Union: Greensburg state employees no longer having dues withheld

Stephen Huba
Wednesday, April 3, 2019 12:29 p.m. | Wednesday, April 3, 2019 12:29 p.m.

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Stephen Huba | Tribune-Review

The entrance to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry office building in downtown Greensburg.

Pennsylvania officials deny that the state continues to withhold union dues for three Greensburg-based state employees who are challenging their union membership in federal court.

State officials, including Gov. Tom Wolf, Secretary of Labor & Industry W. Gerard Oleksiak and Chief Accounting Officer Anna Maria Kiehl, denied the allegations contained in the complaint, filed in January in the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania.

The state employees — Megan James, William Lester and Angela Pease — work as disability claims adjudicators in the Department of Labor & Industry’s Bureau of Disability Determination in downtown Greensburg and tried to resign their union membership in July 2018.

After being told they had only a 15-day window at the end of the current contract to do so, they filed suit against the Service Employees International Union, Local 668, and the state. The current contract, which covers about 9,000 public sector employees, expires on June 30.

The Greensburg employees contend that in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, they should have an unrestricted right to leave the union and be awarded a refund of dues deducted after their resignations.

In the Janus cased, the Supreme Court in 2018 ruled 5-4 that public sector unions cannot charge nonmembers an “agency fee” as a condition of employment. The court said such a practice is a form of compelled speech and, thus, a violation of the First Amendment.

Local 668 President Stephen Catanese, a native of Lower Burrell, said in his reply that the lawsuit is moot and should be dismissed.

“The evidence will ultimately show that the letters described in plaintiffs’ complaint were sent in error and did not reflect Local 668’s policy at that time, and that each of the plaintiffs has had their resignation processed and been issued a refund of any post-resignation dues received by Local 668,” Catanese’s lawyer, P. Casey Pitts, said in a memorandum.