National Right to Work Foundation Files Brief Defending Law to Protect Teachers’ First Amendment Rights

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has just submitted a brief at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Anderson Federation of Teachers, et al. v. Rokita, defending an Indiana Law that protects teachers’ First Amendment rights against a lawsuit brought by teacher union bosses. The case is an appeal of a District Court judge’s preliminary injunction issued at the behest of union lawyers to stop the bill from going into effect.

At the District Court, the Anderson Federation of Teachers challenged Indiana’s State Enrolled Act 251 and 297. Those Acts require written consent from teachers, including an acknowledgement of their constitutional right to refrain from financially supporting a union, before taxpayer-funded government payroll systems can be used to deduct union dues from teachers’ paychecks. […]

“It is outrageous that teacher union bosses in Indiana apparently believe they are entitled to use taxpayer-funded payroll systems to seize money directly from teachers’ paychecks – without the State taking steps to ensure that those teachers’ constitutional rights are protected,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Precedents in the Seventh Circuit and elsewhere make it clear that the injunction should be rejected, and this law should be allowed to take immediate effect.”

“It would be fully within the prerogative of Indiana lawmakers to ban union officials from deducting dues from government workers’ paychecks all together, or ban all monopoly bargaining to ensure individual teachers are not subjected to unwanted union so-called ‘representation,’” Mix continued. “If anything, Indiana teacher union bosses should count themselves lucky lawmakers have so far not been more proactive in protecting teachers’ First Amendment free speech and freedom of association rights.”

NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK LEGAL DEFENSE FOUNDATION

All contents from this article were originally published on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Website.

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