School employees take union dues case to Ohio Supreme Court

(The Center Square) – Five school employees in Ohio are turning to the Ohio Supreme Court to stop paying dues after they resigned from the union.

The Buckeye Institute filed an appeal with the state’s highest court in the case of five of the original 10 clients. Five clients won their case, which argued that all of the former members of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees had money illegally taken from their paychecks for union dues after they resigned from the union.

The Buckeye Institute is a Columbus-based policy group.

The appeal wants the Supreme Court to tell the state’s lower courts they have jurisdiction in these cases rather than the State Employment Relations Board.

“‘Have your day in court’ is a truism that we learn from a young age,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “But if you were a member of a government union – a union still taking money out of your paycheck – getting your day in court is not that easy. This must change, and Darling v. AFSCME presents the Ohio Supreme Court the opportunity to clarify that common pleas courts have jurisdiction to decide private contractual disputes like the ones presented in this case.”

The employees say they should be allowed to change the validity and enforceability of their government union contract in court.

The union and lower courts have said the employees must go through the State Employment Relations Board for relief.

However, according to The Buckeye Institute, the board told clients in a similar case that they must go to court.

The union says the five signed a contract authorizing the union to continue deducting dues from their paychecks.