Based heavily on the rationale of labor peace, the Abood decision permits public employee unions to collect mandatory fees in most states that do not have right-to-work laws.

A decision is expected in June. The Court could reverse the Abood, or it could allow unions to continue requiring workers to pay for collective bargaining costs but simplify the process for workers who want to opt out of fees that pay for other union activities.

For more details about Friedrichs v. CTA, visit mackinac.org/friedrichs.

Union officials haven’t found a very receptive audience for their warnings of a doomsday scenario in a legal case about making teachers pay dues in order to keep their jobs. The case is called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association and it is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has scheduled oral arguments next week.

According to America Works Together — a coalition formed in September by the nation’s largest public sector unions — the case is an “attack from wealthy special interests,” intended to “make it even harder for people to come together, speak up, and get ahead.”

But after spending more than a month of work by professional labor organizers asking workers to sign a petition opposing the “attack,” unions with a combined membership of more than 7 million have collected just 100,000 signatures.

Even if more had signed, though, it may not be a valid indicator of support for the union position in the Friedrichs case. That’s because the issues there are completely different from the items in the petition’s text.

“Sign this petition and join us as we tell the Center for Individual Rights that we will not let corporate CEOs and the wealthy special interests stop us from banding together and forming unions to make our lives better,” a web version of the petition created by the American Federation of Teachers implores.

In a video recorded for America Works Together, Richard Trumka asked AFL-CIO’s 12.4 million members to “stand up for our working families” against “billionaires and wealthy CEOs like the Koch Brothers” by opposing the Friedrichs case.

Though Charles and David Koch are not funding the Friedrichs case, they are featured villains throughout America Works Together campaign materials.

The case before the Court was brought by California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and several colleagues. The suit claims that mandatory union fees violate her free speech rights by forcing her to support inherently political union bargaining over pay, benefits, and working conditions for public teachers. She is asking for the freedom to opt out without losing her job.

A Supreme Court win would ensure Friedrichs and other public employees can choose for themselves whether to support a labor union.

Days before oral arguments are heard at the Supreme Court, the AFT, Service Employees International Union, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees hauled printouts of the petition signatures to offices of the Center for Individual Rights, the nonprofit legal services organization representing the plaintiffs.

The unions presented the names as evidence of widespread member opposition to the claims of the schoolteachers in the Friedrichs case. The number of signatures is roughly 1 percent of the unions' collective membership.

Alix Freeze, senior communications director for the Association of American Educators, said union leaders are looking out for themselves while claiming to speak for their members.

“This case has absolutely nothing to do with unions’ ability to organize or collectively bargain,” Freeze said. “It would simply give teachers and other public employees a choice in whether they want to support a union or not.”

“AAE was founded on that principle, that teachers should have a choice – teachers are academic professionals who should choose an organization that best aligns with their budget and their beliefs,” she added.

“There are thousands of teachers all across the country who feel strongly that Rebecca is in the right here,” Freeze said.

Freeze pointed to a 2015 National Employee Freedom Week survey in which 75 percent of union members said they believe workers should “have the right to decide, without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union.”

If Friedrichs and her fellow plaintiffs win, that position would become a reality in the states where there is no right-to-work law in place to protect workers from having to pay mandatory union fees or else lose their jobs.

Oral arguments in Friedrichs v. CTA are scheduled for Monday.