CONCORD — The first such study of its kind in New Hampshire concludes nearly 2,200 public employees could save more than $1 million in their paychecks each year as a result of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled it violates the First Amendment to make workers pay fees to cover the cost of a union’s collective bargaining.
The total fees deducted represented about 20 percent of the more than $4 million in annual dues paid by the 7,051 state workers who are members of the Service Employees International Union 1984, otherwise known as the State Employees Association.
Those are the key findings from a Right-to-Know request from the fiscally conservative Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, which has opposed the negotiated agreements permitting mandatory payments or agency fees from all public employees — whether they were dues-paying union members or not.
“Not only did New Hampshire state employees have their First Amendment rights at long last protected by the Janus ruling, but they will have their take-home pay increased by more than $1 million a year,” Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy President Andrew Cline said of the report. “From now on, public-sector unions will no longer get to take that money without the employee’s consent. To claim it, they will have to convince state employees of the value of union services.”
