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January 11, 2007
What the Washington Education Association is fighting for
I think everybody is pretty well aware of what was debated in the Washington paycheck protection case at SCOTUS yesterday: whether the union must get prior consent from nonunion employees before spending their "agency fees" (read: compulsory union due money) on certain political activities. But what is interesting is the amount of money at stake:
The fees average $700 a year, union president Charles Hasse said. About 75 percent of the total goes to the costs of collective bargaining. Of the remaining 25 percent, just $10 to $25 a year is covered by the state law that the union has challenged.
So to sum up: we're talking about $15 to $20 per employee. A maximum of 3.5%. Even under the law, the union was still able to keep the lion's share of the dues! And according to this, the union was doing backflips to avoid giving up even that much:
The authors of the state’s campaign-finance law included a narrow definition of politics with the hope of avoiding constitutional and federal preemption challenges. The result was a law that only covered union expenditures made to advocate expressly for the election or defeat of state or local candidates or initiatives. Of course, the vast majority of union political spending is not “express advocacy.” Accordingly, Washington’s “paycheck protection” law only covered a tiny fraction of union political expenditures. Also, in response to the law, the WEA union hierarchy shuffled their accounting methods and raised up teachers’ forced union dues even higher. The result was a 60 percent increase in the funds available for politics.
This isn't about money. It's about power--the union's desire to do what it wants versus the moral objections of nonmembers of the union. I find it almost tragic that those who choose to be unaffiliated with the union have to go all the way to the Supreme Court to have their rights defended.
But any attempt on my part to cover this heavily would be a poor attempt to outshine the stellar content you'll find on the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's website and blog dedicated to the case. Based on media coverage, general sentiment is that the law will be upheld. Evergreen sounds appropriately pleased; I know I am.
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Comments
I think you should mention the gross amount that's at stake. Otherwise, a good blog post.
I posted about the case last night and at the bottom of this post are links to the 3 other posts. The post I specifically link to includes links to legal analysis predicting a EFF victory/WEA loss.
Posted by: SVC Alumnus | January 11, 2007 01:11 PM
