By Marty Toohey
Austin American-Statesman
AUSTIN, Texas — The fate of legislation that would weaken the Texas unions that represent teachers, corrections officers and some other public employees appears to hang on state Rep. Byron Cook.
Cook chairs the House State Affairs Committee, which Thursday morning heard two hours of public testimony on Senate Bill 1968, almost all of it from public employees opposed to the bill. Before and after the testimony, Cook, a Corsicana Republican, said the bill is “severely flawed … we’re very aware of the weaknesses.”
What happens now appears to be in negotiations behind closed doors. The committee left the bill pending; it would need to pass the committee and full House before going to the governor. The bill, from Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, has already passed the Senate.
The state’s teachers and corrections unions are trying to kill or modify the bill. It would ban automatic paycheck deductions, which allow public employees have their union dues withdrawn from their paychecks. Proponents of the bill say that practice amounts to letting unions use government for political purposes. The dues may not go directly to candidates, but they sustain organizations that perform political advocacy, say supporters of the bill, which include the state Republican Party, building contractors and business groups.
Critics of the bill say it attempts to address a problem that does not exist. Employees have to choose to have their dues deducted, and in Texas, union members must make a separate donation to the political arm of a union for the money to go to candidates.
Union advocates say the bill would cripple membership by removing the easiest way for members to pay their dues. They said that if there is a problem the state should also ban police and firefighter unions from collecting automatic paycheck deductions. (Many police and firefighter unions, though exempted from the bill, oppose it.)
Cathe Wilson, a corrections officer and president of the Gatesville Local 3920, told the State Affairs Committee: “I work 12-hour days” while raising a grandson. The deduction “is one less thing we have to worry about. We little people, we need to be going forward, not backward to the horse-and-buggy days.”
Organizations such as the conservative Americans for Prosperity are backing the bill. Some conservative groups, as well as The Wall Street Journal editorial board, criticized House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, for not pushing harder on a similar bill that originated in his chamber.