Teachers Unions Told to Not Take Nonmember Fees

Unions representing teachers from eight California school districts were ordered by the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to stop collecting fees from nonmembers until they can account for how the contributions are spent.

In their suit, the teachers had complained that some fees might be used to pay for partisan political activities, in violation of their constitutional rights.

Membership is not compulsory in California teacher unions. However, in about half the state’s 1,000 districts, teachers who choose not to become members must still pay a so-called agency fee to cover the costs of the collective bargaining that the union must perform for them. Those teachers are eligible for a rebate representing union expenses unrelated to collective bargaining.

A. Eugene Huguenin Jr., an attorney for the union, said the California Teachers Assn. plans to provide an audit in seven districts. The eighth, Dinuba Unified, collects so little in fees from nonmembers that an audit would be prohibitively expensive. He said the union would therefore stop collecting fees from nonmembers there.

Judge Charles Legge issued his ruling from the bench.