On June 30, the Supreme Court’s latest decision against unions was just one more step in the arch-reactionary majority’s drive to overturn all workers’ and civil rights.
Ruling 5 to 4 in Harris v. Quinn, the Supreme Court says that home-care workers can refuse to pay dues or equivalent fees to the labor unions that represent them in collective bargaining. Calling these workers “partial public employees,” Alito claims the unions play a limited role in their lives. He says requiring them to pay union dues violates their First Amendment right to free speech.
The case follows a trend where right-wing advocates led by billionaire-backed entities — in this case the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation — find a case they can carry all the way to the Supreme Court to chip away at women’s, union and civil rights.
“Free speech” a pretext to violate rights
In writing the court decision, Samuel A. Alito used the spurious argument of “free speech,” the same pretext he used to attack women’s right to healthcare in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, also on Monday.
In a real head turner, Alito, speaking once again for Corporate America, ruled that the family that owns Hobby Lobby corporation has a “religious right” to deny its employees access to contraceptive coverage.
So now, any position that benefits the right-wing and capitalist class is cloaked as “free speech” and the First Amendment. That way, the tiny minority of capitalist owners and their right-wing zealots can lord it over workers and the vast majority in society.
Bigots’ right to terrorize over a woman’s safety
On June 26, in McCullen v. Coakley, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that buffer zones around entrances to Massachusetts abortion clinics violate the First Amendment rights of those who oppose abortion. One of the judges evoked the image of a grandmother who “simply wants to counsel” women.
But the buffer zones around clinics were not created because of grandmothers. And this is not an abstract debate.
The ruling stunned many for its mendacious reasoning. Even the New York Times wrote an editorial emphasizing the serious threat to women.
Workers were murdered and others wounded in two Massachusetts clinics! Doctors and other clinic workers have been stalked and gunned down, clinics bombed in other states.
Women have a right to be free from danger, attack, or terror. That supersedes the Court’s claim of free speech.
A green light has been given to the anti-abortion organizations and individuals. In fact, right here in the Mission district of San Francisco this week, flyers appeared near the Planned Parenthood clinic, with menacing and not-so-veiled threats.
A right-wing ideological battle is being waged by the Supreme Court. Analysts of Supreme Court rulings see a pattern in recent decisions. Although not entirely wiping out all progressive cases, the judges are nevertheless setting the stage for broader and more substantial decisions that could undo major tenets.
The United States justice system and its court rulings are not made in the abstract or free from political consideration. The right-wing decisions are a reflection of the capitalist offensive and general weakness of the U.S. labor movement and working class.
But history shows that social mass movements are what have compelled the Court to change course from its reactionary, anti-democratic tendency, and ratify what the people have struggled hard for.
From the monumental civil rights struggles in the South to the women’s reproductive-rights fight and the workers’ battles for a union, it took popular movements to force change.
Where lies the hope for the people, given the constant barrage of setbacks by the Supreme Court, by Congress and the U.S. administration?
Recent developments show that the truly independent working-class actions taking place — the historic 2006 May Day marches of millions of undocumented workers, the youth defying deportations and detentions to demand immigrant rights, the militant $15-per-hour low-wage workers’ fight, the nationwide sweep for gay marriage, the Occupy movement — they are beginning to inspire millions of more people, to awaken and demand true justice and change.
The Court rulings are indeed harmful and worrisome. They will become irrelevant when a real mass movement takes hold.
