NRTW Foundation Attorneys Swing into Action in to Protect Kentucky Teachers
Give ‘em an inch and they will take a mile. With Jefferson County assistance, Kentucky teacher unions have been forcefully taking dues money from teachers who are not members. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s attorneys have filed suit against the Jefferson County Teachers Association, Kentucky Education Association, National Education Association and the Jefferson County Board of Education to protect these and other teachers across the county according to the Associated Press:
Teachers employed in Jefferson County are automatically enrolled as union members and pay union dues unless they register an objection to Jefferson County union officials. Teachers are permitted to resign from formal union membership during a ten day period after an individual teacher’s contract is signed or after the union agrees to a new contract with the local school board.
The suit alleges if a teacher does not register an objection to union membership within either period, he or she is required to remain a union member until the expiration of the union’s five-year contract with the local school board.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the return of dues, a modification of the union contract to allow employees to resign membership at any time and a regular notice from the union to public school employees that they have a right not to join the union.
[NRTW’s Will] Collins said the NEA is named in the teachers’ suit because it allegedly encouraged Jefferson County union officials to continue to block resignations.