SCOTUS Just Undermined Thousands Of Domestic Workers' Rights

SHEILA BAPAT – JUNE 30, 2014, 1:23 PM EDT

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States sided with the right to work movement and weakened the ability of hundreds of thousands of U.S. domestic workers to collectively bargain for higher wages. In its 5-4 ruling on Harris v. Quinn, the Court held it is a violation of the First Amendment for the state of Illinois to assess dues on home care workers for the purposes of paying for collective bargaining efforts. This decision affects the several states who have in-home care programs like Illinois’s program, including California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, and Missouri.

And in its holding, the Court is analyzing the First Amendment in a way that further entrenches the notion that domestic work is not “real” work. It is a blow to significant progress made by the domestic workers’ movement and public sector unions to show that domestic labor is indeed real labor, worthy of the same economic protections as other work.

The majority decision in Harris v. Quinn, written by Justice Samuel Alito, held that because domestic workers are technically employed by the state of Illinois and by the recipients of care themselves (people who are typically elderly, ill or with disabilities), they are therefore only “partial” public employees and thus cannot be compelled to kick in a fee that supports collective bargaining efforts, that such a compulsion is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

The dissent, written by Justice Elena Kagan, points out that while recipients of care can and should manage their relationship with their caregiver, the state of Illinois still has “sole authority” over the terms and conditions of domestic workers’ employment.

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