There ought to be a law

by Dale Bohren
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 12:13 PM MST

State Sen. Grant Larson of Teton County has sponsored a bill in the Wyoming Legislature that would make it illegal for a school district board of trustees to use public money to pay union dues as an employment benefit.

Senate File 45 is titled “school districts-payment of employee association dues.”

I only can assume that Larson, learning that the Natrona County School Board is paying union dues for its employees as an employment benefit, had the same reaction that I did: there ought to be a law!

I don’t mean to be snippy, but unions don’t typically negotiate for lower wages and benefits. So for a major employer like our school district to pay the cost of union dues to any association that negotiates wages and benefits for its employees makes no sense.

It equates to using public money to lobby for spending more public money, increasing the wages of the individuals whose union dues are paid with public money. Nice work if you can get it, but not a good deal for taxpayers and definitely a bad precedent.

How much money?

The Natrona County School District, through the Interest Based Agreement Process (IBAP), agreed to pay certified employees a 100 percent reimbursement for union dues and 50 percent reimbursement for professional development up to $450 yearly per employee at an annual cost of $500,000.

After reports and some criticism of the benefit surfaced in the Casper Journal and the Casper Star-Tribune, the 100 percent reimbursement for dues was scaled back to 66 percent against a budget line item in the same neighborhood of $500,000.

They missed the point! Schools should not pay any of their employees’ union dues; individual union members should.

I have been told by representatives of the Natrona County Education Association that the NCEA is not a union, but rather an association that provides professional development.

However, the first fact in Hamilton v. Natrona County Education Association, a liability case in which the NCEA was a defendant and which was decided by the Wyoming Supreme Court in 1995, was described by lawyers as follows: “NCEA, a private non-profit corporation, is a voluntary association of classroom teachers located within the Natrona County School District. Affiliated with state and national organizations, it provides contract negotiations, grievance representation, lobbying, and other support for its members.”

Contract negotiations are high on their list of benefits. The group also endorses political candidates and makes political contributions. It is inaccurate to define the NCEA as anything but a union.

Historically, unions have played key roles for those they represent. But this is not about unions being bad or good. This is about whether or not public money should be used to pay an individual’s union dues.

Collective representation of the teachers and other staff in salary negotiations may be a good and necessary thing. But it should be funded by the people it represents and not the public.

It is contrary to the best interests of the public for the district to pay membership dues to the union responsible for negotiation of employee wages and benefits with the district.

I agree with Sen. Larson: There ought to be a law!

SF 45 can be read online at http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2008/Introduced/SF0045.pdf.

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