The Missouri Corrections Officers Association has filed a civil lawsuit against the Missouri Office of Administration and is asking for a temporary restraining order to stop the state from withholding union dues from the bimonthly paychecks of corrections officers.
The suit and restraining order were filed in Cole County Circuit Court.
The Missouri Attorney General's Office, which usually represents state agencies in lawsuits, had no comment citing pending litigation.
In the order, the MOCOA asks Judge Jon Beetem, who has been assigned the case, to find that decisions made by the OA in December to revoke MOCOA's payroll deduction authority and the office's refusal to let them resume that authority earlier this month were unconstitutional.
The state's decision was announced in a Dec. 9 letter from the OA. Stacy Neal, director of the agency's division of accounting, said in the letter that the state would no longer withhold union dues because the bargaining unit is not covered by an existing labor agreement.
The union and the state have been negotiating a new contract since the old one expired Sept. 18. Union members have been working under terms of the old contract since then.
Union leaders are trying to enroll officers in a separate automatic payroll deduction program to keep the union operations afloat. However, unless court action is taken by the end of this month, MOCOA officials said they will have to cease most operations and lay off all field representatives. MOCOA would then need to rely on unpaid volunteers and union members who work full time for the DOC to represent employees.
In May, the association reported Missouri Department of Corrections Director Anne Precythe had barred the union from attending training classes, where it typically informed new employees about the role of the union and the parameters of its contract with the state.
In 2018, a Cole County jury awarded thousands of officers nearly $114 million in back pay after guards alleged they were routinely not paid for work done once they arrived at the facility. The money has not yet been paid.