Nearly three years ago, we reported on the kerfuffle over psychologists who were upset to find that the “mandatory assessment” fee they thought was, well, mandatory turned out to be entirely optional. The fee was being paid to the American Psychological Association (APA), the professional guild association for psychologists, to fund a legally separate organization, the APAPO, tasked with lobbying (mostly at the state level — not the federal level).
A class-action lawsuit against the APA was thrown out earlier last year on technical grounds (but with prejudice, suggesting a new lawsuit has a harder road to climb).
Despite that, a new lawsuit was recently filed in federal court in California “accusing the group of misleading its members into paying a fee used to fund its lobbying arm as part of their annual dues.”
The American Psychological Association (APA) suffered a 7.6 percent loss of its members from 2010 to 2011 — from 91,306 to 84,339. While in recent years, the APA has suffered from smaller membership declines, this is the first time ever in the organization’s 120-year history it has suffered such a significant one-year decline in members.