{"id":1446847,"date":"2022-04-20T05:15:20","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T09:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1446847"},"modified":"2022-04-20T05:15:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T09:15:29","slug":"its-about-defending-my-rights-musician-who-refused-union-membership-sues-govt-funded-orchestra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/its-about-defending-my-rights-musician-who-refused-union-membership-sues-govt-funded-orchestra\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s About Defending My Rights\u2019: Musician Who Refused Union Membership Sues Gov\u2019t-Funded Orchestra"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fits-about-defending-my-rights-musician-who-refused-union-membership-sues-govt-funded-orchestra%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1446847&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A musician is suing a government-funded Pennsylvania orchestra after it suspended him for refusing to pay union dues, a punishment he said violates his First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n<p>Glen Wilkofsky, a timpanist for the Allentown Symphony Association, said in an April lawsuit that he has the right to opt out of union membership because his employer receives government funding, making it a public entity under Pennsylvania law. Wilkofsky cited the Supreme Court&#8217;s 2018 <em>Janus<\/em> v. <em>AFSCME <\/em>ruling, which held that forced union membership for public sector employees violates the First Amendment because it forces them to support unions&#8217; political spending.<\/p>\n<p>The American Federation of Musicians, which represents the orchestra&#8217;s local union, has spent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/orgs\/american-federation-of-musicians\/totals?id=D000023956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/political-action-committees-pacs\/american-federation-of-musicians\/C00073627\/summary\/2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">than<\/a>\u00a0$259,000 on federal candidates since 2016\u2014roughly 98 percent of which went to Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Wilkofsky&#8217;s claims center on Pennsylvania&#8217;s definition of a public employer, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legis.state.pa.us\/cfdocs\/Legis\/LI\/uconsCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&#038;yr=1970&#038;sessInd=0&#038;smthLwInd=0&#038;act=0195.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">includes<\/a>\u00a0entities that receive &#8220;grants or appropriations from local, State, or Federal governments.&#8221; The orchestra <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcall.com\/news\/pennsylvania\/mc-nws-pa-allentown-symphony-union-lawsuit-20220415-jv2vzoy6xjevhcd2gy42c6f42y-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed<\/a> to a local newspaper that it receives government funds but would not specify how much.<\/p>\n<p>A favorable ruling for Wilkofsky at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania could hasten union membership&#8217;s decades-long decline. Pennsylvania does not have right-to-work laws, which means that private employers can require union membership as a term of employment. A legal decision that broadens the definition of &#8220;public employer&#8221; could allow a significant number of employees to opt out of membership in the state and potentially nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>Wilkofsky refused to pay dues to the American Federation of Musicians Local 45 in 2020, after nearly two decades of membership, according to the lawsuit. The orchestra notified him a year later that it would suspend him until he resumed payments to the union.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I should never have had to join the union in the first place, but they gave me no choice,&#8221; Wilkofsky told the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t about money and never was. After hotel and traveling expenses I rarely broke even. It was about my love for music and performing. Now, it&#8217;s about defending my rights.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The American Federation of Musicians Local 45 did not respond to a request for comment. The Allentown Symphony Orchestra declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View Wilkofsky ECF 1 Complaint 04.11.22 on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/570653411\/Wilkofsky-ECF-1-Complaint-04-11-22#from_embed\"><em>Wilkofsky<\/em> ECF 1 Complaint 04.11.22<\/a> by <em><a title=\"View Washington Free Beacon&#039;s profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/publisher\/247263517\/Washington-Free-Beacon#from_embed\">Washington Free Beacon<\/a><\/em> on Scribd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A musician is suing a government-funded Pennsylvania orchestra after it suspended him for refusing to pay union dues, a punishment he said violates his First Amendment rights. Glen Wilkofsky, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}