In a 5-4 opinion just released by the Supreme Court, the Court in an opinion written by Justice Aliotto has determined that the 1st Amendment prohibits the State of Illinois from requiring Personal Assistants hired by Medicaid recipients under the Illinois Home Services Program (Rehabilitation Program) from being required to pay union dues to the SEIU.  Under the state statute, the SEIU entered into collective-bargaining agreements with the State that contained an agency-fee provision requiring all PAs who do not wish to join the union to still pay the union a fee for the cost of union activities, including those tied to the collective-bargaining process.  A group of Rehabilitation Program PAs brought a class action against SEIU claiming that the Illinois Act violated the First Amendment by authorizing the agency-fee provision.

A copy of the Court’s opinion is available here. We’ll post additional information on the Court’s opinion later today.