Posts tagged Ohio Association of Public School Employees
School custodian appeals union wage case dismissal
July 29, 2025 // According to the lawsuit, the union continued to remove dues for four months before stopping in April 2024. The suit says the union resumed removing dues in May 2024. The appeal argues the lower court erroneously ruled jurisdiction solely rests with the State Employment Labor Relations Board and goes against an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that Sheldon argues gives public employees the right to sue over private contract disputes, despite the Ohio Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act. Sheldon wants the union to stop removing dues from his paycheck and refund the money taken after he quit. He also wants an injunction to prevent further removal.
Liberty Justice Center Files Three New Lawsuits to Protect the Rights of Government Employees Against Public-Sector Unions
March 13, 2025 // "Public-sector unions continue to place barriers for government employees who wish to stop being union members and stop paying union dues in ways that violate the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.” said Jeffrey Schwab, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “And although those unions are supposed to only collect dues from members, these unions often refuse to be held accountable by their own members for how they spend those dues.”
School employees take union dues case to Ohio Supreme Court
July 23, 2024 // The appeal wants the Supreme Court to tell the state’s lower courts they have jurisdiction in these cases rather than the State Employment Relations Board. “‘Have your day in court’ is a truism that we learn from a young age,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “But if you were a member of a government union – a union still taking money out of your paycheck – getting your day in court is not that easy. This must change, and Darling v. AFSCME presents the Ohio Supreme Court the opportunity to clarify that common pleas courts have jurisdiction to decide private contractual disputes like the ones presented in this case.”
OHIO: STATE SEES 68 PERCENT BUMP IN OPT-OUTS
April 29, 2024 // The spike in opt-outs in March was led by Ohio Association of Public School Employees, Ohio Civil Service Employees Association and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 8 members. All three of these unions saw more than 20 members choose to halt their dues deductions. The bump from 2023 was due entirely to the hard work of the Ohio’s outreach team, which sent out thousands of pieces of mail and emails to union members’ homes and inboxes.
OHIO UNION SETTLES, PAYS NONUNION WORKERS, TOO, WHO EARNED BONUS
December 27, 2023 // The Ohio Association of Public School Employees AFSCME Local 4/Local 673 (OAPSE) had negotiated into its collective bargaining agreement with the school district (CBA) a provision calling for the one-time distribution of $8,000 to a bargaining unit of employees consisting of bus drivers and cafeteria workers. This compensation (funded by the taxpayers through the district) was to be distributed to the employees according to work they had performed outside of normal working hours. The problem with the CBA provision, however, was that the district tasked OAPSE with fairly distributing the money.
Foundation Brief to Court of Appeals: Lower Court’s Decision Conflicts with SCOTUS’ Janus Ruling
April 7, 2023 // The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed an amicus brief with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on April 5. The brief was filed in Littler v. OAPSE, brought by plaintiff Christina Littler. She attempted exercise her right to withdraw union membership and financial support, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, only to be denied by union officials. In the Foundation-won and argued Janus case, the Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment protects government employees, like Littler, from being forced to fund union activities, and further that dues may only be deducted with the affirmative consent of an employee. Littler is a school bus driver who, shortly after the Supreme Court issued its seminal decision in Janus, notified the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) that she resigned her union membership and revoked her dues deduction authorization. Rather than honor Littler’s timely request to stop paying union dues, union officials had her government employer continue to seize full dues from her paycheck. This prompted Littler to file a lawsuit to recover the dues OAPSE seized from her in violation of her First Amendment rights.
Southwest Ohio School Employee Hits OAPSE Union with Charges for Illegally Seizing Union Dues
February 10, 2023 // Union officials misled worker and ignored revocation request in attempt to deduct dues for entire school year over employee’s clear objection Southwest Public Schools employee Richard Koch has filed charges against the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4) union, telling the Ohio State Employee Relations Board (SERB) that union officials have unlawfully locked him into an entire school year of union dues deductions against his will. Staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation represent him for free. Koch, who is not a union member, charges that OAPSE union bosses are arbitrarily restricting the time in which school employees can exercise their right to cut off union dues deductions to less than 3% of the year.