Lehnert V. Ferris Faculty Association - Findings

Findings

The court found largely for the Plaintiff, but also continued to uphold the compulsory “service fee” itself and affirmed some of the questioned uses of the “service fee.” In general, freedom of speech rights are found to limit what “service fees” may be used for. The court ruled that the majority of the “service fees” collected in this case were used unconstitutionally. Also, the court now requires unions to provide an audited accounting report of their “service fee” spending to fee paying nonmembers.

This case provides broad clarification on the subject of required union fees in the public sector. It strikes down a previously used “three part test” in favor of a more practical one part test. This new test dictates that: “a union may constitutionally compel contributions from dissenting nonmembers in an agency shop only for the costs of performing the union's statutory duties as exclusive bargaining agent.” However, much leeway and uncertainty still exists regarding the acceptable use of union “service fees” in the public sector.