Teachers Sue CTU

Suit: Chicago Teachers Union violates members' rights, forces them to keep paying dues, despite leaving union

By Dan Churney

Cook County Record

A pair of teachers is suing the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Board of Education for allegedly trampling teachers' freedom of speech by deducting union dues to subsidize the union's political positions without members' consent.

The putative class action was filed May 4 in Chicago federal court by Joanne Troesch and Ifeoma Nkemdi. They alleged the union and board violated their First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Troesch and Nkemdi demand damages for the more than 24,000 teachers and other school personnel who belong to the union. They are represented by the Chicago firm of Morris & De La Rosa, as well as by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, of Springfield, Va.

Plaintiffs said the board deducts dues from their pay, passing the money on to the union. Every August, but at no other time of year, union members can stop dues deductions by giving written notice. The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act governs the deduction of such dues.

Plaintiffs said they learned in fall 2019 of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from June 2018, which said public employees have the First Amendment right to refrain from subsidizing a union's political positions through their dues or fees. 

That case was brought by Mark Janus, a non-union Illinois state employee, who argued state rules requiring him to pay fees to a union for the costs of collective bargaining, contravened his constitutional rights. The union sued by Janus was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

In accordance with the Janus ruling, Troesch and Nkemdi told the union in October 2019 they were resigning from the union and told the board to no longer deduct dues or fees.

The board did not respond, but the union replied dues would continue to be taken until Sept. 1, 2020 because of  the "August escape period." As a consequence, dues are still being deducted, according to plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs said neither the union nor the board told school employees after the Janus ruling that employees have a "constitutional right not to financially support" the union. Further, the deduction forms, which employees sign, do not state an employee may waive their right or agree to waive their right by signing the form.

"Defendants’ maintenance and enforcement of their August escape period is against public policy because it significantly abridges employees’ First Amendment rights by compelling employees who do not want to subsidize CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) and its speech to subsidize CTU and its speech as a condition of their employment for up to a year," plaintiffs contended.

They want the August opt-out clause declared unconstitutional and for union members to be able to halt deductions at any time. In addition, plaintiffs want members to retroactively recover dues and fees already deducted.

Mark Janus sued to retrieve fees collected from him and other non-union state workers, but was stymied, with judges finding the fees, though now unconstitutional, were collected in "good faith." Those decisions followed other court decisions blocking Illinois home care assistants and child care workers, who were not employees of the state, from recovering millions of dollars in fees collected by the Service Employees International Union under a state law invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014. In the decisions denying that class action, judges also found the union could keep the fees because they had been collected in "good faith" in reliance on state law.

The Troesch-Nkemdi suit is assigned to District Judge John Z. Lee. Neither the union nor the board have yet responded, and no hearing is yet slated.