Chicago Public Schools employees ask U.S. Supreme Court to hear
challenge to union dues
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[June 26, 2021]
By SARAH MANSUR
Capitol News Illinois
smansur@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD — Two Chicago Public Schools
employees are challenging the validity of their signed contracts to pay
union dues as unconstitutional under a 2018 decision that ruled
mandatory union dues are a violation of free speech.
Lawyers with the National Right to Work organization, which represent
CPS employees Joanne Troesch and Ifeoma Nkemdi, have filed a petition
with the U.S. Supreme Court that seeks to void the membership contracts
signed prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
In the Janus case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that public-sector
unions cannot require nonmembers to pay so-called “fair share” dues to
subsidize the union’s speech, which they might disagree with.
The petition from Troesch and Nkemdi argues that after they resigned
from the Chicago Teachers Union following the Janus decision, the union
should not have been allowed to enforce the dues provision in their
membership contracts, which they signed in 2017.
The membership contracts for Troesch and Nkemdi allowed them to
terminate their CTU membership by resigning.
But the contracts also included a “dues authorization” section that
provided employees can opt out of paying dues only during the month of
August, even if the employees resigned from the union earlier in the
year.
When the Chicago Teachers Union continued deducting dues from the
paychecks of Troesch and Nkemdi after they resigned from the union, they
sued the union in federal court in May 2020.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Aug/26/images/ads/current/ldn_business_directory_small2_2016.png)
The lawsuit claims that CTU has violated their First Amendment rights by
continuing to deduct dues after they resigned to subsidize the union’s
speech. It also argues that protections afforded in the Janus case
entitle them to stop paying dues, despite their contractual obligations.
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In the Janus case, the court ruled that employees
must “clearly and affirmatively consent” to having dues deducted,
and the signed membership contract does not meet this standard of
consent, they argued.
Two federal courts have already soundly rejected
these arguments.
In February, a federal judge dismissed the case, finding that the
Janus case did not support their argument because that case applied
to nonmembers who did not consent to dues.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Jun/21/images/062121PIX/graue_21ENCORE_062121.png)
The CPS employees waived their rights not to subsidize CTU’s speech
when they agreed to pay dues under their membership contract, the
judge found.
Last month, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, a level below the U.S.
Supreme Court, upheld the federal district court’s decision.
National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix said in a
statement that “the Supreme Court must quickly take up this issue
and clarify that Janus does not permit union bosses to profit from
curtailing workers’ constitutional rights.”
CTU and the Board of Education for the city of Chicago have until
July 23 to respond to the petition.
Representatives from CTU and the Chicago school board did not
respond to requests for comment.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service
covering state government and distributed to more than 400
newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press
Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |