Unions to Non-Members: We'll Still Force You to Pay Wages for Union Business

Mackinac Center for Public Policy / Youtube

Can a teachers union force non-members to pay the wages of unionized teachers who are away from their jobs on "union business"? The Mackinac Center for Public Policy says no.

Adam Neuman, a public school teacher in Brighton, Michigan, is a veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2011. He disagreed with the National Education Association—the parent organization for his local union—over the organization's anti-war activism, and sought to leave the union in accordance with the state's Right to Work law.

Neuman believed that would end any obligation he had to contribute money toward views he didn't support. He was wrong. The union insisted that his contract still required him to contribute money toward a "release time" fund, which pays teachers who have temporarily stepped away from their normal duties to attend to union business. (Taxpayers also subsidize this practice to the tune of $2.7 million, according to Mackinac.)

Mackinac has filed suit on behalf of Neuman:

"What part of opting out does the union not understand?" said Patrick Wright, vice president for legal affairs at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "They are not allowed to raid a non-member's paycheck."

In addition to the fact that the "release time" payments force non-members to pay for activities they don't support and have a legal right to disassociate from, the practice has a secondary, insidious effect. Neuman explained that teachers will be more reluctant to leave the union if they are forced to pay regardless:

Neuman says he knows teachers who feel that way.

"Their opinion was, they wanted out, but if they're going to still take my money, I might as well stay in so I can at least vote," said Neuman.

Keep in mind that Michigan Education Association President Steven Cook repeatedly denigrated ex-members as "freeloaders." Attempting to exercise basic free association rights sure is a nasty business when the union bosses fight back.

Watch Mackinac's interview with Neuman below:

Comments

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Explain to me again why unions that act this way are not treated as criminal enterprises under the RICO act and other statutes? Anybody?

[Riven]

I believe it's related to the FYTW clause that's finely printed at the end of every act and statute.

[Episiarch]

Because there are federal laws that give unions special powers that are completely anti-free market?

[Zeb]

Yeah, that. They are specifically exempt from RICO and anti-trust laws. If a bunch of CEOs get together and try to fix prices, it is a criminal conspiracy. If some union leaders do the same thing, it's all peachy.

[antisocial-ist]

Wait, one of the main groups that the mafia works through is exempt from the RICO statute? What the literal fuck.

[Agammamon]

laws. If a bunch of CEOs get together and try to fix prices, it is a criminal conspiracy.

Funnily enough, fixing prices is the *whole point* for the existence of unions.

[wareagle]

because their shareholders within one of the major political parties willingly gives them cover in exchange for campaign donations through a system a sane world would call money-laundering.

[Calvin Coolidge]

Something, something, Pinkerton Security, something, something, wheels of capitalism are greased with the blood of the workers, something, something, living wage.

[Episiarch]

I didn't realize Michael Chiklis moonlighted as a teacher in his free time.

[Harvard]

Not only a teacher, a civics teacher.

Not only a civics teacher, a civics teacher that actually gets it.

[Zeb]

Some of it anyway.

[spqr2008]

Even if he's a civics teacher, he needs to teach Ruyard Kipling's "The Danegeld" in his class.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Unions to Non-Members: We'll Still Force You to Pay Wages for Union Business

Wages or dues?

[Swiss Servator, spare a franc?]

They are paying the wages of the union folks on "release time".

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

It's more like tribute.

[The Last American Hero]

Why was the union taking a position on foreign policy? They allegedly exist to negotiate compensation and protect the employees from unfair treatment by the schools and school districts.

[Swiss Servator, spare a franc?]

That is covered in the FYTW clause of their contract.

[Aresen]

Every union activist is a SJW and anti-team-red-war activist.

They consider it their perogative to use their members' funds to further their own agendas.

[Isaac Bartram]

Every union activist is a SJW and anti-team-red-war activist.

Well, that is, except for the unions who represent workers at America's defense plants (UAW, Machinists etc) and the workers building America's defense plants (Ironworkers, Carpenters, Laborers etc).

While they still represent a huge fundraising vehicle for TeamBlue America's union ran-and-file have a huge problem with most of TeamBlue's agenda, viz the part that isn't strictly concerned with union power.

There's still a huge part of the union rank-and-file who hate the thought of "them queers" having rights and "them pot smoking hippie draft-dogers*". The only reason they are still loyal to the union is that it maintains their artificially high wages.

*yes I realize there's no draft but older union member's memories are really really long when it comes to grievance.

[Zeb]

Yes, thank you. It is important to recognize that the unions support for Democrats only goes as far as the Democrats' support of unions' special privileges. There is no reason to assume that unions in general support other parts of the Democratic platform. The NEA just happens to.

[Calvin Coolidge]

You just have to wonder how long this will last.

The Public Employees unions will be Deomcrat until you pry your tax dollars out of their cold, dead hands. But the nearly-extinct private sector unions have been ignored by TeamBlue - the oxymoronic "Employee Free Choice Act" was allowed to die once Obama was sworn in - or, worse, targeted ("Cadillac Plan" tax in ACA, not yet implemented but due to be as soon as we have a stretch of more than three years without a congressional election).

The problem for TeamBlue is that most people's positive associations regarding unions are with those representing private workers, not the government employees collecting six-figure pensions for life based on one year's work.

[wareagle]

ah, progressivism. Policies so noble they require force in order to be enacted.

[Calvin Coolidge]

So, you are fine with people LITERALLY STARVING TO DEATH IN THE STREETS!!?!!

I guess I'm just more moral and worthy than you are. The proof is that I am so committed to being a moral person that I am willing to rob you at gunpoint to back it up.

[Zeb]

If I saw someone literally starving in the streets, I'd give them some food. I guess progressives would just ignore them or something.

[antisocial-ist]

I believe Tony has admitted as much.

[Calvin Coolidge]

They gave at the office.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Taxes provide top cover...moral preening and all that.

[seguin]

Well, not personally. I'll send someone around.

[SugarFree]

Keep in mind that Michigan Education Association President Steven Cook repeatedly denigrated ex-members as "freeloaders." Attempting to exercise basic free association rights sure is a nasty business when the union bosses fight back.

I love when progressives complain about freeloaders. Humans shouldn't be able to survive that much cognitive dissonance, but they just waddle along.

[Every Cop is a Criminal]

Freeloader:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-GNqwL02bA

[Anon E. Mouse]

Legalized extortion. Fuck unions.

[MegaloMonocle]

I'm sure Plan A for the knuckle-draggers at the union was to "have some cawfee, and talk a little" with Mr. Neuman.

Then they got a look at him and decided on something less, erm, physical.

[Suthenboy]

I am unclear on what the union will do to enforce this bullshit? If he tells them to go fuck themselves will they kick him out of the union?

[Spoonman.]

Union tells the school district to deduct it from his paycheck, so that's what the district does.

[Zeb]

If that's all the union had to enforce shit like this, there wouldn't be a union.

[Tony]

If they don't like their employment conditions they should go work somewhere else.

[Suthenboy]

Can I quote you on this later? Aw fuck, why am I asking. I am gonna quote you on this later, fuckwit.

[Tony]

As long as you say "Remember that time Tony was mocking us and our corporate cocksucking hypocrisy?"

[dantheserene]

Those of us who read the article are having a hard time finding a corporate cock to suck in this situation, since the union is leaning on an individual.

[Whahappan?]

And the employer is a school district. That Tony ain't too bright.

[kbolino]

"Look, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna break your legs. And if you don't want your legs broken, well you shoulda never had legs, then."

[Butler]

"If they don't like the terms imposed by a third party by force on their employment conditions they should go work somewhere else."

FTFY.

[Tech]

Yeah...so can those McDonalds workers who want $15/hr...jackass.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

If their employment conditions violate their constitutional rights, they should be able to beggar the public "servants" and union officials who came up with this scam.

[Mark22]

He doesn't have a problem with his employment conditions, he has a problem with the fact that an unrelated third party, a group of corrupt rent seekers, is taking part of his paycheck illegally.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Is the Union the employer? Does the Union provide them with a salary (outside of strikes)?

[mattbastableguy]

my classmate's aunt makes $80 /hr on the laptop . She has been without work for seven months but last month her pay was $13066 just working on the laptop for a few hours. read the article...

======== http://www.netjob70.com