Wisconsin teachers choose not to pay union dues. Union is laying off HQ staff. Updates.

WEAC offices.

WEAC now has to count on loyal members to pay dues voluntarily.
Thus far things don’t seem to be going well. WEAC announced August 15th that it will be laying off 42 employees, or about 40 percent of its workforce, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  (This brought outrage from WEAC's staff union the NSO).
Teachers have apparently been slow to provide WEAC with bank account information for direct dues payments, despite the teams of “home visitors” that have been dispatched.     Told from a union-supportive view.   And from a less sympathetic view.   Discussed by Breitbart:  Do Layoffs Mean the WI Teachers Union Is on the Financial Ropes?

WEAC's own website says this:   "Under changes to Wisconsin's collective bargaining law, if you do not have an extended contract, you must sign up annually to continue your WEAC membership. To remain a WEAC member, we ask that you complete an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) form. Credit card payment is now also an option".

Added from George Will:  Payments also fell in Colorado, Indiana and Washington.

George Will

After Colorado in 2001 required public employees unions to have annual votes reauthorizing collection of dues, membership in the Colorado Association of Public Employees declined 70 percent. In 2005, Indiana stopped collecting dues from unionized public employees; in 2011, there are 90 percent fewer dues-paying members. In Utah, the end of automatic dues deductions for political activities in 2001 caused teachers’ payments to fall 90 percent. After a similar law passed in 1992 in Washington state, the percentage of teachers making such contributions declined from 82 to 11.
Democrats furiously oppose Walker because public employees unions are transmission belts, conveying money to the Democratic Party. Last year, $11.2 million in union dues was withheld from paychecks of Wisconsin’s executive branch employees and $2.6 million from paychecks at the university across the lake. Having spent improvidently on the recall elections, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the teachers union, is firing 40 percent of its staff.

Added:  And some teachers are retiring early rather than pay more to their pension plan.  Seniority and pensions used to be the priority but more younger teachers will now be hired.  In one district, seniority went from first to sixth place as a criterion for filling a job opening.

Added July 2013:  "Wisconsin teachers' unions in full collapse"
Added Sept 2013  Third largest teachers' union decertified.
Workers need to be heard in every business and undertaking but so far Wisconsin teachers seem okay about the deal.

Related: Do Indiana teachers have to pay union dues?