Five California educators on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s top teachers’ union from collecting dues through mandatory paycheck deductions, the latest in a series of similar legal challenges filed across the country.
The lawsuit challenging the California Teachers Association’s mandatory collection of dues follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 27 barring the practice in the public sector.
“These dues are a negative financial impact to a lot of teachers who live in the Bay Area where there is a high cost of living,” said Bethany Mendez, one of the plaintiffs and a special education teacher at the Fremont Unified School District. Mendez said she pays $1,500 per year in union dues.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Five California educators on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s top teachers union from collecting dues through mandatory paycheck deductions, the latest in a series of similar legal challenges filed across the country.
The lawsuit challenging the California Teachers Association’s mandatory collection of dues follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 27 barring the practice in the public sector.
“These dues are a negative financial impact to a lot of teachers who live in the Bay Area where there is a high cost of living,” said Bethany Mendez, one of the plaintiffs and a special education teacher at the Fremont Unified School District. Mendez said she pays $1,500 per year in union dues.
The Los Angeles teachers union and school district are being sued by a teacher who claims union dues are being deducted from her paychecks in violation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Irene Seager seeks class-action status for the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court against United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District. She was identified by the Los Angeles Daily News as a teacher at Porter Ranch Community School.
Negotiators reached a contract agreement the same day that resulted in the end of a teacher strike, with educators heading back to classes Wednesday.
Fresh off a Supreme Court loss that stripped them of millions of dollars in an annual revenue, California public employee unions are finding that they still have the big money they need to run statewide political campaigns.
It just might not be enough cash to keep up with their opponents.
The first test of California public-sector union spending after labor’s June defeat at the Supreme Court in Janus vs. AFSCME is unfolding in the race for state superintendent, a contest that typically attracts intense interest from education unions and groups that want to embrace charter schools.
Education unions have ponied up $12.3 million in an independent expenditure committee to back Democratic Assemblyman Tony Thurmond. Thurmond has raised another $2.3 million in his committee.
What do the following two things have in common: The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing government workers to opt out of paying union dues and an effort by liberal activists to pass a rent-control initiative in November? On the surface, both issues directly involve the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. AFSCME was the defendant in the court’s Janus v. AFSCME case and its affiliate supports the California campaign.
More significantly, such promotion of a political initiative that has nothing to do with worker rights illustrates the wisdom of the high court’s Janus ruling. The court declared that all mandatory dues – even for collective-bargaining activities – are a violation of the First Amendment’s right to free association. Government workers may now opt out of all union payments, which means that public-sector unions will have less time and cash to promote these kinds of nefarious left-wing ballot campaigns. It’s the very definition of the “win-win” cliché.
The Janus decision changed the status quo that went back to 1977, when the Supreme Court split the free-speech baby in the Abooddecision. Back then, government employees had to pay union dues – and the unions were free to use the money however they preferred, on everything from contract negotiations to political action. It clearly was wrong to force conservatives to fund liberal political activities (and vice versa) or to belong to a group they found offensive.
The National Education Association held its annual Representative Assembly in Minneapolis last week. Six thousand delegates, representing teachers and education support workers in every state, met to debate and vote on the national union’s budget and agenda for the 2018-19 school year.
Each year the delegates amend NEA’s constitution and by-laws, federal legislative program, resolutions, and policy statements. They also submit new business items, which direct the national union to take specific actions over the coming year. These new business items cover a wide array of issues — some only vaguely related to education and labor.
The California Teachers Association comprises about 12 percent of NEA’s total membership, but CTA delegates were responsible for almost 40 percent of the new business items submitted and 45 percent of those that were approved. Here are just a few of the actions NEA will take in 2018-19 because of CTA ideas:
APPROVED:
No. 9: The NEA Representative Assembly directs NEA to support, in ways it finds appropriate and within the budget, the removal of the names of Confederate leaders from public schools.
Seven teachers in California filed a class-action lawsuit seeking repayment of fees previously paid to their union, after the Supreme Court recently ruled unions cannot collect fees from nonmembers to make up for the cost of collective bargaining.
It’s the kind of case that could potentially cause further damage to teachers’ unions, after last week’s ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31. In that decision, the justices ruled 5-4 that compelling nonmembers to pay fees violates their First Amendment rights. They also decided that public employees must affirmatively opt into their unions, rather than having to opt out.
“This lawsuit will enable teachers like me to recover the agency fees that we were wrongly forced to pay against our will,” said Scott Wilford, the plaintiff in the new lawsuit, which was filed in the Central District of California’s federal court, in a statement.
