Columbus, OH – Robert Alt, The Buckeye Institute’s president and chief executive officer, issued the following statement after Minnesota Federal District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson denied the motion for preliminary injunction in the case Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Organization, et al.  Alt is one of the lead attorneys representing Kathy Uradnik in her case to end forced exclusive representation.

The Buckeye Institute has already filed its notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

“For too long, hardworking public employees like Professor Uradnik have had no alternative but to accept the forced representation of the government union speaking on their behalf. In Professor Uradnik’s case, the forced speech and compelled representation she is required to accept by this union undermines her ability to advance in her career and routinely interferes with her professional opportunities and relationships.”

“This forced speech and compelled exclusive representation simply are not right, and it is long past time for the courts to recognize that public employees have the same right to speak for themselves that everyone else has.”

Background on The Buckeye Institute’s Legal Cases and Plaintiffs:

The Buckeye Institute was the first organization in the country to file lawsuits calling on courts to end compelled exclusive representation following the Janus decision, and is representing Professor Uradnik in Minnesota, Jade Thompson in Ohio, and Professor Jonathan Reisman in Maine.

Kathy Uradnik’s case was filed on July 6 in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, with a preliminary injunction motion filed on July 31 (the motion for preliminary injunction was denied on September 27, and that ruling is being appealed by The Buckeye Institute to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit).

Jade Thompson’s case was filed on June 27 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, with a preliminary injunction motion filed on July 23.

Jonathan Reisman’s case was filed on August 10 in the United States District Court for the District of Maine, with a preliminary injunction motion filed on August 16.

Kathy Uradnik (watch the video below of her telling her own story and read her piece in the St. Cloud Times) is a professor of political science at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. Her union—the Inter Faculty Organization (IFO)—created a system that discriminates against non-union faculty members by barring them from serving on any faculty search, service, or governance committee, and even bars them from joining the Faculty Senate. This second-class treatment of non-union faculty members impairs their ability to obtain tenure, to advance in their careers, and to participate in the academic life and governance of their institutions.

Jade Thompson (watch the video below of her telling her own story and read her piece in The Columbus Dispatch) is a Spanish teacher in Ohio. Her union—the Marietta Education Association (MEA)—bargains for numerous policies with which she disagrees, including advocating for positions that resulted in cutting academic programs rather than allowing a reduction in fringe benefits, negotiating the exclusion of teachers who are not union members from key committees, and requiring seniority to be the sole substantive criteria in layoffs to the exclusion of any merit factors, leading to the absurd result that any ties in seniority must be resolved via coin-flip, even if the tie is between a teacher-of-the-year and a low-performing teacher.

Jonathan Reisman, an associate professor of economics at the University of Maine at Machias who served as the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine’s (AFUM) grievance officer. Professor Reisman would have liked to remain a member of his local union, but he was forced to also support the state and national unions with which AFUM is affiliated—the Maine Education Association and the National Education Association, unions which held opposing views to his on a wide range of political and public policy issues. Under Maine law, he had no other alternative but to continue to accept AFUM’s representation and the collective bargaining agreement that governs significant terms of his employment, such as workload, office hours, the grievance process, wages, benefits, retirement, and leaves of absence.

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