NYC Car Wash Workers Kick Out Unwanted RWDSU Union Officials
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union bosses rejected by Alabama Amazon workers now ousted by car wash employees
Main Street Car Wash worker Ervin Par (center) and his colleagues in NYC thank their National Right to Work Foundation attorney for helping them secure a vote to remove unwanted RWDSU union bosses from their workplace.
NEW YORK, NY – In 2018, Ervin Par, an employee of Main Street Car Wash in Queens, NY, explained why he and his coworkers overwhelmingly wanted Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) officials out of their workplace: “They just come and collect their fees, but I don’t see an economic benefit from the union.”
“Among my colleagues, there’s a majority that doesn’t want the union,” Par told Reason magazine in an interview at the time. Now, after a three-year effort to vote out RWDSU officials, Par and his coworkers have finally succeeded with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Soon after Par submitted an October petition signed by enough of his coworkers to prompt the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct an employee vote whether to eject the union, RWDSU officials filed paperwork ending their control over the facility. Notably, RWDSU union officials fled Main Street Car Wash before the NLRB had conducted the union decertification election for Par and his coworkers — likely in an attempt to avoid an embarrassing, overwhelming rejection in the vote.
Car Wash Employees Endured Years of Forced Dues, Union “Blocking Charges”
Par also rallied his coworkers in 2018 to oust the union, but their valid petition for a decertification election was thwarted by “blocking charges” from RWDSU officials. Because Par and his colleagues work in non-Right to Work New York, the delays meant that they were forced to pay dues to an unpopular union for almost three more years just to keep their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work states all union financial support is strictly voluntary.
Par and his coworkers’ desire for freedom from union control is not uncommon. According to reports, in 2018 Main Street Car Wash was one of only six car washes in New York City still under union monopoly control, a number that had been declining following other union departures due to lack of employee support.
RWDSU Bosses Oppose Will of Rank-and-File Workers Across Country
The RWDSU is notably the same union that Bessemer, AL, Amazon employees rejected decisively during a highly publicized April 2021 union election. Despite that election loss, RWDSU officials are still trying to install themselves at the Bessemer facility. Litigation continues over whether RWDSU lawyers will nullify the workers’ vote in which barely 12% of eligible voters supported union bosses’ monopoly “representation.”
Atlanta, GA-area employees of water treatment company Ecolab have also recently received free Foundation legal assistance in their attempt to remove RWDSU officials.
“Mr. Par and his coworkers persevered for almost three years to end RWDSU union officials’ grip on power in their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Although we’re glad the employees have finally been able to exercise their right to remove RWDSU, union officials should not have been able to manipulate the rules to stifle the decertification effort for so long.”
“RWDSU union officials have a penchant for challenging the will of the very employees they claim to ‘represent.’” Semmens added. “Workers across the country who seek to remove unwanted RWDSU presence in their workplace should contact the Foundation for free legal aid in exercising their rights.”
Cleveland Probation Officer Challenges Years of Janus-Breaching Dues Seizures
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union officials covertly began seizing full dues after Janus decision, refuse to return money
CLEVELAND, OH – Cuyahoga County probation officer Kimberlee Warren is suing the Fraternal Order of Police Ohio Labor Council (FOP) union, charging union officials with breaching her First Amendment right as a public employee to refuse to support union activities. She is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Foundation staff attorneys contend that FOP union officials ignored her constitutional rights recognized in the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Janus, the Justices declared it a First Amendment violation to force any public sector employee to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping his or her job. The Court also ruled that public employers and unions cannot take union dues or fees from a public sector employee unless they obtain that employee’s affirmative consent.
Warren was not an FOP union member, even before the Janus decision. However, her federal lawsuit details that astoundingly union officials furtively opted her into formal membership and full dues deductions from her paycheck after the Janus decision was issued, an event which should have prompted union officials to cease seizing all money from her.
FOP Union Bosses Brazenly Increased Forced-Dues Deductions After Janus
FOP union chiefs continued these surreptitious deductions until December 2020, Warren’s lawsuit notes, when she notified union officials that they were violating her First Amendment rights by taking the money and demanded that the union stop the coerced deductions and return all money that they had taken from her paycheck since the Janus decision.
When the deductions ended, FOP chiefs refused to give back the money that they had already seized from Warren in violation of her First Amendment rights. They claimed the deductions had appeared on her check stub and thus any responsibility to end the deductions fell on her — even though to her knowledge they had never obtained permission to opt her into membership or to take cash from her paycheck to begin with.
According to the lawsuit, Warren also asked FOP bosses to provide any dues deduction authorization document she might have signed. FOP officials rebuffed this request as well.
Union bosses were authorized by state law before the Janus ruling to seize from non-member workers’ paychecks only the part of dues they claim go toward “representational” activities. FOP union officials took this amount from Warren prior to Janus. However, their forcing her into membership afterward means they started taking full dues from her wages, even more money than they did before Janus despite the complete lack of consent.
Warren’s lawsuit seeks the return of all dues that FOP union officials garnished from her paycheck since the Janus decision was handed down.
Probation Officer Seeks Punitive Damages for Unchecked Janus Abuses
Her lawsuit also seeks punitive damages because FOP showed “reckless, callous” indifference toward her First Amendment rights by snubbing her refund requests.
“All over the country, union officials are stopping at nothing to ensure they can continue ignoring workers’ First Amendment Janus rights and continue siphoning money from the paychecks of dissenting employees,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “After Janus was handed down, FOP union officials in Warren’s workplace could have asked her to support the union voluntarily, but instead, tellingly, they began surreptitiously siphoning full dues out of her paycheck without her consent in direct contravention of the Supreme Court’s ruling.”
ABC Cameraman Wins Ruling against CWA for Illegal Threats and Forced-Dues Demands
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Decisive victory comes as unanimous NLRB cites CWA union lawyers for misconduct
“It’s outrageous that just for trying to defend my basic freedoms I encountered fierce opposition from union bosses who claim to ‘represent’ me,” said Jeremy Brown.
PORTLAND, OR – ABC cameraman Jeremy Brown was pleased in December 2020 when a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ruled in his favor that National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) union officials had illegally seized full union dues from him despite the fact he is not a union member.
But that was not the only thing about which Brown had filed charges against the CWA union. The ALJ let CWA lawyers off the hook for sending him two harassing “evidence preservation” letters over the course of the litigation, which were intended to retaliate against Brown for standing up for his rights under federal law and absurdly ordered that he hold onto things like pedometer and GPS data.
This August, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Brown won a unanimous decision from the full NLRB in Washington, D.C., which affirmed the ALJ’s judgment on the illegality of the dues seizures but also went further to find that CWA lawyers were “willing to go to extreme — and perhaps harassing — lengths to penalize the Charging Party, placing the letters outside the bounds of legitimate efforts to ensure evidence preservation.”
CWA Union Bosses Stonewalled Cameraman’s Attempt to Invoke Beck Rights
Brown resumed regular work with ABC in 2016 after intermittent hires since 1999, at no point joining the union. A new president, Carrie Biggs-Adams, took over the local CWA union in late 2018 and sent Brown a series of letters in early 2019 which claimed that, as a condition of employment, he had to pay nearly $10,000 in initiation fees and “back-agency dues.”
Because Brown works primarily in states without Right to Work protections, he can be required to pay some fees to the union as a condition of employment.
Brown, who was unaware until 2019 that he was under the CWA union’s monopoly bargaining power, emailed Biggs-Adams in April 2019 asking for “clarification” about the fee demands. He also exercised his rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision to object to paying union fees for any purpose other than core bargaining activities. Biggs-Adams ignored this request and several follow-ups by Brown, and notably never informed Brown about the union’s own rule that Beck objections must be mailed to the union’s national headquarters.
The ALJ’s December 2020 decision held that the CWA union violated Brown’s rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) through its officials’ omissions and the failure to reduce his dues. The ALJ ordered that the local union provide Brown with “a good faith determination of the reduced dues and fees objectors must pay,” “reimburse Brown for all dues and fees collected” beyond what is required by Beck with interest, and post notices informing the employees in Brown’s workplace of the decision.
“Not paying for union politics is my right, and it never should have been so difficult to exercise that right,” Brown told a Washington Free Beacon reporter about the NLRB decision. “While I’m thankful for this victory, it’s outrageous that just for trying to defend my basic freedoms I encountered fierce opposition from union bosses who claim to ‘represent’ me but don’t respect my rights.”
However, the ALJ did not uphold additional charges Brown filed challenging the union lawyers’ intimidating “evidence preservation” letters. Brown therefore requested review by the NLRB in Washington, which has now ruled that those letters were illegal harassment.
Union Lawyers Cited for Threatening Letters
In addition, the NLRB found the CWA lawyers “have not conformed their conduct to the standards of ethical and professional conduct required of practitioners appearing before the Agency.” Specifically, the Board found that the CWA lawyers engaged in unprofessional behavior by insulting Brown’s Foundation provided attorneys during the proceedings. The Board referred the union lawyers’ conduct “to the attention of the Investigating Officer for investigation and such disciplinary action as may be appropriate.”
“NABET officials and lawyers subjected Jeremy Brown to layers upon layers of union malfeasance and intimidation just because he exercised his right to remain a nonmember and didn’t want to pay for union bosses’ political expenditures,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “He courageously stood up for his rights for well over two years. We at the National Right to Work Foundation were proud to support him in a case in which his rights have now been fully vindicated.”
University of California Lab Assistant Challenges California’s Anti-Janus Law
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Employee wanted to stop dues but law let union bosses demand photo ID
Foundation staff attorney William Messenger scored a huge win for worker freedom in Janus. He’s now on Amber Walker’s legal team.
IRVINE, CA – California has long been at the forefront when it comes to promoting forced union dues. So when it became clear the Supreme Court would likely side with National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME case, union boss allies in the California legislature quickly got to work passing laws to undermine public employees’ First Amendment rights. Among the most pernicious of the series of California’s anti-Janus laws is one that gives government union bosses unilateral control over which workers have dues money seized from their paychecks, even over the objections of those workers.
Now, with free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, University of California Irvine lab assistant Amber Walker is challenging the law in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, suing both the University of California system and University Professional and Technical Employees (Communications Workers of America, UPTE-CWA 9119) union officials.
Her case contends that the California statute, which makes public employers completely subservient to union officials on dues issues, let union bosses demand she provide a photo ID just to exercise her First Amendment right to stop union financial support. Her Foundation-provided staff attorneys argue that the California statute violates both due process and First Amendment guarantees.
In the Foundation-argued Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court case, the Court declared that forcing public sector workers to fund unions as a condition of employment violates the First Amendment. The Justices also ruled that union dues can only be taken from a public employee with an affirmative and knowing waiver of that employee’s First Amendment right not to pay.
“The University is leaving me helpless against these union officials who just seem to want to take my money despite the fact that I clearly don’t want to be part of the union,” Walker told a Los Angeles Times reporter. “The Janus decision said that I should have a choice when it comes to supporting a union, but UPTE has been denying me my rights and the university is letting the union get away with it.”
Statute Prevents Workers from Telling University Admin to Stop Illegal Takings
Walker’s lawsuit explains that she sent CWA union bosses a letter in June 2021 exercising her right to end her union membership and all union dues deductions from her wages. Although Walker submitted this message within a short annual “escape period” that CWA officials impose to limit when workers can revoke dues deductions, they still rebuffed her request, telling her she needed to mail them a copy of a photo ID to effectuate her revocation.
The photo ID requirement, seemingly adopted purely to frustrate workers’ attempts to exercise their constitutional rights, is mentioned nowhere on the dues deduction card Walker had previously signed to initiate dues payments.
Lawsuit: Union Officials Should Not Control Workers’ First Amendment Rights
UC Irvine and CWA officials are still seizing cash from Walker’s paycheck, and will likely continue to do so for at least another year as the CWA’s arbitrary and short annual “window period” elapsed by the time CWA officials notified Walker that her attempt to stop dues was rejected for lack of photo ID.
The university administration can’t stop dues payments for Walker because of the California statute that gives union officials total control over union dues deductions.
Foundation staff attorneys state in Walker’s complaint that, because of the California statute, CWA officials were able to trample Walker’s desire to keep her own money and were allowed to infringe on her First Amendment Janus rights.
Walker seeks refunds of the dues taken from her and other university workers under CWA’s photo ID scheme. She also seeks to stop the State of California from enforcing the state law outsourcing the process for stopping and starting union dues deductions to self-interested union officials.
UPTE Bosses Designed Scheme Knowing CA Law Would Protect Them
“California CWA union bosses clearly value illegally filling their coffers with Ms. Walker’s money over respecting her First Amendment and due process rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “They created this photo ID requirement out of thin air to block workers from exercising their Janus rights, safe in the knowledge that California’s union dues policies would stifle any chance a public worker has of getting his or her employer to stop seizing dues money for the union.”
“By giving union bosses total control over how and when workers can exercise their First Amendment Janus right to stop dues payments, California is allowing the fox to guard the henhouse to the detriment of public employees’ constitutional rights,” added LaJeunesse.
Foundation Assists Workers in Kicking Out Unwanted Union Bosses
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Worker decertification efforts target SEIU, Teamsters union officials
Desert Springs “Decert”: Tammy Tarantino (third from left) and her fellow healthcare workers at Desert Springs Medical Center booted SEIU union bosses from their workplace with Foundation aid, voting by a 3-1 margin for decertification.
CHICAGO, IL – Workers in three different states recently waged successful campaigns to remove the union bosses who controlled their workplaces. In each instance workers utilized free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys to navigate the overly-complicated process for getting a vote to remove an unwanted union.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) — which is enforced by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — gives workers the right to hold a decertification vote to end union officials’ monopoly bargaining power over workers. In theory, under the NLRA, workers who collect signatures from 30 percent of a workplace can hold a decertification vote at any time, provided there has not been a unionization vote there in the previous 12 months.
However, because of complicated NLRB doctrines compounded by union legal tactics, obtaining a vote to decertify a union can often be a challenge. That’s why workers in workplaces across the country turn to the Foundation for free legal aid as they seek to hold such a vote.
Workers’ ability to exercise their right to vote out an unwanted union is especially important in states without Right to Work protections, where union bosses can use their monopoly bargaining powers to force every worker to pay union dues or fees or else be fired.
But workers’ right to decertify a union is still critical in Right to Work states, because even without forced union payments, federal law gives union bosses the power to impose their so-called “representation” and resulting union monopoly contracts on members and non-members alike at unionized workplaces. Only once a union is decertified are workers free to represent themselves and communicate with their employer directly.
Foundation Helps Workers Navigate Tricky Legal Process
Highlighting recent activity, three separate workplaces have waged successful decertification efforts.
Petitioner Tim Mangia led the charge at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, where he and his fellow maintenance workers voted to remove Teamsters union bosses by a better than 3-1 margin. Separately, in Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas, salesmen for Frito-Lay also voted to free themselves from unwanted Teamsters union “representation” following free assistance from Foundation legal staff.
Meanwhile, Tammy Tarantino and her fellow technical employees at the Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas successfully removed a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local from their workplace with Foundation help.
Reforms: Union Bosses Can’t Use Bogus Charges to Block Decertification Elections
These cases proceeded without significant delays from union “blocking charges,” the often spurious charges against employers filed by union lawyers seeking to delay a decertification vote. Under old NLRB rules, such charges would have to be resolved before workers’ decertification votes could proceed, delaying the vote for months or even years.
Thanks to NLRB rulemaking advocated by the Foundation and backed by thousands of Foundation supporters, votes now virtually always proceed first with the results quickly announced, so that elections cannot be delayed nearly indefinitely by unsubstantiated union boss claims.
In the Las Vegas medical workers’ case, the new “blocking charge” rules allowed Tammy Tarantino continued from page 2 to have a vote, despite attempts by union lawyers to use charges against the hospital to delay the election. Without being able to rely on the “blocking charge” policy to maintain their power over the workplace, SEIU officials soon found themselves voted out with just 13 of 64 eligible voters voting for the union.
“While we look forward to the day when every individual worker has the freedom to decide whether to pay union dues or be represented by a union, it is especially egregious when union bosses are in power without even the support of a bare majority of rank-and-file workers,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “The National Right to Work Foundation is proud to help workers exercise their right to throw off the yoke of unwanted union so-called ‘representation.’”
Janus Victory Opens Door for Lawsuits Seeking Millions in Forced-Dues Refunds
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2018 edition.
Foundation staff attorneys assist public-sector employees in halting ‘opt-out’ schemes across the country
The Foundation’s Supreme Court victory in Janus v. AFSCME opened the door for several Foundation-litigated lawsuits seeking the return of union fees unconstitutionally seized from public sector workers.
WASHINGTON, DC – For years, union officials have been denying employee’s rights by using “opt-out” schemes, in which employees must take steps simply to refrain from paying for union activity they cannot legally be required to fund.
However, in the Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME decision that freed public sector workers from compulsory dues, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that charging union fees is a violation of the First Amendment “unless employees clearly and affirmatively consent before any money is taken from them.”
That affirmation of workers’ rights has opened the door for thousands of employees to hold union officials’ accountable for coercive “opt-out” schemes, in which officials had required employees to take steps simply to protect their First Amendment rights.
The Foundation is providing free legal representation to government employees across the country in numerous cases seeking the return of fees seized without consent by union officials.
A group of Illinois home care providers is seeking the return of $32 million in union fees seized in a coercive scheme by SEIU officials. With free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, the providers took their case, Riffey v. Rauner, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Riffey v. Rauner is a continuation of the 2014 Foundation-won Supreme Court Harris v. Quinn case. In Harris, the Court ruled that a forced-dues scheme imposed by the state of Illinois, in which over 80,000 individual home care providers in Illinois were unionized and required to pay union fees, violated the First Amendment.
After the Supreme Court decision, the case was re-designated as Riffey v. Rauner and remanded to the District Court to settle remaining issues, including whether or not tens of thousands of providers who had never joined the union would receive refunds of the money SEIU officials seized without consent.
However, in June 2016, the District Court ruled that the SEIU did not have to repay the funds, despite the Supreme Court ruling declaring the scheme unconstitutional. Foundation staff attorneys appealed the case to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the District Court’s ruling that, even though the workers never consented to their money being taken, they did not suffer First Amendment injury.
Earlier this year, Foundation staff attorneys asked the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and hear the case to clarify that taking fees from nonmembers without consent violates the First Amendment.
The day after Janus, the Court granted certiorari in Riffey, vacated the lower court’s ruling, and remanded the case to be reconsidered in light of the new protections against “opt-out” schemes.
“With the Supreme Court remanding Riffey, we are one step closer toward indicating the rights of the tens of thousands of victims, many of whom are family members
caring for disabled children in their own homes,” said Foundation President Mark Mix.
“Now, with the new protections for workers afforded by our landmark Janus v. AFSCME victory, it is critical to confirm that unions cannot require individuals to ‘opt out’ of union dues that they cannot be required to pay in the first place,” continued Mix. “Union officials are still using such ‘opt-out’ schemes nationwide to limit workers’ constitutional protections despite Janus’ clear ruling that those schemes are impermissible. Ultimately, the clear ruling by the Supreme Court on this issue must be enforced in the lower courts to ensure that individuals who never joined a union cannot be required to take affirmative steps simply to protect their First Amendment rights.”
Foundation attorneys are also seeking to halt an “opt-out” scheme in which SEIU officials seized millions of dollars in forced dues from thousands of California state employees.
The workers are challenging SEIU Local 1000 officials’ “opt-out” policy that required workers to affirmatively opt out of the portion of union fees that workers cannot be legally required to fund.
In 2015, a federal judge certified Foundation staff attorney W. James Young as the attorney for the entire class of more than 30,000 nonmembers who had been coerced since June 2013 into funding SEIU union officials through the scheme.
The case is pending in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on appeal from the District Court’s dismissal of the claim. Hours after the Janus ruling declared that workers must provide affirmative consent to be charged union fees, Young notified the Court of Appeals of the decision’s relevance to Hamidi.
Unions have been on notice of the dubious legal grounds of its “opt-out” policy since the Foundation-won Knox v. SEIU Supreme Court decision in 2012, when the Court ruled in favor of a similar class of workers forced to pay union dues.
Because SEIU Local 1000 did not adjust its policy of forcing workers to opt-out of non-chargeable fees after Knox, the Janus decision means the union could be required to refund all fees seized since June 2013 from the more than 30,000 class members, an amount estimated to be well over $100 million.
“For years union bosses have violated the rights of public employees and seized billions of dollars in unconstitutional forced fees,” said Mix, “Now, armed with the Janus precedent, Foundation staff attorneys are seeking to force union officials to return those ill-gotten gains to the workers whose rights they violated.”
Hospital Employee Successfully Halts SEIU Coercive Unionization Scheme
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2018 edition.
Union bosses’ backroom deal sought to “acquire” employees who had previously rejected union organizing attempts
Kathleen Flanagan’s settlement rescued her coworkers from a collusive scheme between her employers and union officials, in which employees were illegally told they must become union members and pay union membership dues.
LONG ISLAND, NY – After her employer made a deal with union officials behind closed doors, Kathleen Flanagan came to the National Right to Work Foundation to halt the scheme and free her coworkers.
The backroom deal between Northwell Health and 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East (SEIU 1199) officials forced Flanagan, a physical therapist assistant, and her colleagues into union ranks without a vote. Unwilling to accept being coerced into unionization, she filed unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free Foundation legal assistance.
In May, Northwell Health and 1199 SEIU officials were forced to give up their under-the-
table agreement, a triumph for Flanagan and her coworkers who had previously rejected SEIU unionization attempts.
SEIU 1199 union officials already had monopoly bargaining power over some workers at Northwell Health’s facilities. However, workers in other classifications, including Flanagan’s physical therapy and occupational therapy department at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, had rebuffed union organizers.
In November 2017 a Northwell Health representative informed Flanagan’s department that SEIU 1199 had “acquired them legally.” The department, as well as other departments at Northwell’s two facilities, was “accreted” into the union’s monopoly bargaining unit and forced to accept the union’s unwanted “representation.”
At a mandatory union meeting, a union official unlawfully told the workers they were required to join the union, and therefore pay full union dues, by January 1, 2018. If Flanagan had remained an employee, she would have been required to accept union representation, pay union fees, and accept a reduction in benefits.
Faced with a reduction in benefits due to a union she and her coworkers never wanted, Flanagan chose to retire instead.
Flanagan’s former coworkers were still being forced by union bosses to accept
representation” they didn’t want. To challenge the so-called “accretion” as unlawful, Flanagan went to Foundation staff attorneys, who helped her file charges with the NLRB.
Northwell and SEIU 1199 eventually settled the charges, rather than face further litigation for violating workers’ legal rights. Under the settlements, Northwell ceased
recognition of SEIU 1199 as the monopoly bargaining representative of the illegally
accreted hospital workers, and SEIU 1199 was forced to relinquish monopoly bargaining
privileges over those employees.
“The so-called accretion doctrine, which is not mandated by the National Labor Relations Act, empowers union bureaucrats to coerce workers into unions without a vote, frequently
after the targeted workers reject union organizing attempts,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse. “However, the collusion
between the company and union brass in this case was so egregious and flagrantly illegal that the NLRB had no choice but to take action.”
The illegally accreted workers are now freed from unwanted union representation and will be reimbursed for union fees they were forced to pay. Furthermore, notices will be posted at both of Northwell Health’s facilities and emailed out to affected employees to inform them of their rights.
“Thanks to Kathleen Flanagan, this ugly power-grab by SEIU officials was successfully halted and reversed,” continued LaJeunesse. “To protect other workers across the country from being forced into unwanted unions, the Trump NLRB should overturn this outrageous
accretion doctrine.”
Michigan Supreme Court Upholds Ruling to Strike Down Teacher Union “Window Periods”
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2018 edition.
Decision affirms the right of Michigan teachers and other civil servants to leave a union at any time
Union bosses still flout Michigan’s Right to Work Law, which passed in 2012 after voters rejected United Autoworkers (UAW) union chief Bob King’s ballot measure to make forced union dues mandatory under the Michigan State Constitution.
LANSING, MI – In March, the Michigan Supreme Court denied an appeal by Michigan Education Association (MEA) union lawyers of a lower court ruling that affirmed Michigan employees’ right to leave a union at the time of their choosing. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys provided free legal assistance to several public school employees in the case.
Since Michigan’s Right to Work Law took effect in 2013, Foundation staff attorneys have actively challenged union officials’ schemes to stonewall independent-minded workers attempting to exercise their lawful rights. To date, over 40 cases have been brought by Foundation attorneys to enforce Michigan employees’ Right to Work protections.
“As our enforcement activities in Michigan demonstrate, without vigorous enforcement, state Right to Work laws will be hollowed out by scofflaw union bosses,” said Ray LaJeunesse, Vice President and Legal Director of the Foundation.
Battle Creek Public Schools employee Alphia Snyder resigned her union membership in April 2013, after the pre-existing monopoly bargaining agreement expired and she became fully covered by Michigan’s public sector Right to Work law. However, MEA union officials insisted that she could only leave the union during an annual 30 day “window period” in August. Throughout the fall of 2013, Snyder received several demands for forced dues from MEA bosses.
Mark Norgan, a Standish-Sterling Community Schools employee, resigned his union membership in October 2013. Because he was still under a monopoly bargaining contract until June 30, 2015, he asked to pay only the part of dues he was forced to pay as a condition of employment as was his right under the Foundation-won Supreme Court case Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson. MEA union officials told him that he could only leave the union during the annual 30 day window period.
In November 2013, Grand Blanc Community Schools employee Mary Carr resigned her union membership as soon as she became fully covered by Michigan’s Right to Work Law. However, MEA officials informed Carr that her resignation could not be effective until the following August. Union officials then sent multiple demands for forced dues, and eventually threatened Carr that if she did not pay the forced dues, they would dispatch debt collectors.
With free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, the three public school employees filed unfair labor practice charges with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) against the MEA in the spring of 2014. In September 2014, an administrative law judge struck down the “window period” scheme, and the full commission agreed in February 2016. The commission also held that a union’s threats to use a debt collector to collect dues after resignation would be illegal in the future.
MEA appealed MERC’s ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which in May 2017 affirmed the right of Michigan teachers and public employees to leave a union and stop paying union dues at any time. Finally, this March, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected MEA’s appeal of that ruling.
“Right to Work laws simply protect an employee’s right to decide for him or herself whether to join and financially support a union, and now Michigan’s courts have made it clear that freedom of choice cannot be limited to one month a year,” said LaJeunesse. “Hopefully Michigan unions now will focus on gaining the voluntary support of workers instead of attempting to trap them in unions with schemes like arbritrary window periods.”
After More Than Twenty-Eight Years of Litigation, Independent-Minded Workers Prevail
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2018 edition.
Foundation-assisted couple forces union to settle case over illegally seized dues
Photo By: University of Minnesota Institute of Advanced Studies
Sherry and David Pirlott filed charges against union officials on November 8, 1989 — the day before the Berlin Wall began to be demolished — but enforcing their rights would take longer than tearing down one of the most visible symbols of the Cold War.
GREEN BAY, WI – The day before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Sherry and David Pirlott filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the Teamsters Local 75 union hierarchy for keeping them in the dark about their rights and how union officials were spending their forced union dues
Following nearly three decades of litigation between National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys and union lawyers at both the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Pirlotts’ rights were finally vindicated.
Before the legal battle began, Sherry Pirlott was a Teamsters local 75 union steward at the Schreiber Foods cheese company
“It was very clear from the beginning that the other union stewards did things for the betterment of the union, not for the betterment of the workers,” she later recounted. “I just did what I thought was right, and the other stewards didn’t like that one bit.”
After union goons threatened her with bodily harm for refusing to toe the line, Sherry decided to stop financially supporting the union hierarchy. Teamsters Local 75 union officials then sued her in small-claims court to force her to pay for union activities. Unable to find a local attorney in Green Bay willing to take on union lawyers, she was forced to defend herself. The judge refused to hear her arguments and quickly awarded judgment to the Teamsters.
That’s when Sherry discovered the National Right to Work Foundation’s free legal aid program — and learned about her rights under a United States Supreme Court decision Foundation staff attorneys had just won.
In the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1988 that workers have the right to refrain from joining a union and subsidizing union activities unrelated to monopoly bargaining and contract administration, such as politics and member-only events.
Teamsters Local 75 union officials never informed the Pirlotts or their coworkers of their rights under Beck. Once they learned of these rights, Sherry and David Pirlott, also an employee at Schreiber Foods, resigned from formal union membership and objected to paying for nonchargeable union expenses. Providing only sketchy financial disclosure of the union’s expenses, Teamster union officials told the Pirlotts that only 1.1 percent of the union’s expenditures were for non-bargaining activities.
On November 8, 1989, with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, the Pirlotts filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB. Nearly two years later, the NLRB General Counsel found merit to the charges and issued a complaint against the union for failing to inform workers of their Beck rights, providing inadequate financial disclosure, and charging objecting workers for expenditures incurred beyond their own bargaining unit.
In 1992, an administrative law judge issued a mixed ruling, and both the Pirlotts and the union appealed to the full NLRB. That’s when the outrageous delays began.
After more than six years of inaction by Bill Clinton’s NLRB, Foundation staff attorneys filed a rare mandamus petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to order the Board to issue a decision. Under mounting pressure form this legal action, the Clinton Labor Board finally acted on the case in September 1999. However, they simply sent the case back to an administrative law judge to determine whether the union could force the Pirlotts to pay for union organizing at other workplaces.
In the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent Ellis v. Railway Clerks, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such expenses are not chargeable to non-members under the Railway Labor Act. Unfortunately, even though in Beck the Court ruled that the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act are “statutory equivalents,” the judge in December 2001 ruled that Teamster union bosses could charge the Pirlotts to subsidize union organizing campaigns anywhere in the private sector.
The Pirlotts again appealed to the full NLRB. With no decision for four and a half years, Foundation staff attorneys filed a second mandamus petition and successfully convinced the D.C. Circuit to order the NLRB to respond in 2006. Unable to meet the November 30 deadline, the NLRB asked the D.C. Circuit for more time. When the NLRB finally issued a decision two months later, it failed to hold all union organizing expenditures nonchargeable under Ellis and Beck. Moreover, the Board overlooked the inadequacy of the union’s financial disclosure, so the Pirlotts appealed the decision to the D.C. Circuit.
On April 18, 2008, the D.C. Circuit issued its ruling. It declined to address the argument that objecting non-members can never be charged for organizing activities and remanded the case back to the NLRB to consider the adequacy of the union’s financial disclosure. The NLRB then sat on the case for the next seven years with little action.
The NLRB in March 2017 finally held that the Teamsters Local 75 union officials provided insufficient financial disclosure. Following this victory for the Pirlotts, settlement negotiations dragged on for nearly another year. Eventually, after Wisconsin’s Right to Work Law became operative at Schreiber Foods in January 2018, the union agreed to reimburse the Pirlotts with interest and post notices informing workers of their rights under Beck. Further, because of Wisconsin’s Right to Work Law, David Pirlott, who still works at Schreiber Foods, is finally free from any payments to the union bosses that fought to violate his rights for decades.
“With the help of NLRB bureaucrats, Teamster union bosses fought tooth and nail for nearly three decades to try to keep every last cent of the Pirlotts’ forced fees,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Pirlotts’ lengthy legal battle to enforce their rights despite the NLRB’s repeated delays demonstrates that Right to Work laws are the only way to truly protect independent-minded workers.”
Original Janus Plaintiff Moves to Stop Union Lawsuit to Discriminate Against Non-Members
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2018 edition.
Union officials are attempting to counter Janus by expanding monopoly bargaining powers
Illinois state employee Brian Trygg seeks to intervene in a union official’s case to expand union boss power to discriminate against workers who exercise their Janus rights.
CHICAGO, IL – An Illinois civil servant has filed a motion to intervene in a union official’s
lawsuit seeking to circumvent the Janus ruling.
Brian Trygg is no stranger to union officials’ legal tactics. Trygg, an engineer at the Illinois Department of Transportation, spent seven long years in court fighting for his right to honor his religious conviction to remain unassociated with a union.
Trygg was an original plaintiff with Mark Janus in Janus v. AFSCME, but was removed from the case because he had secured religious accommodation as relief from forced union fees. Now, Trygg again seeks to hold union officials accountable in court for their misdeeds against non-members.
In anticipation of Janus, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) lawyers filed a lawsuit seeking to expand union officials’ ability to use their government-granted monopoly bargaining powers to discriminate against workers who exercise their right to refrain from union membership and not pay union dues or fees.
Trygg came to Foundation staff attorneys for free legal assistance in filing his motion to intervene to protect his rights and the rights of all public employees under the Janus ruling.
The IUOE official’s lawsuit attempts to take advantage of IUOE’s legislative privilege to force its “representation” on all employees, even union non-members, in their bargaining unit while claiming it should also be free of longstanding legal doctrine prohibiting union officials from using their monopoly representation to discriminate against non-members and not represent non-members in union-controlled grievances.
Trygg seeks to intervene to urge dismissal of the IUOE case, or alternatively, to file an amicus curiae brief to support the state defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Acting on his beliefs, Trygg has exercised his right to refrain from union membership. If IUOE’s suit is successful, Trygg would continue to be unable to negotiate with his employer due to the union’s monopoly bargaining status, yet union officials would have the power to discriminate against him and ignore the legal doctrine known as “duty of fair representation.”
Trygg argues that Defendant Attorney General Lisa Madigan has failed to protect his interests, with legal representation “inadequate and bordering on malpractice.” Madigan also has opposed and criticized the Janus ruling and has taken action to limit its application to Illinois public employees.
IUOE officials appear to be calling for the overturn of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Steele precedent, a 1944 case that challenged union officials’ attempt to use their monopoly bargaining privileges to discriminate against black workers. The decision suggested that monopoly bargaining would be unconstitutional absent a legal limitation on union officials using their power to discriminate against the workers they choose to “represent.”
Trygg’s filings argue that, even if the union’s claims were valid, the solution would be eliminating union monopoly bargaining powers over non-members, not giving union officials wider berth to discriminate against those who exercise their First Amendment rights protected by the Janus decision.
“The root of Big Labor’s coercion has always been its government-granted power to impose its so-called ‘representation’ on workers who don’t want it and never asked for it,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ultimately, if union bosses find their obligation not to discriminate against non-members under their ‘representation’ so burdensome, they can simply relinquish their government-granted monopoly bargaining powers over nonmembers like Brian Trygg.”
