Seattle, Wash. (December 21, 2000) – A Boeing engineer filed federal charges today against a local labor union for forcing him and other non-members of the union to pay agency fees illegally funneled into politics and lobbying.

With the help of free legal aid provided by the National Right to Work Foundation, Michael Butcher, an engineer at Boeing’s propulsion systems facility, filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO empire.

Butcher filed the charges after SPEEA union officials notified engineers that they would be charged for the union’s political activities. Union officials also forced employees to go through an invasive scheme that discouraged them from challenging the union’s expenditures.

“This shameful shake-down scheme was designed to rip money from the pockets of employees and funnel it into the union’s electioneering activities,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision, union officials cannot force employees to pay union fees for politics or other activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

Butcher’s charge also states that SPEEA bureaucrats systematically discriminated against employees who exercised their right not to pay full union dues. The union announced that it would deny non-members access to programs established under the collective bargaining agreement that they paid for through mandatory agency fees.

To top it off, SPEEA officials gave workers an incomplete and inaccurate audit of union expenditures. In its defective audit, union officials illegally categorized non-chargeable expenditures such as political spending as “chargeable.”

Butcher seeks a judgment that requires SPEEA officials to eliminate compulsory union fees used for politics and other non-chargeable expenditures, and to provide workers with accurate financial records.