With the conservative-dominated Supreme Court set to hear a case that poses the “biggest threat to organized labor in years” next week, members of National Nurses United (NNU)—the largest organization of registered nurses in the U.S.—rallied across the country on Thursday to highlight the crucial role of unions in protecting workers from corporate exploitation.

“We need to defend the trade union movement, we need to grow the trade union movement.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

“It’s the union that brings many safety laws in legislation and public regulatory protections. It’s the union dues that fund those efforts,” said Maureen Dugan, RN, who works at the University of California San Francisco. “It’s the nurses in my hospital, in my region, in my whole state that make up the strength of our union and our ability to protect our patients, our license, and our profession.”

The case under consideration—Janus v. AFSCME Council 31—could determine whether public sector unions are allowed to collect what are called “fair share” fees from workers to cover the costs of collective bargaining. 

As the Huffington Post‘s Dave Jamieson notes, “Although fair share fees have been upheld as legal for decades, the high court’s conservative majority is likely to strike them down as unconstitutional.”

“If the court rules against AFSCME, the entire U.S. public sector would essentially be a ‘right-to-work’ zone―meaning employees could no longer be required to pay anything to the unions that bargain on their behalf,” Jamieson adds.

Speaking at an NNU rally in Chicago on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said “there is a war going on against the working class in America” and argued unions are “the last line of defense.”