No Fairness in Coercion (St. Louis Post Dispatch)

Regarding "Union wants 'fair share' on dues" (June 7): There is nothing fair about forcing any American to pay dues to a union just to get or keep a job.

If the American Federation of Teachers union hierarchy gets its way, school employees who already voted against formal union membership would be forced to fork over a total of $2 million each year in forced union dues.

Union officials spend vast sums of these forced dues on causes that many teachers find offensive. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, AFT union officials handed more than $15.7 million of its members' dues to partisan political organizations in 2004.

While Supreme Court precedents won by the National Right to Work Foundation allow nonunion workers to withhold forced dues not spent on collective bargaining activities, union officials commonly abuse these rights.

The Missouri Legislature is considering a Right to Work bill that would outlaw forced unionism altogether. Until this law is enacted, union officials' bullying of teachers and other employees will continue virtually unabated.

Patrick Ashby | Springfield, Va.

Spokesman, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

This Letter to the Editor originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch