Ohio Teacher Union Officials Desperate to Keep Their Forced-Dues Power
Ohio teacher union officials are desperate to keep Right to Work out of Ohio. But that doesn’t stop them from complaining about having to fight to keep freedom for teachers out of the Buckeye State.
Note the Ohio Federation of Teachers (American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO affiliate), brazenly claims, “The people have already spoken. . .” Since when do teacher union officials speak for “the people?” They certainly don’t speak for the taxpayers who pay their salary and generous benefits while those officials conduct union business during school hours. But maybe many Ohio taxpayers don’t know they are footing the bill for union officials to dupe them into paying more and more to promote union officials’ agenda.
It’s time the public was made aware of this so-called “official time” scam. It’s official time all right – “union official time for union official purposes” official time.
She continues, perpetuating two other favorite teacher union scams/rationalizations: the myth that teachers can resign any time they want. Not. Most states have “window” periods when teachers may resign, but that’s not “any time they want” by a wide margin. The prez fails to mention they are still responsible for paying for most of this union representation they neither want nor asked for, and “fair share” fees. What’s fair about forcing someone to support something they don’t believe in? Is this the Ohio Inquisition?
Ida Lieszkovszky has the story on stateimpact.npr.org
Republican lawmakers introduced several bills in the Ohio House yesterday that, if passed, would mean employees in unionized workplaces can no longer be required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
“The people have already spoken during the Senate Bill 5 campaign so it’s unfortunate that we have to go through this battle again,” says Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper.
Voters repealed Senate Bill 5 in 2011 – a repeal teachers unions fought hard for. Cropper says they’ll fight just as hard this time around.
In a news conference this afternoon at the Statehouse, GOP representatives Kristina Roegner of Hudson and Ron Maag of Lebanon said they filed three pieces of legislation: one to bar mandatory unionism in the public sector; one to do so in the private sector; and one that would allow voters to decide whether Ohio should be a right-to-work state.
Cropper says people already have the option of opting out of paying union dues that go towards political activity.
“Right to work is simply giving people the right to freeload and say I’m going to reap all the benefits of that contract without paying for any of those benefits,“ she says.
Employees who opt out of the union still have to pay some union dues, known as “fair share fees.” Cropper says those cover the costs of collective bargaining that affect all employees – like contract bargaining.
But one of the bills’ sponsors, Kristina Daley Roegner (R-Hudson) says this effort is not “Senate Bill 5 lite.”