The unexpected death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia this weekend will scramble much more than just election-year politics. It could recast several decisions pending before the high court, including arguably the most important labor case in years.

With Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the court’s conservative majority had the opportunity to make the entire U.S. public sector akin to a right-to-work zone. That would have given hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers the prerogative to opt out of funding the unions that represent them -- delivering a substantial blow to both organized labor and the Democratic Party it pours money into.

But with a 4-4 split in the court along ideological lines, there’s now a good chance that the lower court’s ruling in favor of the union will stand.

t didn’t always seems so. During recent oral arguments, the conservative justices appeared eager to overturn long-standing legal precedent and ban so-called fair share fees. Unions must represent all workers in a bargaining unit -- even those who don’t want representation -- so where state law allows it, workers can be required to pay fair share fees to help cover the cost of collective bargaining. For unions, such an arrangement assures that no worker gets representation for free.

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