An Indiana state court judge struck down Indiana’s right-to-work law, claiming that failing to require employees to join a union an an employment requirement is akin to slavery.
Lake County Judge John Sedia ruled on Thursday that the law, which bans employers from forcing workers to join a union as an employment requirement, violates the state constitution’s ban on delivering services "without just compensation."
The provision was added to the constitution to prevent slavery. Unions argued that they were being denied proper compensation if they conduct negotiations for all employees while only collecting dues from members.
Such contracts are generally preferred by unions, the Washington Examiner reports:
It is usually the unions themselves that insist on contracts that cover all workers in a workplace. There is no constitutional provision against unions requesting "members only" contracts during negotiations with management.
The law has already survived several union challenges in federal and state courts. Glenn Taubman, an attorney with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said that Sedia provided a "novel reading of the Constitution," but Taubman is not worried about right-to-work’s future in Indiana.
"So much of his reasoning is way way outside of what federal labor law and every other labor law would hold," he said. "Now you have some desperate union trying to throw everything up against the wall to see if it sticks, and they got one out-of-the-mainstream judge to buy a crazy theory. There’s no way that’s surviving appeal."
Right to work will remain in place unless Sedia’s ruling is upheld on appeal. Indiana plans to take the ruling to the state Supreme Court.