Legislature Tries Again to Regulate Payroll Deductions for Union Membership

Feb 20, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) A 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the state hasn't stopped an effort to once again try to regulate its employees' union membership. Representative Greg Hughes says his House Bill 475 is intended to allow employees an equal window of time to withdraw from a union, and makes them responsible for asking in writing to have their union dues deducted from their paycheck.

"I think it's a fair bill," Hughes says. "I think that it just tries to even the scales of when you can join and when you can exit."

But unions -including the Utah Education Association, the Confederation of Teachers and the School Board Association - don't think the bill is fair. UEA Executive Director Susan Kuziak says the bill could actually violate contract law. Unions are private businesses, she says, and asking them to change their membership enrollment dates is akin to forcing cell phone companies to only offer one-month contracts. Kuziak also questions the wisdom in revisiting the issue after spending millions of dollars in a lengthy court case to bar payroll deductions for certain union fees. And now that the state is asking the appellate court to revisit their ruling, Kuziak says it is premature to pass more legislation regulating payroll deductions.

"The language really said that the district payroll systems are owned by the districts -  they are not the property of the state," Kuziak says. "And therefore the state can't regulate them unless they show a ‘compelling state interest' and I'm not sure that there's a demonstrated compelling state interest here."

Despite these concerns and others raised by several lawmakers about how the bill is written, House Bill 475 passed the House Education Committee this morning by a 9 to 5 vote. It now moves to the full House floor for consideration. Click here to read the full text of the bill.

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