Posts tagged payroll deduction
Judge finds Florida’s anti-union law union unconstitutional and ‘unreasonable’
November 12, 2024 // U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker ruled that public teacher union members in Pinellas and Hernando counties had been damaged by the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission after the passage of SB 256, which had a component banning payroll deductions for the purpose of paying dues. Hernando United School Workers and the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association argued that prohibiting payroll deductions was unconstitutional, violated their right to be free from the state impairment of contracts. The state argued the law was necessary to promote transparency and “allow union members to decide how to pay their dues and understand how much they were paying.”
States are pushing back with anti-labor laws as union popularity grows, policy experts say
September 18, 2024 // Growing union organizing across the country has triggered an anti-labor legislative response in some states, but cities and counties are increasingly pushing back, a new report found. The report, released this month by the New York University Wagner Labor Initiative and Local Progress Impact Lab, a group for local elected officials focused on economic and racial justice issues, cites examples of localities all over the U.S. using commissions to document working conditions, creating roles for protecting workers in the heat and educating workers on their labor rights.
Florida judge rejects a lawsuit challenging public-employee union restrictions
August 2, 2024 // Unions argued that the ban on withholding dues from paychecks would force them to use other, more-difficult methods to collect money from members. The membership authorization forms drew criticism, in part, because of wording required by the state that many union members found objectionable. Also, the changes required unions to be recertified as bargaining agents if fewer than 60 percent of eligible employees have submitted the membership authorization forms and paid dues. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Florida Education Association, the United Faculty of Florida, unions representing employees of the Alachua County, Hernando County, Lafayette County and Pinellas County school districts and the University of Florida and UF professor Malini Schueller. Defendants are members of the Public Employees Relations Commission, members of the University of Florida Board of Trustees and the school boards in Alachua, Hernando and Pinellas counties.
MI Kroger Employee Hits UFCW Union, Kroger with Federal Charges for Illegally Requiring Dues Payments, PAC Contributions
April 17, 2024 // n employee of Kroger’s supermarket in the Prospect Hill Shopping Center in Milford, MI, has just hit United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 876 union officials and Kroger management with federal charges. The employee, Roger Cornett, charges that Kroger declared it would fire him unless he signed a union membership form, and authorized union dues deductions and contributions to the union’s Political Action Committee (PAC) from his paycheck. Cornett notably points out that UFCW lacks a legal basis to demand money from any worker.
Taxpayers funding teachers unions? In Idaho, it’s all too common
February 5, 2024 // The Boise School District goes a step further by providing teachers a monthly salary enhancement for “professional activities” that just happens to approximate the cost of union dues and can be conveniently deducted from their paychecks and forwarded to the union by the district. At least 51 school district teachers union contracts include provisions providing paid time off for teachers who serve as union officials to engage in union work and advocacy on-the-clock and at taxpayer expense. Some contracts even specifically permit teachers to lobby the legislature on the union’s behalf while on paid release from their teaching duties. Again, while the direct cost to taxpayers is difficult to measure precisely, it could easily range from $500,000 to $1 million per year. And at least 31 school districts provide the teachers union with preferential, no-cost access to and use of school facilities and communications well beyond what community groups or even competing unions are entitled to.
Commentary: With Unions, the Numbers Tell the Story
February 5, 2024 // Public sector unions’ hold on government employees isn’t a lock. State legislatures can pass laws that rein in unionization and membership recruitment and protect employees. States can choose a different path by, for example, ending artificial union subsidies and requiring union executives to prove their value to employees. States can follow Florida’s lead: Last year, the Sunshine State ended union payroll deductions and doubled down on recertification, forcing unions to demonstrate actual support from membership to remain in power.
UTAH: Is it ‘union busting’? Bill moves to House floor, over worker objections
January 29, 2024 // The bill, which Teuscher called a “compromise,” would require labor unions that represent public-sector employees to recertify every five years, and would prohibit public employers from deducting union dues from paychecks unless union members “affirmatively” opt in every year. The bill, if enacted, would also prohibit unions or their members from using “public money or property from union organizing or union activity.”
Labor unions, with power and popularity rising, are still trailing in the biggest nationwide battle
January 29, 2024 // But according to the Gallup polling, only one in six Americans live in a household with a union member, and its polling, as well as polling by others, shows that nonunion workers remains divided, about fifty-fifty, on interest in joining a union — Gallup's 2022 polling showed the percentage of nonunion workers who were not interested in membership as high as 58%.
Commentary: America’s Third Largest Teachers’ Union Heads for the Largest Decertification Vote in History
January 2, 2024 // On Dec. 19, UTD President Karla Hernandez-Mats confirmed the union hadn’t been able to persuade 60 percent of the 30,000 teachers it officially represents to become dues-paying members. A few days earlier, she claimed the union had increased its numbers to just more than 58 percent, including 800 new members. What she didn’t explain was that the union had to kick out all the substitute teachers from the bargaining district in order to increase their membership percentage, and still fell short. Hernandez-Mats declined to disclose the final tally. The 60 percent requirement was imposed under Senate Bill 256, the most aggressive state labor reform bill since Wisconsin’s Act 10 under then-Gov. Scott Walker. SB 256 also prohibits public agencies like school districts from deducting dues directly from employees’ paychecks on behalf of the union representing their bargaining unit.
Boarded The Teachers’ Union Takeover of NY School Districts
November 21, 2023 // NYSUT’s involvement in state and federal elections is well-documented, but the low turnout in New York’s generally nonpartisan school board elections has given it an even bigger opportunity. The union also isn’t stopping with school boards: its electoral efforts involve elevating members to local, state and federal office, positions from which union members could eventually affect every facet of education policy. The system of campaign finance rules that regulate everything from elections for governor down to town assessors does not cover school board elections.