Phoenix's union policy cheats taxpayers and violates workers' rights

Arizona is a “right-to-work” state and has been for three-quarters of a century.

That’s supposed to mean that when employees think the union that wields monopoly-bargaining power in their workplace isn’t doing a good job, they don’t have to give any of their money to that union.

These protections are further bolstered by Janus v. AFSCME, a 2018 decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it a First Amendment violation to force public workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

A substantial majority of mechanics, electricians, maintenance workers and other blue-collar employees of the city of Phoenix clearly don’t believe top bosses of Local 2384 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) are doing a job worthy of paying dues.

According to the most recent available payroll records, a big majority of the employees under Local 2384’s control have taken advantage of their rights under Arizona’s right-to-work law and Janus, choosing to not join the union or to end their membership.

Deal uses public money to pay for union work

But Local 2384 union bosses think they can use a so-called “official time” or “union time” scheme and still get the cash dissenting public employees are choosing not to pay as dues.

Under such “official time” schemes, government union officials are paid taxpayer dollars to work directly for the union, siphoning off funds intended to compensate public employees for performing public services.

In Phoenix, Big Labor-friendly municipal politicians have recently cut a deal with AFSCME union brass to redirect roughly $500,000 in taxpayer money into union coffers pursuant to an “official time” arrangement.

This shady bargain between Mayor Kate Gallego, City Manager Jeff Barton and other Phoenix politicians, and a local subsidiary of the political kingmaker AFSCME union, is now being challenged in Gilmore v. Gallego, a civil case that was argued before the Arizona Supreme Court in mid-February.

Justice William Montgomery observed during the hearing that Gallego and her cohorts appear to be using the scheme to siphon the equivalent of “dues money” from 900 city employees for a union those same employees have rejected.

This violates workers' rights, lawsuit argues

This isn’t the first time that Phoenix politicians have tried to use “union time” to redirect taxpayer funds into union coffers while simultaneously reducing the compensation of city workers who refrain from union membership.

For example, in 2015 and 2016, Phoenix politicians successfully defended an earlier “union time” scheme facing a challenge before the Arizona Supreme Court in Cheatham v. DiCiccio.

Phoenix politicians argued the taxpayer-furnished cash and benefits bestowed upon union bosses for doing union business were not an uncompensated gift to Big Labor, and thus not a violation of the state constitution.

In 2015: Phoenix 'release time' gets another whack in court

There was no net cost to taxpayers, the politicians claimed successfully at the time, because they paid for union officials’ “release time” by forgoing potential compensation for other public servants.

In Gilmore, municipal employees and union nonmembers Mark Gilmore and Mark Harder simply argue that politicians in their city are still doing today what their predecessors openly admitted to doing in Cheatham.

Since then, however, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018’s Janus v. AFSCME has explicitly recognized that forcing public employees to sacrifice part of their compensation to fund union activities is a violation of the First and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Courts must stop this blatant rights violation

Post-Janus, Mayor Gallego et al. no longer want to acknowledge that they are taking money from civil servants on their payroll who don’t belong to the union, without their consent, to pay union bosses to lobby politicians and conduct an array of other union business.

They don’t want to admit to such a blatant First Amendment violation.

Instead, they now argue “union time” is actually on the taxpayers’ dime, but insist that taxpayers are fully compensated through all the work performed by rank-and-file city employees who are subject to Local 2384’s monopoly-bargaining control.

In other words, local AFSCME bosses should get the credit for services done by ordinary workers who don’t belong to Local 2384 and don’t believe the union speaks for them.

As Jonathan Riches, the Goldwater Institute attorney representing Gilmore and Harder, explained to the court, neither public employees nor taxpayers should be forced to subsidize government union speech.

Unless the Arizona Supreme Court and Texas Supreme Court, which heard arguments in a similar challenge to a “union time” scheme in February, finally step up to the plate and put a stop to such brazen evasions of Janus in their jurisdictions, the viability of this landmark precedent will be in grave doubt.

Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, dedicated to advancing right-to-work laws. Share your thoughts at info@nrtw.org; on X, formerly Twitter: @RightToWork.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix union policy hurts taxpayers, violates workers' rights