Union officials face lawsuit for violating civil servants’ workplace rights

Jefferson County, KY (October 2, 2015) – 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.

In the second part of the lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek class-action status for all similarly-situated school district employees to uphold their right to refrain from paying for union political activism. If the courts determine that union officials are entitled to collect forced dues from unwilling public school employees, the lawsuit seeks to ensure that union officials are at least required to abide by these procedural protections.

On September 29, union officials agreed to stop collecting dues from nonunion employees until they implement certain procedural safeguards. The lawsuit challenging the collection of all union dues will continue to proceed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

“We applaud these Jefferson County civil servants for standing up for their workplace rights,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We hope that these public school employees will soon be free from the burden of paying mandatory union dues.”

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.