Workers for Opportunity Praises Governor Bill Lee's Signing of Landmark Teacher Paycheck Protections
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Governor Bill Lee signed into law Senate Bill 281, which will eliminate the practice of automatically deducting union dues from teachers’ paychecks at taxpayers’ expense. The legislation also implements the largest teacher salary increase in state history. Workers for Opportunity is honored to have worked alongside the governor’s administration and members of the legislature to advance this critical legislation and see it become law.
SB 281 delivers on Gov. Lee’s commitment to put Tennessee teachers first and safeguard their paychecks from funding unions that don’t align with Tennessee values.
“The Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has bylaws that permit them to apply a special assessment on teachers’ dues for salary increases granted by the state,” explained Senior Labor Policy Advisor Vincent Vernuccio. “This process would allow the union to access the new salary adjustments possibly before teachers ever see the first penny.”
Additionally, a portion of these dues are funneled to the national organization which supports “woke” political objectives. SB 281 restores teachers’ decision-making power over how their hard-earned paychecks are spent, protects their well deserved salary increases from union overreach and gets Tennessee taxpayers out of the business of collecting dues for the union.
“Today, the vision of freer workplaces for Tennessee teachers becomes a reality,” said Vernuccio. “Teachers work hard for their paychecks. And they deserve the freedom to decide how their money is spent. With this new law, Gov. Lee and state legislators are ensuring that Tennessee’s largest teacher salary increase will go directly to teachers and that they will have better visibility as to where their money is going.
