Thompson v. Marietta Education Association

CASE SUMMARY

“Jade Thompson is a public high school Spanish teacher in Marietta, Ohio. Her union—the Marietta Education Association (MEA)—bargains for numerous policies with which she disagrees. . . . The Buckeye Institute filed its petition for certiorari in Thompson v. Marietta Education Association with the United States Supreme Court. Buckeye’s petition calls on the Court to hear this important First Amendment case and end laws forcing public-sector employees to accept a union’s unwanted representation.” ­– The Buckeye Institute

The United States Supreme Court is currently considering whether to grant certiorari in this case. The Fairness Center filed an amicus brief encouraging the Supreme Court to hear the case, as certain clients of the Fairness Center have been injured by imposition of an exclusive representative into working relationships between employer and employee, showing how important it is for the Supreme Court to weigh in on this issue.

The Fairness Center provided free representation to two Pennsylvanians who challenged a similar scheme that began in Pennsylvania in 2015. One client was a homecare worker who has provided in-home care to his employer, whose muscular dystrophy rendered him quadriplegic, for over 25 years; the homecare worker was not a state employee. After Pennsylvania’s governor issued an executive order paving the way for the unionizing of 20,000 private employees like our client who provide in-home care, the Fairness Center filed a lawsuit, Smith v. Wolf, on our clients’ behalf. The Fairness Center’s clients initially succeeded in having the executive order enjoined, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately allowed it to stand as a “permissible exercise of gubernatorial power,” allowing a union to insert itself into the relationship between 20,000 homecare workers and the disabled and elderly persons who employ them—whether they want it or not.

If you believe you have been hurt by a public-sector union official and would like to speak with the Fairness Center, please click here.

Thompson v. Marietta Education Association

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