By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.com

LANSING, Mich. – Michigan lawmakers recently passed legislation that  makes it illegal for public schools to deduct union dues from employee paychecks.

Several unions, including the Michigan Education Association, have filed suit in federal court in an effort to overturn the law. The unions are obviously hoping to repeat the success of Wisconsin unions that challenged similar legislation in a recent federal court appeal.

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One liberal website, DemocraticUnderground.com, said the Michigan law would “essentially defund the unions.” That may indeed be the case. But if enough union members aren’t willing to voluntarily pay dues, do the unions really deserve to be funded?

In most public school districts, teachers and many other employees are forced to join the union in some form, and agree to have union dues deducted from their checks. That does not necessarily mean they want to belong to the union or share their earnings with the union.

Laws that mandate automatic dues payments are essentially legalizing robbery.

Forced union membership and automatic dues deductions take the “voluntary” aspect out of the equation and make employees virtual prisoners of their unions. It  puts union leaders in a position of power and authority, whether the employees they supposedly represent choose to give them that authority or not.

Whatever happened to the democratic ideal of governing by the consent of the governed?

Before any school employees should be forced to join a union or pay dues, there should be  a law in every state guaranteeing annual recertification votes, to ensure that employees truly want to be represented by their union. Individual employees should also have the right to avoid union membership and dues payments if they choose.

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It’s a concept called freedom. We used to take it quite seriously in America.