Southwest Ohio School Employee Hits OAPSE Union with Charges for Illegally Seizing Union Dues

Southwest Public Schools employee Richard Koch has filed charges against the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4) union, telling the Ohio State Employee Relations Board (SERB) that union officials have unlawfully locked him into an entire school year of union dues deductions against his will. Staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation represent him for free.

Koch, who is not a union member, charges that OAPSE union bosses are arbitrarily restricting the time in which school employees can exercise their right to cut off union dues deductions to less than 3% of the year. He further explains that OAPSE officials continue seizing dues from any employee who misses the tiny, unilaterally-imposed “window period” to opt out of dues deductions, rather than acknowledging the request and effectuating it at the next “window period.” […]

“Mr. Koch’s case shows that OAPSE union officials don’t even pretend to care about the rights of workers who disagree with them, and will readily violate those rights if it means the union can fill its coffers with more of those employees’ money,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Beyond blatantly violating Ohio law, OAPSE union officials are also ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s First Amendment command in the Janus v. AFSCME decision that union officials can only take union dues from workers who have affirmatively consented to support the union.”

NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK LEGAL DEFENSE FOUNDATION

All contents from this article were originally published on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Website.

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