by Christian Wade, The Center Square | May 06, 2021 04:00 PM Print this article
A pair of New Hampshire state workers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to order a labor union to refund them for dues taken out of their paychecks.
The class-action lawsuit, filed against the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation on behalf of two state employees, seeks up to three years worth of union dues they say were taken without their consent in violation of a landmark 2018 Supreme Court ruling that did away with the required payments.
The suit seeks refunds for Patrick Doughty and Randy Severance as well as other state workers who didn t want to join the labor union but still had to pay dues.
weekly political column. Tim Newcomb Last Friday, House Speaker
Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) ducked and withdrew her proposal, made 10 days earlier, for closing the enormous gap of more than $3 billion between what s on hand in the state s pension funds and what s needed to cover pensions for retired state workers and teachers in coming years. Instead, she announced plans to appoint a summer task force to study the issue and recommend reforms to lawmakers in January. Of course, pension fund problems compound with time; waiting another year to fix them only makes matters worse. So let s call this the midterm report card, or perhaps the end-of-semester assessment in a tough, two-year course. And by tough, I mean two things should be acknowledged: 1. It will be difficult to come up with a solution that no one will like but everyone will deem tolerable. 2. It absolutely has to be done