CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Fred Albert of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT) is pleased with the recent decision by a Kanawha Circuit judge to put a halt to a new state law that forbids employers from deducting union dues from public employees’ paychecks.
Albert appeared on Tuesday’s MetroNews ‘Talkline,’ one day after the decision by Kanawha Circuit Judge Tera Salango on House Bill 2009.
“We’ve felt all along that this was an attack on the freedom of our members, the freedom to chose to join our union and the freedom to have their dues deducted from their paycheck,” he said.
The law was going into effect this Thursday. The union Albert represents, along with a handful of others, say the bill was passed and signed into law solely in retaliation after the statewide teacher strikes of the past few years.
Host Hoppy Kercheval asked Albert if there was evidence that this was a retaliation by Republicans for the strikes.
“As Judge Salango said, they didn’t hide their dislike for labor unions,” he said. “They made comments in the media about their dislike for labor unions and dislike for the union bosses. Even our governor has called us union bosses.”
.@AlbertFralbert speaks with @HoppyKercheval about Judge Tera Salango’s decision halting a state law that forbids employees from deducting union dues from public employees’ paychecks. WATCH: https://t.co/yCFQ3nDJuy pic.twitter.com/cGFUztz1Ji
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) June 15, 2021
As MetroNews reported on Monday, Salango said, “I do find and believe the petitioners will suffer irreparable harm without this injunction.
“The governor and many members of the Legislature have not hidden their dislike for the labor unions. There have been open attacks on the unions in the media, and they are welcome to criticize whoever they please but when a law is passed that treats a certain group differently from others, then it should be subject to additional scrutiny.”
Albert is hopeful there will be a permanent injunction on it. He said it takes too much manpower to take dues from paychecks in other ways and would be an unnecessary change.
He even predicted a loss in membership in the early days following the law going into effect.
“In the interim, we would have rough days ahead because we would take some financial loss. Until everyone understands that we are in a new method of collecting news,” Albert said.