Two senators tentatively pushed back today on a bill mandating that non-union employees pay for union services they receive.
The Senate voted 26-3 in favor of the “fair share” bill last Friday, and had planned to hold a final vote today. Instead, the bill, S.14, was sent back to the Senate Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs Committee, where members heard amendments from Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, and Sen. Christopher Bray, D-Addison.
The proposed changes prompted a volley of testimony from the senators, and the state’s primary teachers and state employee unions. Two of the three changes were quickly quashed, however, and the bill will be back on the Senate floor Wednesday. The only amendment to make it past the committee was a clarification of wording.
Bray proposed an amendment to expunge the term “fair share” from the bill, which started a brief semantics debate. He described the phrase as “values-laden language” and asked the committee to return to the terminology used in current statute, which calls the fees “collective bargaining fees” or “agency fees.”
Sen. Kevin Mullin, who introduced the bill and chairs the committee, said the committee adopted the term “fair share” to give Vermonters a more precise understanding of what the bill is about. “The common Vermonter doesn’t have a clue what ‘agency fee’ means. They might be able understand what ‘fair share fee’ means. That’s why the committee made the change.”
Bray pushed back, telling the committee that a union member told him the term “was carefully crafted in order to suggest that doing anything other than supporting it would be unfair.”
Joel Cook, executive director of the Vermont NEA, told the committee, “I don’t care, ultimately, what you call it. You can call it a banana for all I care.” But, Cook insisted, the bill is “solely about the principle of fairness.”
The committee voted unanimously to reject Bray’s amendment.
The committee did accept a “friendly amendment” from Benning to make it clear that non-union members are entitled to legal representation by unions during grievance proceedings.
But it unanimously struck down Benning’s other amendment, which would have required unions to set up a separate account for incoming revenue from non-union member fees. Having a distinct account, Benning argued, would give non-union members peace of mind, allowing them to track how the union is spending their fees and “removing any potential for a grievance between the two sides.”
The current bill subjects unions to a financial audit to ensure non-union member fees are set at an appropriate level and aren’t used to fund the union’s political activity.
The Vermont NEA and the Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA) both came down hard against Benning’s second amendment. According to Cook, the measure was superfluous, since unions already make sure these fees aren’t put to political purposes. “Having a second or redundant process to make that clear makes no practical sense whatsoever. If, however, it serves your purposes with your own constituents, go ahead.”
