By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

PLYMOUTH, Mich. – Your dues or your job.

That message was recently delivered to members of the Plymouth-Canton Cafeteria Association by their union president.

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According to Michigan Capitol Confidential, PCCA President Debbie Bence sent a letter June 4 to cafeteria workers that they must pay their union dues as a condition of employment. (The PCCA is part of the Michigan Education Association.)

In her letter, Bence demanded that school employees either pay their annual dues up front, or provide the union with the numbers to their checking, savings, or credit card accounts for monthly withdrawals, Capitol Confidential reports.

Bence was reacting to a new state law that prohibits school districts from automatically deducting union dues from an employee’s paycheck.

Under the new law, school employee unions are still allowed to shake down school employees for dues, but they’ll have to do it on their own time, and on their own dime. School districts will no longer be required to play bookkeeper for the labor unions.

At least, that was the plan.

A day after Bence wrote her letter, a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect until the courts can determine its constitutionality. That means union members will continue to have their dues automatically withheld from their paychecks, until a verdict is reached.

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If the courts eventually uphold the new law, school employees will technically still be required to belong to a labor union, but it will be up to the unions to track them down individually for their dues. That will be unworkable, and a large number of school employees will simply drop their membership altogether.

That would be a pretty clear signal that they never wanted to be members or pay dues in the first place. That should be their right. Just as it should be the right of the school district to retain whatever employees it wants, regardless of whether they are getting along with their stupid union.

They are school employees, not union employees. Hiring and firing is up to the school board, not some labor organization.