Judge grants order ending Oregon employee’s dues

When it comes to suppressing the Constitutional right public employees to opt out of union membership and dues, the agency for whom they work can be just as guilty as the union itself.

Occasionally even more so.

On March 14, U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman made permanent a temporary restraining order granted a week earlier preventing Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services from continuing to deduct dues on behalf of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from a state employee who never authorized the deduction in the first place.

It is believed to be the first TRO ever granted anywhere in the country forcing a state to stop collecting dues until the lawsuit can be fully adjudicated.

When Victoria Bright began working for the state of Oregon in November 2022 ironically in its Department of Human Services she made a point of declining membership in SEIU, because she took exception to its political agenda and bargaining tactics.

Starting with her first paycheck, however, the state has deducted $74.05 in dues, plus an additional assessment of $2.50 for “SEIU Issues” on the union’s behalf each month.

Bright has contacted SEIU on numerous occasions, and each time the union has agreed the dues deductions are improper and promised to issue a full refund.

But the money kept disappearing.

“This is a perfect example of why the s

By JEFF RHODES, VP for News & Information

state shouldn’t be in the dues-collection business,” said Rebekah Millard, an attorney with the Freedom Foundation, which is providing Bright with free legal representation. “It doesn’t matter whether the state is acting out of incompetence or fealty to the union. What matters is that it wouldn’t happen at all if the union was taking responsibility for its own accounting procedures, like every other independent service provider.”

Bright had been a dues-paying member of SEIU from 2013 until 2022, while she was working for the Oregon State Hospital, but did not reauthorize dues deductions when she took her new job.

In its 2018 Janus v. AFSCME ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that mandatory union membership and dues/ fees are a violation of free speech and association rights for government employees.

Bright is seeking a declaratory judgment preventing dues deductions from her paycheck or that of any other state employee without proper authorization.

“The state clearly does not have the necessary safeguards and procedures in place to ensure this won’t happen and isn’t already happening to other public employees who simply haven’t noticed it yet,” Millard said. “This is what happens when the government partners with a private entity and both parties begin to conclude the money they’re confiscating belongs to them rather than the person who earned it.”

RUSTY BROWN

By RYAN BROOKS