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Probation officers win suit (against unions) over free speech rights
Copyright © 2012, The Daily Record. ^ | Posted: 5:30 pm Tue, April 24, 2012 | By Daily Record Staff

Posted on 05/03/2012 10:19:15 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines

ROCHESTER, NY--Four Monroe County probation officers have won relief in their protracted federal legal battle against two government unions for violating their First Amendment rights.

The four officers, led by David Scheffer, filed the suit with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.

The probation officers sued the Civil Service Employees Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees for seizing forced union dues from their paychecks for illegal union expenditures. The officers charged that union officials were spending their forced dues on union organizing drives, despite the officers’ objections, according to a Right to Work release.

In 2005, the officers filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York seeking to prevent the further collection of forced union dues and asking for full refunds and punitive damages. The officers won on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2007 when the court found that the CSEA union hierarchy illegally spent $1 of every $10 of workers’ forced dues money on organizing.

The District Court judge last week ordered CSEA union officials to refund each officer. The officers’ suit initially sought similar relief for all non-member public employees represented by CSEA union affiliates throughout New York, a number believed to be in the thousands. However, the courts’ decision only gives relief to the four officers.

“Employees should not have to go to federal court to stop use of their forced union dues being illegally spent on union boss politics and organizing,” said Mark Mix, president of National Right to Work. “However, as long as public employees in New York labor under forced unionism, these abuses by union officials will inevitably continue.”


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; US: New York
KEYWORDS: afscme; csea; dues; forced
The good guys won one for a change.
1 posted on 05/03/2012 10:19:19 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

The ensconcing of unions in law was, at best, of dubious good. And they hardly ever find a role any more in combating true inhumanity in the workplace, a concern which was important in the past. Now they are just another special interest group haggling over pieces of a pie that shrinks apace under liberals’ baleful gaze, and making sure that their own big shots get a particularly good hunk of that pie.


2 posted on 05/03/2012 10:27:03 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Away with them and the high horses they rode in on.)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
The court's decision is narrow and only requires refund of the four plaintiff’s dues, not the class of similarly situated employees. I wonder how that came to be? The legal costs likely greatly exceeded the cost of the refunds and the union is not deterred.
3 posted on 05/03/2012 10:35:58 AM PDT by Truth29
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

I’m happy for the four officers directly involved, here, but this ruling is a sloppy wet kiss on the ass of the unions involved.

Wonder when the judge will get his union member funded check?


4 posted on 05/03/2012 12:16:22 PM PDT by HKMk23 (GOPe 2012 MITT HAPPENS)
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