(The Center Square) – Ten Ohio public employees filed a lawsuit claiming money was illegally taken from their paychecks by employers and given to a government union.
The 10 join three others who filed a similar lawsuit earlier this month, according to The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based policy group that represents both groups.
“In Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly stated that the First Amendment protects public employees from being forced to ‘subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern’ without consent,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute and the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case. “But, once again, the government unions are trying to claim that these public servants – whom everyone acknowledges are no longer members of the union – are nonetheless obligated to continue paying union dues. Ohio law simply does not allow this unethical practice, and we are asking the court to tell the unions and the government to stop illegally taking money from these workers’ paychecks.”
Monday’s lawsuit, filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus, includes employees from Boardman, Toledo, Akron, Maumee, Galloway, Upper Sandusky, Columbus and Bowling Green. The majority are school employees – a behavior specialist, an office assistant, a secretary, a custodian, a driver, two bus drivers and an eighth-grade science teacher – while another is a property enforcement officer and another is a highway technician.
All but one resigned union membership in 2020, while the other left the union in early 2021.
As previously reported by The Center Square, three Lucas County Job and Family Services employees filed suit in early December also alleging money has been illegally removed from their paycheck and given to a union.
Those three filed a federal suit in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Ohio.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its Janus ruling in June 2018 that reinforced the law regarding public employees’ rights to avoid forced payments to unions.
