Daniel Renner decided he no longer wanted to pay dues to the Technical, Professional and Officeworkers Association of Michigan five years ago.
The following year, he was reprimanded for making a false complaint against a coworker in the Saginaw County Maintenance Department and told he could only file a grievance about the reprimand through the union.
Union officials told him he would have to pay nearly $1,300 if he wanted their help.
An administrative law judge found that requiring non-members to pay for representation went against their right not to not to join a union that’s guaranteed by the state’s right-to-work law and that it was discriminatory besides. Both the Michigan Employment Relations Commission and the state Court of Appeals upheld that decision.
On Thursday, the Michigan Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, which could help to determine the limits of the right-to-work legislation, which requires unions to represent every member of their bargaining units whether or not they are dues-paying members of the union.
Significantly, several of the state’s largest unions, including the Michigan Education Association, the Michigan State AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 25, have weighed on Renner’s side, saying a fee-for-service model was “antithetical” to their “fundamental mission and purpose of…providing all employees with a collective voice for improving their working conditions.”
But Attorney Frank...
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