Union dues will go to charity instead
An anti-Israel union can no longer deduct dues from the paychecks of Jewish Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate students following a settlement.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation represented five graduate students and filed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges against the Graduate Student Union.
The charges were filed on behalf of William Sussman, Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Adina Bechhofer, and Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky.
The members asked for a Title VII exemption from paying dues because of the students’ religious objections to supporting the union.
The union previously told the students that “no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.”
“The students who voiced religious objections (Sussman, Fried, Gordon, Bechhofer, and Zhitomirsky) have obtained accommodations under which they will pay no money to the union and will instead pay money to charities of their choice, despite initial pushback from union bosses,” the worker freedom group announced earlier this week. “The charities include American Friends of Magen David Adom and American Friends of Leket.”
The worker freedom group also prevailed in a related case with the National Labor Relation Board.
Graduate student Katerina Boutkin “objected on political grounds to the GSU’s ideological activity and sought to exercise her rights under the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck Supreme Court decision,” according to the news release.
“In Beck, the Court ruled that union officials cannot force those who opt out of formal union membership (like Boukin) to pay dues or fees for union expenses not directly related to collective bargaining, even in a non-Right to Work state,” the legal group stated.
“GSU bosses must declare by email that they will not restrict the ability of those who resign their union memberships to cut off dues payments for political expenses and pay a reduced amount to the union,” the union announced. “This email notice will go out to approximately 3,000 MIT students.”
The organization is challenging similar situations.
“Foundation attorneys are continuing to provide legal aid for all those who challenge the imposition of radical union agendas at the University of Chicago, Dartmouth, and John Hopkins, and they are doing so for adherents of both Judaism and Christianity,” President Mark Mix stated in the news release.
“But this ordeal at MIT should remind lawmakers that all Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason.”
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IMAGE: MIT Graduate Student Union/Instagram
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