The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday in Janus v. AFSCME made clear that forced funding of union activity violates public-sector workers’ First Amendment rights.

But wait, there’s more.

The court further held that to avoid forced funding, employers must have prior consent to withhold any union dues. No longer can the union simply assume workers are dues-paying members until advised otherwise. Henceforth, workers are considered non-members until they actually join the union.

This momentous decision, however, is only impactful if it’s enforced.

Therefore, in preparation for this decision, the Freedom Foundation filed lawsuits for Janus-affected workers to be ready to start applying the ruling to our states. That preparation gave us the opportunity to immediately file a motion to prevent the continued seizure of union dues once the ruling came out of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yesterday afternoon, we asked the court to: 1.) stop the state from seizing any further union dues from objecting fee payers; and, 2.) order the unions that have received these forced funds not to spend the money they already have.

This will protect the refunds, to which many public-sector workers are entitled, from being squandered before litigation ends.