Posts tagged payroll deduction
Teachers’ Unions Are Losing One of Their Government Perks
July 22, 2026 // The question is not whether teachers unions should exist, but whether taxpayers should subsidize organizations that subsequently seek more taxpayer subsidy, often for actions the taxpayer wouldn’t otherwise support. Removing public subsidies forces unions to rely on voluntary member support, increases accountability, and keeps government resources focused on their proper purpose: educating children. The reforms in Idaho, Florida, and Arizona mark the beginning of a necessary correction.
Teachers Pay Dues. Union Leadership Funds Activism.
July 20, 2026 // The Department of Labor proposed a remedy in 2019. Under the proposed rule, public-sector intermediate union bodies subordinate to national organizations would file detailed annual financial reports like those required of private-sector unions. That change would give teachers, parents, and taxpayers greater visibility into how dues are spent, where political spending occurs and how much money flows through organizations that frequently rely on taxpayer-funded facilities, payroll deduction systems, release time and administrative support. Some states have acted. Florida prohibits payroll deduction of union dues for teachers. Connecticut requires unions to provide members a copy of their financial reports, a requirement enforced inconsistently for years, until public scrutinyand litigation by the Fairness Center pushed the state Department of Labor to begin enforcing it.
Op-ed: 8 years after Janus, unions are still trying to keep workers in the dark
July 6, 2026 // The National Education Association’s headquarters dues revenue fell from $370 million in fiscal 2017 to an inflation-adjusted $310 million five years later — a decline in real terms of about 16 percent. Nationally, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show public-sector union density slid from 33.9 percent in 2018 to 32.2 percent in 2024, before edging back up to 32.9 percent last year. States that gave workers more direct control over their own dues saw the effect even more clearly. After Florida ended government payroll deduction of union dues in 2023, the Florida Education Association lost more than 20,000 members in a single school year. When workers must actively choose to pay, rather than having dues quietly deducted by default, a meaningful share of them chooses not to.
NBC 10 I-Team: State pays union dues for thousands of employees after paycheck mistake
March 30, 2026 // The state of Rhode Island paid $220,000 in union dues for thousands of workers as the result of a paycheck problem last month. The Department of Administration confirmed to NBC 10 News that union dues were not withheld from the Feb. 27 paychecks of approximately 9,000 state employees.
Public payroll deductions for union fees stand after House fails to override Gov. Gordon’s veto
March 14, 2026 // An effort to override Gov. Mark Gordon’s veto of a controversial bill to block public employers from administering voluntary payroll deductions for union membership fees failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote Wednesday in the House. Proponents of House Bill 178, “Public unions-transparency and dues withdrawal limitations,” sponsored by Lusk Republican Rep. JD Williams, had two primary arguments: It’s not the proper role of public employers to facilitate deductions when it comes to certain unions, and providing the service is an improper expense.
Is AEA in compliance with state payroll deduction law? National non-profit Freedom Foundation has doubts
March 5, 2026 // Over the last several weeks, representatives from the group whose mission is to “liberate public employees from political exploitation” have been in Alabama to introduce themselves to lawmakers and like-minded groups. One of the problems they’re ready to address is what they describe as a loophole or problem with the way the AEA uses money collected through payroll deductions for political purposes. “The loophole is the fact that paycheck protection, payroll deduction ban, whatever you want to call it, relies on the Alabama Education Association certifying that they do not take any portion of that money, dues, and use it for political fights. That is absolutely false,” Freedom Foundation's Rusty Brown told 1819 News in a phone interview.
Arkansas teachers union’s dues revenue drops 36 percent in one year
October 21, 2025 // A new Freedom Foundation analysis of tax returns filed by the Arkansas Education Association (AEA), the state teachers union and an affiliate of the Washington, D.C.-based National Education Association (NEA), shows a modest decline in AEA’s revenue from membership dues following the collective bargaining ban, but reveals a staggering 36 percent decline in union dues collection in the first full year following passage of SB 473. As a baseline, the AEA’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 tax return for the tax year ending August 31, 2020, reported nearly $2.4 million in revenue from membership dues.
Youngkin administration moves to protect public employees and taxpayers from union excesses
May 27, 2025 // First, the regulations would expressly extend to public employees the right to select a union pursuant to a secret-ballot election. In so doing, the proposed rules would protect public employees from being pressured or coerced into unionization via the infamous “card check” process, by which union organizers approach employees directly about publicly signing union petition cards. In its brief comment on the proposed regulations, the Virginia Education Association (VEA) claimed that, “All collective bargaining resolutions adopted by Virginia school boards, to date, provide for free and fair secret ballot elections…” But, as the Freedom Foundation documented in its comment, this is simply incorrect:
Opinion: One mother’s fight against forced union dues
April 29, 2025 // Every pay period, a portion of my hard-earned wages disappears into the Teamsters’ “Health and Welfare Trust Retiree Plan.” It is likely this deduction isn’t just about healthcare for retirees. A portion of the funds may be channeled into the union’s shareholder activism — buying shares in companies and then pressuring corporate boards to adopt political positions I never agreed to support. The lawsuit challenges California’s Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, which essentially traps public employees like me in a financial relationship with unions we’ve explicitly rejected.
Trump administration ends union dues collection for most feds without notice
April 10, 2025 // An official at another federal employee union familiar with the matter told Government Executive that local unions at agencies serviced by the Interior Department’s Interior Business Center and the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center, both of which provide payroll services to large swathes of the federal government, took similar action this week, all without notifying the unions or customer agencies. And, in at least one case, the National Finance Center deducted union dues from employees’ paychecks and then failed to pass that money along to the union, requiring them to then refund those dues back to the employees. None of the three payroll providers responded immediately to a request for comment Wednesday. The cancellation comes amid news, first reported in The New York Times, that operatives from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency had gained access to the Interior Department’s Federal Personnel and Payroll System, which underpins the IBC’s work.