In Major Anti-Labor Case, Union-busters No Longer Even Pretend Unions Don’t Benefit Workers

April Bain, a Los Angeles teacher and the plaintiff in Bain v. CTA, says her union has benefitted her greatly, and she wants to keep receiving those benefits. She just doesn't want to pay for them.


http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17887/in_major_anti_labor_case_union_busters_no_longer_even_pretend_unions_dont_b

BY MOSHE Z. MARVIT

April Bain is a high school math teacher in Los Angeles, and a dues-paying member of her union, Los Angeles Teachers United. She has benefited from this membership, and indeed claims that “everybody has a horror story of a teacher that needed their union.” She describes a personal experience of conflict with her principal in which having a union behind her made her feel safe. “You felt safe. You kind of felt like, okay, we can do what’s right here and we’ll be protected,” she has stated.

However, Bain has decided that she does not want to contribute to any of the union’s political activities of her union. Bain doesn’t specify which of the union’s expenditures she specifically disagrees with, but previous objectors to such spending have cited union support or opposition for political candidates, support or opposition for ballot initiatives, support for causes important to the membership, and the like. Though Bain can register as an objector and get a refund of all fees not germane to its representational duties while still being covered under any collective bargaining agreement with the employer, she does not want to exercise that right because she knows that membership has benefits.



To object and become a non-member, Bain would simply have to write to her union during an open window and state her desire to quit the union. However, if she did so, she would not receive liability insurance, which is a benefit of union membership, or have the right to vote in union elections.

Therefore, with the backing of education reformer and former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee’s anti-teachers union group StudentsFirst, Bain and several other teachers have filed a federal lawsuit against the California Teachers Association, the National Education Association, the California Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, United Teachers Los Angeles, United Teachers of Richmond and various school superintendents. Through that suit, Bain seeks to accrue all the benefits of union membership while paying a reduced dues rate and becoming a non-member.

FULL story at link.