Kenosha schools, teachers union at odds over deducting union dues

Erin Richards:

The Kenosha teachers union says dues automatically will be deducted from teacher paychecks starting later this month — a move that critics call a blatant violation of a 2011 law limiting collective bargaining.
But a leading Kenosha Unified School District administrator said Tuesday that’s not true — the district will only deduct dues of employees who wish to be union members and have signed a voluntary wage deduction form.
The contradictory messages are the latest of several confusing developments in the state’s third largest school district. They stem from a collective bargaining agreement the School Board signed with the teachers union in November, despite the collective bargaining limits for public workers known as Act 10. The legality of that contract is being challenged in a lawsuit by a former and current Kenosha teacher and two conservative groups.
“We are an enigma,” Kristi Lacroix, a former Kenosha teacher involved in the lawsuit, said of the district.