Taxpayers Fund Washington Union Official

Taxpayers are subsidizing a Yakima, Washington teacher union official’s salary for time spent on union official business, in direct violation of Washington state law, and the school board seems to have no interest in investigating the legitimacy of the scheme.  Trey Kovaks has the story at workplacechoice.org.

Last summer, after contentious collective bargaining negotiations, the Yakima School District approved a contract with the Yakima Education Association. Despite both sides playing hardball on a number of issues, one longstanding provision remained untouched–”The Yakima School District agreed to pay 75 percent of the compensation for the president of the teachers’ union.”

The union subsidy is known as “release time,” a practice that allows public employees to conduct union business during working hours without loss of pay. A number of union activities are performed while employees are on release time, including contract negotiations, lobbying, attending union meeting/conference, and processing grievances.