District Revokes Pension For Teacher Who Only Did Union Work

A Pennsylvania teacher has had her pension benefits revoked following years of doing nothing but union work instead of her job, a lawyer involved said.

Allentown Education Association President Debra Tretter has done nothing but union work since getting elected in 2009. In that time, she continued to accumulate pension benefits reserved specifically for teachers because of a policy known as release time. The Public School Employees’ Retirement System revoked her benefits June 20 in response to an ongoing lawsuit.

“Release time has popped up in a lot of different ways in different districts,” Fairness Center Attorney Karin Sweigart told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Just a whole gamut of ways this policy has evolved across the state. And we have become aware of a lot of these and we hope this case will be the beginning of the unraveling of this practice across the state.”

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