Monday, April 21, 2008
An Important Challenge to a Professors' Union [Candace de Russy]
Professor David Seidemann of Brooklyn College filed suit against the Taylor Law-protected Professional Staff Congress (PSC) for failing to provide sufficient information, deceptively characterizing political activities as contract-related, and requiring that non-members request a refund for politically-related dues each year.
As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, under federal Constitutional law, unions with agency fee arrangements must reimburse dues used for lobbying when faculty who do not belong to the union (but pay dues, called agency payers) request a refund.
Professor Seidemann began his suit six years ago. Previously the court held that the PSC must reimburse agency payers for dues used for political purposes, but the union required that the agency payers file for reimbursement each year. Moreover, Professor Seidemann alleged that the union understated the amount used for political purposes.
A federal appeals court had previously reversed a lower court's ruling and the case was just re-heard in federal district court. The district court ruled that:
- The PSC currently violates the First Amendment rights of agency fee payers because it fails to provide them with sufficient information and does not file its financial statements in a timely manner.
- The PSC unlawfully charged objecting non-members for some of the union's political activities by deceptively characterizing them as contract-related activities. Among the activities that the PSC improperly claimed as contract-related was a forum on an anti-war resolution. The PSC also improperly charged fee payers for public rallies, picket lines, concerts, letter-writing campaigns — all political activities — under the category "office supplies."
- The PSC's requirement that non-members annually renew their objections to political expenditures is unconstitutional.
This ruling could be of great importance. It applies to all public unions in New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, and also will have national ramifications if the Supreme Court decides to support the district court's ruling.
Some PSC members, such as
Sharad Karkhanis and Mitchell Langbert, allege that the PSC has failed to bargain competently because its attention has been diverted to left-wing political causes. (Langbert has doggedly followed this case
here and
here.)
04/21 10:41 AM
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