A Pennsylvania public school teacher who sued a teachers union for attempting to charge him dues despite no longer being a member entered into a settlement this fall that reaffirms the constitutional rights of government workers who do not want to subsidize political activism they do not support.
Until recently, those rights had been subjugated to the commonwealths labor laws, which allow unions to charge nonmembers fair share fees as a condition of their employment. The Pennsylvania statute also allows government unions to establish maintenance of membership provisos that prevent public employees from resigning from their union anytime outside of an approximately two-week window at the end of a collective bargaining agreement. What this meant in practice was that unions could compel workers to maintain their membership and continue to pay dues against their will, in some cases for years on end.
But times are a-changing thanks to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling and to the heavy lifting of David Perrotti, a Scranton-area public school teacher. He resisted threatening letters demanding that he pay union dues despite the fact that he resigned from the Abington Heights Education Association (AHEA) on Nov. 20, 2020. While union officials did not dispute Perrottis resignation, they claimed he owed back dues because he missed their window for resignation.
A few weeks after resigning, the Pennsylvania teacher received the first of several collection letters demanding he pay dues in the amount of $722.40 by Aug. 31, 2021. But another date blew a hole in the unions argument and helps to explain why Perrotti secured a settlement that frees him and other government employees from union demands. The collective bargaining agreement between Abington Heights School District, where Perrotti teaches, and the AHEA was signed on April 3, 2019.
That matters because it means the union forged the agreement several months after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated mandatory union dues and fees for public-sector workers in its June 2018 ruling in the case known as Janus v. AFSCME. Apparently, the AHEA, an affiliate of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, decided to ignore the courts decision and coerce employees into paying union dues and fees anyway. This is not an isolated incident.
Nathan McGrath, president and general counsel of the Fairness Center, sees a deliberate strategy from unions to undermine the Janus ruling. The fact that the Pennsylvania State Education Association, and affiliates like the AHEA, inserted fair share fees into contracts after the high court invalidated those same union fees speaks to the need for added legal pressure at the state level, he explained.
The Supreme Court settled the issue of nonmembers paying union fees three years ago, but theres still a lot of work to be done, McGrath said. Union officials continue to disregard employees rights and use underhanded tactics to keep nonmembers paying union fees.
In his majority opinion for the court, Justice Samuel Alito made it clear that unions could not collect fees from nonunion members who are public employees without the affirmative consent of those employees. In other words, the union position is no longer the default position. Under Janus, nonunion members must make a conscious decision to pay a union rather than jumping through hoops to either resign their membership or refrain from joining in the first place.
Perrotti, who had been a union member since 2004, never gave his affirmative consent and decided it was high time the Janus ruling was enforced in Pennsylvania. Thats why he hired the Fairness Center last summer to file a federal civil rights suit against both the AHEA and the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the largest public employee union in the state with roughly 180,000 members.
By threatening to collect union dues or fees from Perrotti without his consent, the teachers unions were depriving him of his First Amendment rights to free speech and association, the suit says. Although Perrotti clearly had the force of federal law on his side, Danielle Acker Susanj, an attorney who represented Perrotti, finds that unions are not always brought to heel without legal intervention.
This is part of the larger trend we are seeing threats to unrepresented teachers, who have plenty of other things to worry about, only for PSEA to back down as soon as lawyers get involved, Susanj said in an email. But teachers should be able to exercise their rights without the need to hire a lawyer in order to fend off threats from the union that represents them.
What the public employee unions in Pennsylvania really want to avoid is a decisive court ruling that sets a firm precedent while overturning those parts of Pennsylvania labor law that do not square with the Janus ruling, David Osborne, CEO of Americans for Fair Treatment, added. Unions continuously attack and retreat by imposing unconstitutional policies on public employees but then abruptly retreating whenever they are challenged in court, he observed.
The Fairness Center continues to advance cases where they call on the judiciary to overturn those parts of Pennsylvania labor law that are unconstitutional. But the problem here is with the sly union tactics Osborne highlights. The usual drill is for unions to cry uncle and enter settlements once it becomes clear they sit on the precipice of a ruling that would make Janus fully operational in Pennsylvania.
But theres an alternative to court action in the form of legislative and political pressure and here the timing might be ideal. On Nov. 15, the Pennsylvania House Labor and Industry Committee held a hearing on several labor reform measures. One of the bills up for consideration would end maintenance of membership while another would notify employees of their constitutional rights while striking down fair-share fee requirements.
Susanj, the Fairness Center attorney who represented Perrotti, told committee members during her testimony that her firm has identified at least 20 collective bargaining agreements that included fair share fee language signed after the Janus ruling. This means the union and the public employer included language they knew to be illegal, she explained.
Other examples of school districts with collective bargaining agreements that illegally insert fair share fees include Steel Valley, East Stroudsburg, City of Jeannette, and New Kensington-Arnold.
There are Pennsylvania public employees, including some of our clients, working today under contracts with facially unconstitutional provisions, Susanj said. She also sees value in a legislative proposal to implement notification requirements so public employees are fully informed of their First Amendment rights before joining a union.
Setting aside the problem of public sector union officials and public employers including illegal language in the CBAs, if employees do not know their rights, they cannot be expected to know which provisions happen to be unconstitutional, she observed during the hearing.
Cheri Gensel, a public school teacher from Monroe County, demonstrated how this can be done during her testimony. She described how the PSEA attempted to pressure her into changing her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat back in 2014. The union relented when she stood her ground, but Gensel still had to pay union dues that went to support the unions political agenda.She was finally able to resign from her union in 2018 thanks to the Janus ruling.
She encouraged lawmakers to move forward with the bills that now sit before the House committee that enable teachers who do not agree with the politics of the teachers unions to exercise their constitutional rights.
Many teachers do not know that they have a choice, Cheri continued. I meet teachers and citizens all the time that are surprised that I am not in the union. They always reply, You are a teacher, you are required to be in the union. With this legislation, on their first day teachers will learn of their First Amendment right to not join a union or pay dues if that is what they chooseinformation that is not currently disclosed to them. They will also not be stuck in the union because of a collective bargaining agreement that contains limits on when a teacher can resign.
Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg and The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C.
Read the original:
Pennsylvania Unions Ignore SCOTUS To Force Teachers To Pay Dues - The Federalist
- Court: Trump Can Appeal Attempt To Disqualify Fani Willis - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Media Give Blasey Ford Another Chance To Smear Kavanaugh - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Exclusive: Jordan Demands Docs From CISA About PA Election 'Task Force' - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- The Columns Spotlight: The Federalist Society Washington and Lee University - The Columns - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Democracy Under Pressure at the EU Level - The New Federalist - Le Taurillon - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Justice Jackson's 'Hamstringing' Comment Wasn't Her Worst - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Andrei Illarionov and Morgan Wirthlin, Author at The Federalist - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Democracy Under Pressure in Hungary - The New Federalist - Le Taurillon - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Mike Johnson Needs To Grow A Spine And Fight Biden's Border Invasion - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- High Gas Prices Don't Bother Biden Because They Cut Car Use - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Hemingway: All Of Biden's Interactions With The Press Are Coordinated And Protected - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Zuckbucks Group Teaches Election Offices How To Target Speech - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Gov't Says 'Once-In-A-Lifetime Pandemic' Excuses First Amendment Violations - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Speaking Openly About Isolation Can Help Us Resist Tyranny - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Trans Zealots Revolt Against Reality Rather Than Admit They're Wrong - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Trump's 'Bloodbath' Is The Fake Media's New 'Guy' And 'Sir' - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- It's Time For Georgia's AG To Indict Fani Willis For Perjury - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- What's New In Bragg's 'Get Trump' Hush Money Lawfare In NY - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Clutch Your Pearls, This Isn't The Last Trump 'Bloodbath' - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- DC Doesn't Just Spend Too Much, It Spends On The Wrong Things - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- CNN Analyst Asks Feds To Meddle In Elections To Defeat Trump - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- NYC Subway Shooting Is A Result Of 'Tolerance And Diversity' - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Keeping Trump In Court While Biden Campaigns Is Election Interference - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Disenchanted Democrats Should Be Asking Deeper Questions - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Olivia Rodrigo Hands Out Free Morning-After Pills To Teen Fans - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Poll Shows Biden Bombed State Of The Union Address - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- GA Election Board Member Voted On Cases Involving His Clients - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- GOPers Pass Bill To Keep OK Free Of Ranked-Choice Voting Chaos - The Federalist - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- CISA Admitted 'Risks' Of Vote-By-Mail In Internal Docs From 2020 - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Democrat Bill Aims To Stifle Regulation Of Big Fertility Market - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Group Behind 'Zuckbucks' Is Now Meddling In The 2024 Election - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- California Democrats Work To Make Discrimination Legal (Again) - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- A Haley Win In New Hampshire Will Not Be The Victory She Thinks - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Votes Without Citizenship Proof 'Exploded' In AZ After Dem Lawfare - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Congressional Republicans Need To Start Fighting Abortion - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Matthew Malec, Author at The Federalist - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Larry Taunton, Author at The Federalist - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Congress's $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill Goes On Trial In Texas - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Chicago Abortionists Advertise Possibly Illegal Late-Term Abortions - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- How DeSantis's Disappointed Supporters Can Move On From Ron - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Thousands Attend March For Life Hoping To Make Abortion 'Unthinkable' - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Putting An End To Race-Based Hiring Is 30 Years Past Due - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Ever-Closer Union: Brussels Plots Federalist Reforms The European Conservative - The European Conservative - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- 4 Years Too Late, DOJ Admits Biden 'Laptop From Hell' Is Real - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Heritage Foundation President Slams Davos Elites To Their Faces - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- TSA Sign Says Migrants Without ID May Opt Out Of Photos - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Two-Thirds Of Elites Say There's Too Much Freedom In America - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- How Disgruntled Fishermen Could Prompt SCOTUS To Capsize The Administrative State - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- No Testing Needed To Prove Hailey Davidson Isn't A Woman - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Democrats Promise To Save 'Democracy' By Destroying It - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- 7 Takeaways From SCOTUS Case That Could Slay The Bureaucracy - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Haley Woos Her Real Constituents In New Hampshire: Democrats - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Men, Ignore The Bad Advice To Seek A 'Low-IQ' Wife - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- By 'Protecting Election Workers,' Democrats Mean Protecting Control Over Election Administration - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Harbaugh Champions Right To Life After Football Championship - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Oppressor Matrix Gives Leftists Like Hasan Piker Brain Worms - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- How And Why The Ivy League Will Die - The Federalist - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Gorsuch Gleefully Leads Right-Wing Cohort In Fulfilling Their Federalist Society Quest - TPM - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Only 6% Of Americans Approve Of GOP Leader Mitch McConnell - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Knowing Of Hunter's Plan To Defy Subpoena Puts Biden In Legal Jeopardy - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- PA School Board President Sworn In With Pornographic Books - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- The 'Ukraine War Is Good For Business' Argument Is Vile And Also A Lie - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Data: Banning Therapy For LGBT People Increases Suicide Risks - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- John Yoo and Jeremy Rabkin, Author at The Federalist - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- From Woke Walkouts To 'Equity,' Illinois Schools Are Melting Down - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Hunter Biden Invokes Gun Rights Ruling That Joe Called Unconstitutional - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- China's Cyber Warfare Surges With Hacking Of U.S. Infrastructure - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Every Biden 2024 Scenario Is Deadly Dangerous - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Study Finds NewsGuard Overtly Biased Against Conservatives - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Republicans Need To Learn How To Go After The Left - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Biden Overdrew America's Account With Blank Checks To Ukraine - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Meet Michael Dreeben, The Man Behind Major Anti-Trump Ops - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Senate Dems Block Bill To Allow Whole Milk In School Lunch Programs - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- 'Experts' Who Discredited Biden Laptop Call To Extend Warrantless Spying - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Ranked-Choice Voting Proponents Are Lying To WI Voters To Hide The System's Flaws - The Federalist - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- The Case for an AUMF Against Iran and Its Proxies - The Federalist Society - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Bari Weiss's Olson Lecture: You Are the Last Line of Defense - Reason - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Book Review: The People's Justice - The Federalist Society - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Farewell to the Mayflower - Reason - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- FBI Targets Trump Voters Ahead Of 2024 Election - The Federalist - October 9th, 2023 [October 9th, 2023]