A Santa Clarita court reporter is asking for a preliminary injunction against Los Angeles Superior Court, which allegedly forged her signature on a union membership agreement representing her workplace.
“My first reaction was this must be some kind of clerical error,” said Kirsti Parde. “I sent two different demand letters explaining this isn’t correct and asking to see my original signature but they ignored both letters.”
Scaling back included withdrawing her membership from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 721 so that Parde could save the $175 a month she had been paying for 24 years.
“When COVID started, my husband lost his job,” Parde told the Southern California Record. “We went down overnight to 25% of our normal income. So, we scaled back in every way possible.”
The 54-year-old sued in federal court after she opted out of the union membership and was told her dues deductions would continue for six to eight more months.
“I don't share their political ideation and I never liked the union, but COVID was when I really decided I wanted out because I saw people in other job classifications getting emergency pay,” she said. “Our union was absolutely silent. They did nothing for us.”
Under state law, union members must continue paying dues based on the membership card they signed.
“I looked at the membership card and it was a computer-generated signature, not my own and it had a date of October 2020, which I was absolutely certain I had not completed anything with the union during that time,” Parde said. “I signed my initial union card with them in March 1998.”
Parde’s lawsuit, filed on May 16 in the Central District of California federal court, seeks a refund of the collected dues with interest, and compensatory damages for civil rights violations.
“The Defendants’ scheme requiring Plaintiff, and other similarly situated employees, to direct her membership and dues authorization termination requests to a third-party union with a direct financial incentive to continue authorizing dues deductions without the employees’ affirmative consent, is inherently arbitrary and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of substantive due process,” wrote Shella Alcabes, Parde’s attorney at the Freedom Foundation.
Underlying Parde’s claim is the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which decided that public employees cannot be forced to join or financially support a union.
“There are other reporters in that building who could be really difficult to deal with,” Parde added. “I'm getting close enough to retirement now and I'm pretty thick-skinned. If they want to give me problems about it, I'll deal with it.”
Los Angeles Superior Court declined to comment.