A judge in Wayne County has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a school union contract designed to skirt the Michigan’s new right-to-work law.
As The Michigan Public Radio Network’s Jake Neher reports, the Taylor School District signed a ten-year union agreement just before the new law went into effect.
Three teachers in Taylor say they shouldn’t be forced to pay union dues and fees for another ten years – or else get fired.
Union attorney Mark Cousens says the teachers had every right to lobby against the contract and vote against it when that time came.
“But they do not have the right to walk into court, on their own, and say that a judge should toss the contract out because they don’t like it,” he says.
The conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy brought the case along with the three teachers. It says Michigan law does allow the teachers to sue to nullify the contract.
The Wayne County Circuit Court judge said she didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the case. She said that would fall on the Michigan Employment Relations Commission.