How many of you give money regularly to a charity, a favorite cause or a member organization? Our family supports – with time and financial contributions – many different things, ranging from our church to some local charities and political organizations.
How many of those same organizations have access to your paycheck so they can make automatic withdrawals from your regular wages and send your money to their spending priorities?
Whether it’s our tithe to church or the support we offer to ministries and charities, we offer them without the support of a “subscription service” that sets up automatic withholding from our wages. There are very few organizations that use a paycheck deduction method.
But the Tennessee taxpayer-funded school system allows the teachers union to have dues collected from teachers’ paychecks automatically. In a 2011 piece, the Education Intelligence Agency, a public research and analysis organization, noted that of the more than $12 million in revenue of Tennessee’s teachers union – the TEA – $11.3 million was collected through teachers’ dues. If you are a member of the TEA, just like your taxes, your membership dues are automatically withheld from your paycheck.
The single largest benefit touted by the TEA is liability insurance for teachers, yet there is no opt-out provision for those who only want such services without their membership being an affiliate of the National Education Association – the national teachers union.