Yesterday, Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to exempt public sector workers in union shops from paying union dues to cover the costs of collective bargaining. Until now, these workers were exempt from paying dues to cover the union’s political activities, but they still had to pay their fair share of the cost of bargaining on their behalf. 

• Hillman judge Harold Meyerson explains how the ruling will weaken public sector unions by giving workers the option to reap the benefits of union bargaining without paying dues. 

• Michelle Chen notes that the ruling “pushe[s] public sector unions a step closer toward death by attrition, by eroding their ability to finance themselves.”

• Sarah Jaffe argues that the Harris and Hobby Lobby rulings will be a double whammy for working women. 

• Carla Murphy observes that, by weakening public sector unions, this ruling imperils a critical path for upward mobility for women and people of color. 

• The rulings in Harris and Hobby Lobby have been hailed as narrow, but legal analyst Jeffery Toobin explains how these apparently narrowly-tailored rulings fit with the Roberts Court’s long-established tendency to issue “narrow” rulings that pave the way for more sweeping rulings in the future. 

[Photo credit: Harris v. Quinn Press Conference, SEIU, Creative Commons.]

The Best of the Week’s News

• Truly, there is power in a union: The NLRB rules that a Starbucks worker cannot be fired for telling his manager to go #$@#! himself.

• Lifestyles of the Rich and Paranoid: Inside the Koch Brother’s secret billionaire summit.

• Hillman Prize-winner Sarah Stillman takes us inside the burgeoning for-profit “Alternatives to Incarceration” industry.

• Four Alabama newspapers collaborated for 5 months to produce an in-depth expose of the state’s prison system.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]

Detroit’s water company announced in March that it would be shutting off the taps of over 3000 residents who are behind on their bills. The shutoffs are part of a new iniative to crack down on customers in arrears. Community activists have appealed to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation for help. They argue that the city is gouging its poorest residents and violating their human rights in the process: 

“What we see is a violation of the human right to water,” said Meera Karunananthan, an international campaigner with the Blue Planet Project. “The U.S. has international obligations in terms of people’s right to water, and this is a blatant violation of that right. We’re hoping the U.N. will put pressure on the federal government and the state of Michigan to do something about it.”

The groups accuse DWSD of charging unaffordable rates to Detroit citizens, and placing the burden of the city’s fleeing tax base on its poorest residents. They say DWSD is trying to rid itself of low-income customers in a bid to make the utility more attractive for a private takeover. DWSD denies the charge. But the city has acknowledged that at least a partial privatization of DWSD is being considered as Detroit attempts to shed some of its $18 billion in debt. DWSD accounts for $5 billion of that sum. [Al Jazeera America]

The water company says it’s not being malicious. Half of its 323,000 accounts are reportedly in arrears and the company is owed $175 million dollars in unpaid water bills. Officials tried to ease the strain on the company by integrating it with the water systems of some wealthier communities, but the deal fell through. There is talk of privatizing Detroit’s water system. 

[Photo credit: “Detroit River Days 2012,” by JoyVanBuhler, Creative Commons.]

The Best of the Week’s News

• Total Recall: WI Gov. Scott Walker fought off recall with an elaborate and illegal fundraising network, prosecutors allege.

• Anthropologists are sifting through mass graves in South Texas to identify migrants who died attempting to cross the border.

• Is it illegal to threaten to kill your wife (or an FBI agent) if you do it with bad Facebook poetry? The Supreme Court will decide.

• Unions question the legality of lobbying by the Tennessee Charter Schools Center, the state’s leading pro-charter group.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]