West Chester Union Dues Not Used for Lobbying PSEA Says

In the past few school board meetings .

School Board Vice President Hedi Adsett wrote a letter to the Daily Local where she stated:

“This money gets used by the state (PSEA) and national (NEA) teacher unions for various political lobbying activities, and under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case it can also be used for independent campaign expenditures.”

Amanda Wollert is the West Chester teachers’ union Pennsylvania State Education Association representative, and she said that it is illegal for union money collected by the district to be used for political causes.

“It’s completely illegal for that money to be used for lobbying or any political issue in the state or nationally,” Wollert said.  “The only thing that money is used for is to help teachers.”

Besides being used to help in contract negotiations, union money can also be used for representation in wrongful termination litigation or a number of other ways. 

It cannot be used for political contributions or lobbying.

However, the PSEA does have a political action committee named PACE, or the Political Action Committee for Education.

Members of PSEA can voluntarily donate money to PACE, but they are not required to do so in the West Chester Area School District.

According to Wollert, there are districts that collect PACE dues as well as PSEA dues, but West Chester is not one of them.

To read more about the contract negotiations please click on any of the following links: