Washington ? The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether states may require organized labor to ask some workers for permission to spend their union fees on political activity.

The case addresses the agency fees that some states require workers to pay to labor organizations for representation, even if they choose not to join the unions. The court said it would review a Washington state Supreme Court ruling that struck down a state law barring the use of those fees for political purposes without workers’ consent.

The case pits the state of Washington and national right-to-work advocates, backed by campaign-finance reformers, against organized labor. At stake, potentially, is much of the money that unions rely on to help fund their state-level political activities.

The specific question in the case is what the union must do before it spends those nonmember “agency fees” on politics.