The Washington Education Association (WEA) recently lost a minor battle in a decade-long judicial dispute with the state and its arch nemesis, the conservative Evergreen Legal Foundation. The dispute centered on the union’s continuing desire to spend money on political campaigns. A settlement requires the WEA to pay $1 million, partly to reimburse teachers for improperly spending on political activities required contributions (known as “agency fees”)–even though those teachers had elected not to join the union.
Before this most recent defeat, the union had been successful in having the state legislature modify a 1992 law to allow it to use teachers’ dues–and not just money teachers had explicitly approved for political uses–on certain political activities, as long as the union has ‘sufficient’ general funding.
The new court decision won’t put much of a damper on the union’s forays into politics. As long as it doesn’t dip into funds collected from these non-union members, it still has the dues from its 80,000 members to advance any political agenda.