State officials filed a lawsuit in the Alaska Superior Court against the Alaska State Employees Association on Monday, Sept. 16, in an effort to halt automatic deduction of union dues from the paychecks of workers opposed to paying them.
“By filing this lawsuit, the state is proactively seeking clarity from the court to ensure employees’ rights are fully protected,” according to a statement released by the Alaska Attorney General’s Office.
Attorney General Kevin Clarkson said he concluded that a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees significantly limits the manner by which the state can deduct union dues and fees from its employees’ wages. In the Janus case, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibits public employers from forcing their employees to subsidize a union, Clarkson noted, in a letter of Aug. 27 to Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
“The Supreme Court made it clear in Janus that public employees have the freedom to pay union dues or not,” Clarkson said.
Clarkson’s office noted that under the Walker administration the Department of Administration sent employees back to the unions to make requests to halt union dues deductions. After re-evaluating the Janus v. AFSCME decision, Clarkson released an opinion which concluded that some of the state’s current practices related to collection of union dues were not in compliance with the Supreme Court decision.
Veteran Fairbanks journalist Dermot Cole noted in his Reporting from Alaska column on Sept. 17 that Clarkson has given the Washington D.C. law firm of Consovoy McCarthy a $50,000 contract that pays two attorneys $600 an hour to handle the case for the state.
Union officials disagreed, calling the lawsuit a gross overreaction the part of the Dunleavy administration in its continued effort to undermine workers’ rights. Their current contract with the state is valid through 2022.
According to the lawsuit some 8,000 of the state’s 15,000 employees are represented in collective bargaining negotiations by the union.
“The Janus decision solely involves non-union members, plain and simple, and ASEA has worked diligently to comply with the new law,” said Jake Metcalfe, executive director for the Alaska State Employees Association/AFSCME, Local 52.
“Dunleavy is interfering with his employees’ contractual rights, violating their First Amendment rights and attempting to take all power away from them,” he said. “This is ‘big brother’ government at its worst. His actions are shameful.”
“It is plainly evident that the Clarkson memo and Governor Dunleavy’s lawsuit are all part of a larger attack on workers’ rights, orchestrated by Americans for Prosperity and the Alaska Policy Forum – secretive groups funded through the Koch Brothers’ network,” added Vince Beltrami, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO. “We will continue our fight to protect workers’ rights to ensure they have a collective voice in the workplace.”
