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| - By Simon Campbell School property taxes are being raised and the gutless state Legislature does nothing to stop it. So let's cut to the chase and move past political correctness. School boards continuously raise property taxes above the rate of inflation due largely to the exploding cost of teacher salaries and benefits being strong-armed by the teachers labor unions. Just don't expect state legislators to seriously address this crisis because most of them have their election campaigns bankrolled by the union. Instead, look toward a local solution — once the root cause of union power is understood. Do you know that your public school district writes checks to the private teachers union to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars a year? Pennsbury sends the union over $640,000 a year. An image of a $64,000 monthly payment is available on the forced unionism Web page, . It is local taxpayers who indirectly pay for the union's picket signs, golf trips, and six-figure salaried lobbyists in Harrisburg. This horrific situation occurs because 12 out of the 13 local teacher unions in Bucks County's public school districts have negotiated contracts with school boards called “agency shop.” These contracts force all teachers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of their employment. Suppose a teacher wants to reject unionism? Too bad, the union will seize dues from that teacher anyway. Non-union teachers are basically told: “pay the union or face the unemployment line.” After contractually agreeing to this repugnant violation of individual liberty, the typical school board then agrees to act as the “bagman” by seizing compulsory dues at source from all teachers' paychecks and remitting it to the union. Union lobbyists created the innocent-sounding phrases “fair share” and “dues deduction” to help promote this racket. That's because “coerced dues” and “union bagman” don't sound so nice. These two contract clauses are negotiable between unions and school boards under existing state law. Whatever words you want to use, the bottom line is that millions of dollars of taxpayer-originated money is being pumped into the bank account of the teachers union by weak-kneed school board directors who should refuse to do it. Click Here! Property taxes escalate in direct correlation to a school board's inability to curb teacher union power in their district. Union power comes from union membership and union dues. By forcing all teachers to pay dues, the union is able to artificially inflate its “voluntary” membership. And by getting a school district to act as its bagman, the union is able to guarantee the cash keeps flowing. This wretched flow of tax dollars is the underlying root cause of school property tax inflation. If a teacher wants to voluntarily join and pay dues to a union, most of us would agree they should have that right. But no teacher should ever be forced to pay a union to keep their job. Many non-union teachers do not want union representation, yet the union's monopoly bargaining and coerced dues are being forced upon them. This is unacceptable. Furthermore, no school board should ever agree to be a collection agent for private union business — something completely unrelated to educating children. The union should collect dues only from its voluntary members, and they should do it on their own dime away from public property. Of course, if the union had to do that, they might have a collection and membership problem because teachers would for the first time “feel” the dues payments. When it is deducted at source teachers don't feel the loss the same way. Eliminating coerced unionism in a school district has the potential to decimate union power and liberate taxpayers and children alike. That's because the union would finally have to attract the voluntary support of teachers. It will take school boards with nerves of steel to get the job done. But school board directors are elected to serve those taxpayers and children. They are not elected to serve as union pandering tax-hiking wimps. To summarize: If you are fed up with out-of-control property taxes, tell your elected school officials that you are fed up with them writing checks to the teachers union. Simon Campbell, Lower Makefield, is president of StopTeacherStrikes, Inc.
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