(The Center Square) – A northeastern Ohio school custodian filed a lawsuit against his former union, claiming it continued to withhold union dues from his paycheck after he left the organization.
Matthew Sheldon, a custodian in the Carroll Exempted Village Schools, says the union kept taking dues for four months after he told them he was leaving the union and began retaking dues after a month’s pause.
The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based policy group, filed the suit on Sheldon’s behalf.
“It is unconscionable that more than six years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark Janus ruling, government unions continue to use a legal sleight of hand to deny hardworking public employees their First Amendment rights,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “All Mr. Sheldon wants is for OAPSE to stop stealing money from his paycheck and return the money illegally taken since he quit the union. For honorable people and organizations, these are reasonable requests.”
Sheldon has been with the school district for a decade and the union for nearly that long. In December 2023, he decided to quit the Ohio Association of Public School Employees/American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and he asked for dues to not be removed from his check.
According to the lawsuit, the union continued to remove dues for four months before stopping in April 2024. The suit says the union resumed removing dues in May 2024.
In a news release, The Buckeye Institute said the union acknowledged Shelton could quit the union.
“Apparently – according to union officials – he had the right to quit the government union but did not have the right to stop the union from taking money out of his paycheck. Despite repeated efforts to stop the automatic deduction of union membership dues from his paycheck, OAPSE has refused in violation of Ohio contract law,” the news release reads.
Sheldon wants the union to stop removing dues from his paycheck and refund the money taken after he quit. He also wants an injunction to prevent further removal.
