Kentucky School Employees File Lawsuit
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is neither a Right to Work nor forced dues state, so courageous school employees are fighting teacher union officials to return their forced dues dollars. Will Collins has the story on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation website.
With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, 11 Jefferson County public school employees have filed a class-action lawsuit in United States District Court against the Jefferson County School Board, District Superintendent Donna Hargens, the AFSCME union, and a regional and a local AFSCME affiliate.
The lawsuit has already prompted union officials to agree to stop collecting union dues from nonunion employees, pending the implementation of certain procedural safeguards to protect workplace rights.
The plaintiffs contend that the school district lacks the constitutional authority to force county public school employees who oppose the union’s presence to pay any union dues. Even if union officials are authorized to collect mandatory dues from nonunion public employees, they are still obligated to abide by Foundation-won Supreme Court precedents that safeguard civil servants’ workplace rights. Employees who refrain from joining a union cannot be forced to pay union dues for activities unrelated to workplace bargaining, such as political activism, and are entitled to certain procedural safeguards to ensure they are not subsidizing union politics.