On Thursday, State Rep. Ernie Yarbrough (R-Trinity) filed House Bill 666 (HB 666) that would end payroll deductions for public teachers’ unions and eliminate opt-out windows across the board for other unions that continue to use the service.
"I think it's prophetic and hilarious that the bill number is 666 because I think of the NEA, that number, it does come to mind," Yarbrough told 1819 News, referencing the National Education Association.
“Number one, people ought to be able to leave unions, public unions, whenever they want to, cancel their dues whenever they want to. That's number one,” he explained. “Number two, it's our responsibility to safeguard our schools, our children, and our politicians from the influence of ideologies, ideas, or principles that are antithetical to Alabama's values, way of life, and the laws we've already passed regarding DEI and other things of that nature."
Lawmakers cannot file bills for the 2027 legislative session until the organizational session is complete, the speaker is elected and the rules are established.
“I filed the bill today because we're coming into a reelection time, and we can't prefile until next year,” Yarbrough explained. “So, I wanted to go ahead and start the conversation.”
"It's a clean liberty bill getting people maximum freedom to opt in and opt out. It's also going to have the end result of protecting and enshrining the values and the protections that we want in the education in our state to make sure that our education for our children reflects our values and our way of life," he added.
Yarbrough continued, “Why it's important to me is because it is very disturbing to me that the AEA has any kind of financial connection to the NEA and the idea that money is not fungible, the idea that those deductions that go to the NEA in any form or capacity don't somehow find their way to affect and influence public policy and/or come back through different routes in some form of fashion into the politics of our state influence policy decisions that the AEA is going to support or not support in the fact of having a connection to the NEA to me, I think is just naive and it's foolish to assume so.”
"I don't think that any institution, public, union, or whatever that has influence over the education of our children, ought to have financial connections to such an institution as the NEA," he outlined. "So it's high time that we safeguarded and made extra sure that that cannot happen, at least to the means of state dollars, state comptroller, state infrastructure, in any way, being able to even possibly remotely facilitate that.”
Under current state law, the office of the state comptroller, which processes payroll for public employees, deducts dues for Alabama’s three K-12 teachers’ unions as well as unions representing faculty and staff at Alabama's institutions of higher education.
The three leading K-12 teachers’ unions in the state are the Alabama Education Association, which partners with the National Education Association; the Alabama Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers; and the Alabama Conference of Educators, the most recent to be allowed payroll deductions.
Yarbrough explained that it's about more than just protecting values — it's about limiting government.
The language in the bill says, “No local board of education or public institution of higher education may make any deduction or collection from the salary of any employee or group of employees pursuant to this section for a labor organization, including, but not limited to, those for dues or uniform assessments. An employee may pay dues and uniform assessments directly to a labor organization.”
"It is a more pro limited government deal from their perspective that it does remove the state from things that honestly is not the job of the state when that technology is so easily and readily available for any of these groups to do and to use. And so it's not some kind of undue huge burden upon upon them," Yarbrough said.
“It's not only a pro-Liberty bill, but it's also a pro-Alabama values bill, and I look forward to seeing this legislation in the future so that we can enshrine not only freedoms for our workers, but also protections over the politics and policies that influence education in this state," he added, reiterating that filing this year and this close to session ending is intended to get the conversation started.
A representative for AEA did not respond to a request for comment.
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