For decades, ghost teachers haunted the halls of Pennsylvania’s largest school districts with impunity. These public-school educators abandoned their classrooms for full-time teachers’ union advocacy, serving as union officials while still getting paid as teachers and illegally draining the public pension system. Beginning in 2015, the Fairness Center’s clients began challenging the practice in the court of law and the court of public opinion and sparked a wave of reform.

"How a Special Education Teacher Faced Union Retaliation in NJ," @nj1015 reports. Angela Arancio "alleges her union retaliated against her after she raised concerns about workload and prep time in her contract," the report says. "According to Arancio, the union took no action after she voiced concerns about the agreement between the union and the district."

"Arancio later filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge and began discussing her concerns with colleagues and friends, including support via text message circulated among members of a union committee known as the Crisis Action Team," the report continues. "Arancio alleges that in June 2025, the union retaliated by dissolving the Crisis Action Team, where she had been serving." She "argues that dissolving the Crisis Action Team was punishment for her filing the unfair labor charge and gaining support from other teachers." Read more: buff.ly/isiWRrx

“I want to be part of the solution to problems in the education system. The union simply continues to be part of the problem," Cumberland Valley School District education assistant Curtis Thompson said. Curtis felt that his union no longer had his best interest at heart, so he asked his employer to stop deducting union dues from his paycheck. When his union refused to honor his request to resign, Curtis took to the internet and found the Fairness Center.

In 2022, Tina Curtis’ union, UNITE HERE, still required school employees to pay the union to keep their jobs—four years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision made that practice illegal. UNITE HERE was aware of the Janus ruling, having released a statement as it was announced in 2018. But union officials willfully ignored it and continued to tell Tina and her colleagues that they were required to make union payments. Tina contacted UNITE HERE officials to resign her union membership, but union officials refused to accept her resignation. Tina’s attempts to resign were ignored or thwarted at every turn. Then she found the Fairness Center.

Pennsylvania corrections officers Chris Taylor and Cory Yedlosky suspected that union officials at Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association mishandled union funds. Their own audit of the union’s finances confirmed their suspicions: local officials had mishandled thousands of dollars of union members’ dues. Concerned, Cory, Chris, and a colleague brought their findings to Jason Bloom, then-president of the statewide PSCOA union, but he “blew off” the audit and “put [it] in a drawer to collect dust.” Cory and Chris resigned from the PSCOA in disgust, but they refused to give up on their goal of holding their union accountable. Their persistence would eventually reveal that union officials had spent members’ money on NFL tickets, a $12,000 Rolex watch, and outings at PGA Tour-level golf courses.

The Fairness Center filed a lawsuit on the officers’ behalf to force union officials to address the officers’ concerns. A month later, state police arrested local union treasurer Bryan Peroni on felony theft and forgery charges for writing checks to himself amounting to nearly $30,000. Peroni pleaded guilty to theft and was sentenced. After our client’s lawsuit, PSCOA officials tightened oversight of their finances, revealing even bigger problems and even more mishandled funds. Eventually, state police charged former PSCOA President Jason Bloom with six felony counts of theft for using the union’s credit card for personal expenses. Bloom and Peroni weren't the only ones; in total, six PSCOA officials have been held accountable for theft. Read more: buff.ly/7a8bsXj

Philadelphia Fire Department Captain Joe Farrell paid dues to the International Association of Firefighters, Local 22, for nearly 40 years, trusting the union to look out for his best interests. Then he discovered that, for years, union officials had been steering him and his colleagues away from a benefit that could have boosted their pensions, according to lawsuit. Philadelphia firefighters had been able to increase their retirement benefits by selling back unused vacation days before they retired. But Farrell says union officials advised him not to sell back his time. By the time he learned the truth, it was too late.

Mark Kiddo and his Erie Water Works colleagues felt betrayed after learning AFSCME officials deliberately misled them. Union officials had just presented Mark and his colleagues, who were union members, with a four-year contract that the employees weren’t happy with. It included lower salary increases than they expected and kept in place a defined-benefit pension plan favored by union officials. Union officials deceptively told them it was the only offer on the table. Reluctantly, and believing they had no choice, the employees ratified the contract.

Days later, they learned of a second offer, with higher salary increases, a 401k-style retirement plan for new employees, and an additional retirement benefit—an offer like what they had hoped for all along. The truth, it turned out, was that AFSCME officials had intentionally hidden the better offer from their own members because the officials opposed moving away from defined-benefit retirement plans. AFSCME officials had trampled their members' rights in favor of their own priorities. Then Mark and his colleagues found the Fairness Center. Read more: buff.ly/NTjvPNn