Commonwealth Policy Center

The KEA, Kentucky’s largest teachers union, is suing the state because they believe a bill (SB 7) preventing government employers from helping collect union dues is unconstitutional. In the past, teachers had their union dues automatically deducted from their paychecks. This will no longer be allowed. State Senator Robbie Mills (R-Henderson) sponsored the bill because public employee unions shouldn’t be allowed to use taxpayer-funded payroll systems to collect political contributions from members.” The unions claim this will hurt them financially. But the bigger question is, should publicly funded payroll systems be used to collect political contributions—contributions used exclusively to help one political party? To be clear, teacher’s unions aren’t outlawed. It just forces them to find a different payment method to collect money that doesn’t involve using taxpayer-funded resources to fuel political agendas.