South Suburban College public safety workers who opted out of union sue for past dues, right to bargain independently
South Holland IL May 29 2020
Five public safety workers at South Suburban College argue in a lawsuit filed this month that the college deducted union dues from their paychecks without their “affirmative consent,” in violation of the First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of association.
The employees, who all had signed union membership cards prior to a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that public sector workers could not be compelled to pay union fees, claim the union should reimburse them for all the past fees it collected.
Their suit names as defendants the Cook County College Teachers Union AFT Local 1600, South Suburban College, Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the five individual members of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.
Because the statute of limitations on such claims in Illinois is two years, the workers, who have paid more than 50 years of union dues between them, would only be entitled to the dues each had deducted from their paychecks over the past two years, said their attorney, Jeffrey Schwab.
Since the college stopped deducting union dues from the five employees’ paychecks in September, at their request, each could recoup a maximum of approximately 16 months of union dues.
“These guys aren’t making bank by winning this lawsuit,” said Schwab, a senior attorney with the Liberty Justice Center, which represented Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services employee Mark Janus in the landmark Supreme Court case that established a public worker’s right not to pay fees to a union they don’t want to join.
Schwab said the South Suburban College lawsuit, one of more than a dozen such suits the nonprofit legal clinic has filed across the country, is about principle and fighting for the rights provided for in the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling.
In a statement on the Liberty Justice Center’s website, lead plaintiff Salvatore Presta said he joined the suit because he didn’t believe the union represented his interests.
“We are dedicated to the safety of students and staff at South Suburban College, yet we feel our rights are not respected or protected by the college or union,” Presta, a South Suburban College detective, said in the statement. “We were paying over $600 a year to a union we feel didn’t represent our interests and we had no back up from the college community.”
The college teacher’s union did not respond to a request for comment on the employees’ lawsuit and an attorney for South Suburban College declined comment.
Neither the attorney general’s office nor the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board returned requests for comment on the litigation.
The lawsuit, filed May 5 in U.S. District Court, argues the union membership cards they signed do not constitute their “affirmative consent” to waive their rights not to pay union dues, as the Janus decision requires.
It argues the workers were given an unconstitutional choice between paying union dues to an organization they did not support or paying fair-share fees as nonmembers, but were not given the option of paying nothing to the union.
Had they been given that option, the lawsuit argues, they would have chosen to pay nothing.
The suit also challenges the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act, which states that a union selected by public employees shall serve as the exclusive representative of all employees in that unit for collective bargaining purposes.
In South Suburban College’s case, the Cook County College Teachers Union AFT Local 1600 has been designated by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board as the only collective bargaining representative for the college’s public safety workers.
This exclusive representation, the employees argue in their suit, is an unconstitutional violation of their First Amendment rights.
“It forces nonmembers to be represented by the union and allows the union to speak to the (college) on their behalf, “ Schwab said. “The union can lobby for whatever they want and our clients don’t have any say.”
The college public safety workers’ suit also seeks to prohibit Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board from enforcing the portion of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act that deals with a union’s exclusive representation of employees in collective bargaining.
Schwab said none of the Liberty Justice Center’s other suits challenging the affirmative consent argument or the constitutionality of exclusive representation had been successful to date, but that it would not be deterred from bringing them and appealing unfavorable rulings in the belief that unions were continuing to violate public workers’ rights.
He said his organization, which is affiliated with the conservative-leaning Illinois Policy Institute, would petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up one of their cases, if necessary.
tribpub.com
