EDITORIAL: Court should end the police union’s ‘opt-out’ window

If you can join a union at any point during the year, you should be able to leave a union at any point during the year. That’s the premise behind a National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation lawsuit currently making its way through the Nevada courts.

Melodie DePierro is a Las Vegas police officer, who joined the force and the Las Vegas Police Protective Association in 2006. She willingly paid her membership dues until last year. In January 2020, she submitted paperwork to the union and the Metropolitan Police Department indicating that she was resigning her membership.

This should be a nonstory. Every day, people throughout the country drop memberships and cancel subscriptions. They leave the gym they had been attending. They decide that meal-in-a-box program isn’t worth it.

Imagine the outrage if those companies told customers that they could end their membership only during a few weeks of the year. There would be accusations of unfair labor practices. They’d face an onslaught of negative online reviews. A business that wasn’t publicly shamed into changing its practices likely would face a government investigation.

Yet the Police Protective Association told Ms. DePierro to pound sand. She tried again in February 2020, but the union ignored her.

“Dues deduction authorization shall be irrevocable for a period of one year and automatically renewed each year thereafter commencing October 1, except that authorization may be withdrawn by an employee during a period of 20 days each year ending October 20,” the union’s current contract with Metro reads.

Represented by National Right to Work, Ms. DePierro filed a lawsuit last August. Lawyers with National Right to Work filed reply briefs in the case earlier this month. Those briefs led even more credence to her case. When she first joined the union, the contract between Metro and PPA didn’t contain opt-out restrictions. It allowed members to leave by giving 30 days written notice.

Officials with National Right to Work argue that such opt-out restrictions limit the First Amendment rights public employees have under the Supreme Court’s Janus decision. Unfortunately, the Las Vegas union is far from alone.

Jacob Comello, a National Right to Work spokesman, said that nationally there are around 50 ongoing cases involving similar restrictions. His organization has “already won settlements eliminating such restrictions in around 10 other cases brought for workers,” he said in an email. Good. Even if the PPA won’t respect a police officer’s First Amendment rights, the District Court should.