The larger principle
underlying the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. American Federation
of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 is
this: To compel people to give money to a cause of which they
disapprove is the very definition of tyranny. The court decision ending the
automatic deduction of union dues from employee paychecks naturally did not go
down well with unions.
Prior to Janus,
unions were able to extract fees from non-union members. Under the Taft–Hartley
Act of 1947, union security
agreements can be allowed in the private sector by state
law. In Janus, the high court ruled that union fees in the public
sector violate the First Amendment right to free speech, thus overturning a
1977 decision in Abood
v. Detroit Board of Education allowing such fees.
In the post Janus era, public
sector unions must gain assent from rank and file workers before automatically
deducting such fees, a requirement that will result in a loss of money to
public worker unions. The high court's decision may also increase fee
collection overhead among public sector unions -- if municipalities decline to
process withdrawals from municipal employee paychecks on behalf of unions. It
has never made sense that town workers, whose salaries are paid through municipal
taxes, should serve as processing agents for unions, and the
processing after Janus is certain to become more complex
and time consuming.
A new contract
recently was negotiated , Fitch writes, “over the course of two
meetings between Vernon officials and Vernon’s Parks and Recreation Director
Martin Sitler, President of the Directors Independent Unit.” The negotiated
settlement was effortless, Sitler said, because “’They offered us fair wages,
fair working conditions. It was a very pleasant meeting and we resolved every
single issue. I wouldn’t even call it a negotiation; it was just rational
people sitting down to discuss issues.’”
The new contract had
rightly eliminated automatic fee collection for municipal workers who had not
assented to pay such fees; it also did not mention union release time and
super-seniority, provisions that provoked a decree of separation issued by AFSCME
Council 4 Director of Collective Bargaining and Organizing Kevin Murphy, who
informed Sitler that Council 4 would no longer represent the bargaining unit if
it continued to pursue the contract.
“There were several
changes that had to be made in the proposed document,” Murphy wrote, “and based
on your email they haven’t occurred, the dues of which was only one of them
(sic) and not necessarily the number one issue as you present it. Council 4 has
pursued language that provides for union release time, super seniority, layoff
protection to name a few, (sic) without them being included we will not
represent you. I will forward a formal letter to you and the Town stating that
Council 4 AFSCME no longer represents this group of employees.”
Sitler pointed out to
no avail 1) that his small bargaining unit could not continue to
automatically collect fees from non-union members who had not freely assented
to the payroll deductions without risking a costly lawsuit, 2) that provisions
such as super-seniority were not applicable to his members because they were
all department heads and couldn’t bump each other in the event of layoffs, 3)
that his bargaining unit had offered to pre-pay several months of dues to
AFSCME and then pay a dues invoice moving forward in exchange for AFSCME’s
support of the contract, a proposal rejected by AFSCME, and 4) that the members
of his bargaining unit had found “AFSCME’s contract was too long and
complicated,” according to the Fitch report.
And finally, Sitler
pointed out “AFSCME Council 4 representatives arrived at their union meeting
and were ‘pushing their own agenda. That really irritated everyone in our
union.’”
Flexing its
legislative muscle, “AFSCME and other public sector unions had attempted to
make union permission to cease dues deductions a matter of state law during the
2019 legislative session. House Bill 6935, which failed to pass in the Senate, would have forced
municipalities and the state to rely on the union to inform them of who
resigned membership and who could cease having dues deducted,” according to the
Fitch account.
Town bargaining units
spurned by AFSCME for complying with Supreme Court rulings are not altogether
defenseless against such strong arm tactics. Vernon may be the canary in the
mineshaft; it is by no means certain that AFSCME will not similarly force other
towns to comply with possible unconstitutional edicts. Municipalities
might easily consider collectively whether they should any longer wish to
serve as collection agents for larger unions that compel people to give money
to a cause of which they disapprove.
State employee unions are obligated
under Janus to gain assent from workers BEFORE deducting fees.
Then too, why are municipal workers used to collect fees for unions that
may be in violation of their own First Amendment rights? Why shouldn’t AFSCME
process and collect its own fees, rather than rely on tax supported municipal
slave labor to do its work?
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