Public Trust Institute Alerts School Districts to Unconstitutional Union Contract Clauses
Five Public School Districts Illegally Force Non-Union Workers to Support Union
Lakewood, CO: Unconstitutional provisions in at least five teacher union contracts place Colorado school districts – and their taxpayers – at significant risk for expensive litigation, according to alerts from the non-partisan Public Trust Institute (PTI).
PTI uncovered provisions at five Colorado school districts that automatically enroll school employees in the unions and/or withhold union dues or fees from their paychecks despite employees refusing to join the union or resigning from the union. These practices are illegal under federal law.
The alert, from PTI Legal Director Dan Burrows, details the legal risk posed to the districts by ignoring educators’ and other school workers’ First Amendment rights not to join the union – and not to have their personal funds taken to support the union without their affirmative consent.
“If your attorney has told you these arrangements are acceptable, he or she is giving you bad advice,” Burrows wrote to school board members. “If you have just relied on union assurances that no one will complain, they have led you into a trap. The law has been clear for decades that the government may not just assume a person has waived his or her fundamental rights.”
PTI found the problematic contract provisions in union agreements in the following school districts: Adams 12 Five Star, Alamosa, Thompson, Pueblo 60 (Pueblo City Schools) and Pueblo 70 (Pueblo County Schools).
In his letter, Burrows describes the offending provisions in each of the districts’ contracts as follows:
Classified employees in Adams 12 Five Star School District are automatically enrolled in the union, and have union dues withheld, unless the employee goes out of his or her way to decline union membership.
The Alamosa School District requires employees to opt out of union membership annually and the district automatically re-enrolls all employees in the union each year, even if they have previously stated they do not wish to be union members.
The Thompson School District in Loveland continues to deduct union dues from employees’ paychecks even after they have resigned from the union.
Non-union employees in Pueblo School Districts 60 and 70 are obligated to pay an unconstitutional fee to the union.
Burrows urged the districts to remove the unconstitutional provisions quickly. He said the mere existence of these unconstitutional provisions in collective bargaining agreements potentially chills the fundamental rights of educators and other school employees and opens the door to expensive – and likely successful – litigation against the districts.
PTI is continuing a statewide review of teacher union contracts and will send further alerts to districts as warranted.
About Public Trust Institute (PTI)
Public Trust Institute (PTI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created to uphold our state’s constitution and defend the principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility on which Colorado was founded.