SAN FRANCISCO — Five California educators on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s top teachers union from collecting dues through mandatory paycheck deductions, the latest in a series of similar legal challenges filed across the country.
The lawsuit challenging the California Teachers Association’s mandatory collection of dues follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 27 barring the practice in the public sector.
“These dues are a negative financial impact to a lot of teachers who live in the Bay Area where there is a high cost of living.” — Bethany Mendez, one of the plaintiffs and a special education teacher at the Fremont Unified School District
“These dues are a negative financial impact to a lot of teachers who live in the Bay Area where there is a high cost of living,” said Bethany Mendez, one of the plaintiffs and a special education teacher at the Fremont Unified School District. Mendez said she pays $1,500 per year in union dues.
The teachers are represented by San Francisco lawyer Harmeet Dhillon and the Freedom Foundation, an Olympia, Washington-based politically conservative think tank. The Freedom Foundation has represented teachers suing unions in several states.
About 70 percent of the nation’s 3.8 million public school teachers belong to a union, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Teacher unions across the country have been bracing for litigation since the high court ruled 5-4 that requiring dues payments forces public sector workers to endorse political messages that they may be counter to their beliefs.
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“This is just another lawsuit from the Freedom Foundation to continue the attack on public education and public employees,” California Teacher Association spokeswoman Claudia Briggs said.
