‘There are Pennsylvania public employees, including some of our clients, working today under contracts with facially unconstitutional provisions,’ Susanj said.
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 commonwealth’s 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 Perrotti’s 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 union’s 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.
The Janus case that SCOTUS ruled on secures this. Teachers are not required to pay this or any other fee. If you are a local teacher, you can simply quit and receive all the ‘benefits’ of your association without paying a dime. Hear that WCEA? Further, there isn’t anything WCEA can do about it. I especially enjoy the local reps touting the ‘advantages’ of being in the association. What a bunch of ridiculous hacks!