Big news—we’ve just launched a class action lawsuit in New York, Solomon v. AFSCME District Council 37, to recoup as much as $7 million in illegal union fees for approximately 7,000 New York City government workers.
Seven million dollars is how much non-union members, such as plaintiff Scott Solomon, had to pay to AFSCME District Council 37 from 2016-2018 (the time permitted under the New York statute of limitations). During that time, he paid approximately $750 per year in agency fees to AFSCME District Council 37, even though he was not a union member. That sounds like a lot, and it is, yet most New York City workers paid much more over the course of their public service careers.
As the Liberty Justice Center’s president and co-founder, Patrick Hughes, has said: “The Supreme Court was clear: Mandatory union fees are unconstitutional. These fees should never have been taken from government workers’ paychecks. Now it’s time for AFSCME to give back the money it wrongfully took.”
Seven million dollars is only a drop in the bucket of illegal union fees paid by government workers around the country but if this case is successful, it will be a meaningful refund for the hardworking individuals who were forced to fund union politics and policies they didn’t agree with.
