Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors<br />In a 2014 case brought by a group that had received more than $1 million in contributions from the Bradley Foundation, the Supreme Court ruled<br />that home-care aides and other “partial-public employees” paid through Medicaid could not be forced to pay fair-share fees if they left their unions.<br />Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center,<br />which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.<br />In seeking to produce similar results nationally, conservative donors have created a symbiosis between groups aiming to overturn Supreme Court precedent favorable to unions and groups<br />that take advantage of those rulings to drain unions of members.<br />During 2015 and 2016, the foundation also substantially increased its contributions, totaling well over $1 million,<br />to groups like the Independence Institute of Colorado and the Freedom Foundation of Washington State.<br />Then in 2016, the court heard a case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association,<br />that could have struck down fair-share fee requirements for all public employees represented by unions in more than 20 states, including California, Illinois and New York.<br />“Bruce is the only one in the race who isn’t beholden to public-sector unions,” Mr. Uihlein said of Mr. Rauner,<br />the year before his 2014 election as Illinois governor, in an interview with Crain’s Business Chicago.<br />It is an effort that will reach its apex on Monday, when the Supreme Court hears a case<br />that could cripple public-sector unions by allowing the workers they represent to avoid paying fees.
