Massachusetts Archives

Boston, MA – Tomorrow, a National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorney will deliver arguments at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for a group of Massachusetts educators. The educators are challenging state law that grants union officials’ monopoly bargaining privileges which union officials use to gag nonmembers from having a voice and a vote in their working conditions. The educators argue this violates their First Amendment rights.

The group of four educators, from the University of Massachusetts and Hanover School Committee, all believe they would be better off without representation from the National Educators Association (NEA) and its affiliates.

The plaintiffs argue their First Amendment rights are violated when they are forced to be union members to exercise their rights under state law to have a say in their workplace conditions. Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME decision, workers cannot be required to fund a union. However, under Massachusetts labor laws the educators must waive their First Amendment rights and become full members to have any say in their working conditions.

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BOSTON — Teachers unions in Massachusetts send the vast majority of members’ dues to state and national offices, instead of keeping the money for local chapters, according to a watchdog group.

A new report by the Pioneer Institute found less than 16 percent of dues paid by members of nearly two-dozen union locals affiliated with the Massachusetts Teachers Association and National Education Association go to local chapters.

Pioneer said the bulk of the money goes toward salaries, lobbying and other expenses in the state and national offices that have little to do with collective bargaining on behalf of unionized teachers.

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Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME could remake the way that American teachers’ unions do business.

But in Massachusetts, union leaders insist the decision is far from a death knell.

“This doesn’t mean count us out,” said Jessica Tang, president of the Boston Teachers Union.

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