Federal filings indicate that hundreds of family child care providers in Washington dropped their membership with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 925 in the months following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Harris v. Quinn ruling last summer.
According to SEIU 925’s 2014 LM-2 form on file with the U.S. Department of Labor, the union represented a total of 14,780 individuals at the close of 2014. Approximately 12,000 of these are family child care providers, according to SEIU 925’s website. The filing also indicated that 375 of these individuals, likely almost all family child care providers, had opted out of the union.
Because of the Supreme Court’s ruling, “partial-public employees” like family child care providers can no longer be required to pay union dues against their will.
Though SEIU 925 started allowing providers to opt out of paying dues shortly after the ruling, neither the state nor the union made any effort to inform providers of their newly acknowledged constitutional rights.
As a result, the Freedom Foundation obtained the contact list of family child care providers from the state under the Public Records Act. Prior to the end of last year, the Foundation sought to inform providers of their rights with two direct mails pieces, two informational emails, a round of phone calls and creation of an informational website, www.seiuoptout.com. Further outreach efforts have continued in 2015.
Additionally, days after the Freedom Foundation and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed suit against SEIU 925 on behalf of a group of family child care providers on March 4, SEIU 925 sent a letter to providers acknowledging their right to resign from the union for the first time.
The decrease in membership would cost SEIU 925 about $200,000 per year, but the union was able to maintain its revenue for 2014 by increasing its dues for the first time since 2009. Providers now pay 1.7 percent of their paychecks in dues with a maximum of $90 per month, up from a ceiling of $85.
The LM-2 filing also seems to indicate SEIU 925 has changed how it classifies its members. In its 2013 LM-2, SEIU 925 claimed to represent 3,606 nonmembers, or people who paid dues to the union but had never signed up for membership (state law requires nonmembers to pay full union dues by default). Rather than ceasing to deduct dues from its 3,606 nonmembers in accordance with Harris, SEIU 925 decided to change its definition of “member” to include anyone who hasn’t opted out, even if the provider has also never signed a union membership card. Consequently, SEIU 925 continues to deduct dues from thousands of individuals who have never assented to membership in the union.
The definition of “nonmember” will likely be settled in the Freedom Foundation’s litigation against SEIU 925, in which the plaintiffs contend the union should only be able to deduct dues from providers who give voluntary, written authorization to do so.
Legislation seeking to bring state law into compliance with Harris v. Quinn would have addressed this issue, but stalled in the state Senate.
