Monday, April 01, 2013

If Only California Would Do This Regarding Teachers Unions

There’s quite a row occurring over the ability of the Arizona Students Association, “a private group that lobbies on behalf of Arizona’s public university students,” to receive mandatory fees from every student in the entire University of Arizona system. Currently, the system’s 130,000 students each must pay $2 annually to fund the group.

The problem is, the association did not confine its activities to working for students, but was instead directing funds to liberal causes. In response, the system’s Board of Regents voted to end the association’s mandatory fee collection and make it optional as of this coming fall. The association has responded as one would expect a liberal political organization to do: It is suing to get its free money back.  link
I'm curious how anyone could try to justify having a government agency (my school district) forcibly take money from me and give it to a non-governmental agency that I don't want to have anything to do with!  And all this happens as a condition of employment!

Free association.  I don't want to associate with a union and shouldn't have to.  Why students should be required to support any particular organization is equally baffling to me.

5 comments:

PeggyU said...

Union workers can go on strike to protest. What do unionized non-workers do?

maxutils said...

You should be much more baffled. Forcing people to support unions is what makes unions able to negotiate. But you know that already ... you just don't like it. This makes NO sense, because it gains the 'members' nothing ...

Darren said...

What happened in this story gained the members the ability to keep their own money and not have it taken by a govt entity and given to a non-govt entity.

allen (in Michigan) said...

Well max if the past, including the pretty recent past, is any guide then your justifications for union coercion are falling increasingly upon deaf ears. Maybe the understanding's seeped into the public mind that what's good for the union is good only for the union and if you're not a member then go pound sand.

maxutils said...

allen, if the union is doing what it should ... you should WANT to join. But if you let people not join, then it can't. It's not a matter of sand pounding.