City Rules Against Tea Party Effort to Bar Collection of Union Dues
A Tea Party-led effort to bar the city from collecting union dues is flawed and can’t go forward, the city ruled on Monday.
One of the lead sponsors, Katherine Hicks of Anchorage, added to the handwritten application for a voter initiative while at City Hall, changing it from what voters signed, and the subject matter is too narrow to bring before voters, according to an analysis by deputy municipal attorney Dee Ennis.
“A change in payroll collection represents a small segment of the current overall labor management policy which provides for mandatory payment of dues by union employees,” Ennis wrote in a memorandum dated Monday. Barring the city from collecting dues isn’t a new or significant enough change in labor policy to bring to voters, she wrote.
Reached Monday evening, Hicks said she hadn’t seen the decision but expected the group would rewrite the proposal and try again. Hicks, a registered Republican who is active in the Anchorage Tea Party, said the voter initiative was put together at a Tea Party meeting that included other groups, including Libertarians and the Municipal Taxpayers League of Anchorage.
“When we talked about it, it was just going to be a baby step,” Hicks said. She described herself as “just a fed-up taxpayer.”
More: City Rules Against Tea Party Effort to Bar Collection of Union Dues