Minnesota Public Employee Unions — Fact and Fiction

Fiction - Unions have a central committee that charges huge mandatory membership dues for the funding of the union. Dues which you, as a union member, are compelled to pay, which are then disbursed to fund things you may or may not support, using those dues for their own agenda.

Fact - Minnesota's public employees are NOT required to become union members.  Non-union members are called "fair-share" employees. For the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the union I was involved with, a fair-share's dues were roughly 80 percent of a member's dues.

The reason for the fair-share payment is that, by law, the union is required to represent all employees regardless of their membership status. The biggest expense is representing employees that file “grievances” alleging management violations of the employees’ contract. In my experience, just as many members as non-members filed grievances. Also, fair-share employees share in the costs of negotiating employee contracts. Again, this is reasonable since, by law, all employees regardless of union membership status work equally under the terms of those contracts. The union must document its expenditures for fair-share items, and these are the only costs that may be charged to non-union employees.

The extra 20 percent that members pay goes for membership functions, such as pizza at meetings and mailing of ballots, and for a strike fund if that union is allowed by law to strike. Non-members may not attend union meetings, vote or receive any union assistance during a strike. However, fair-share employees typically cross picket lines to work during a strike and don’t need any financial assistance.

No union dues may be used to support any candidates for office. The money used to support candidates all comes from political action committees that people voluntarily contribute to in addition to their union dues. Thousands of people contribute a few dollars each pay period for this purpose. The PAC names typically identify the union whose members contribute to it. However, the finances and administration of the PAC is separate from the union itself.

Union dues are not “huge." Dues for the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees are equal to about one hour’s wages per month. Dues for other unions range from about one half to two hours wages per month.