Bus Drivers Slam the Brakes on Teamster Union Boss Intimidation and Threats

Teamster bosses bullying independent-minded workers to sign self-disparaging letter just to exercise their constitutional rights

Long Island, NY (October 8, 2010) – Two Syosset-based bus drivers have filed federal charges against a local Teamster union for refusing to recognize, without condition, their constitutional right to refrain from formal union membership and instead are intimidating independent-minded workers who exercise that right.

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, the two Acme Bus Corp. drivers filed the charges late last week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Brooklyn.

Teamsters Local Union 1205 officials are failing to acknowledge without condition the workers’ rights to refrain from formal, full dues-paying union membership established under Foundation-won precedent in the Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck. Instead, Teamster Local 1205 union bosses are forcing nonmember employees to sign a self-disparaging letter characterizing themselves as “dues complainers.”

Read the entire release here.

A group of Laidlaw bus employees outside the Windy City voted to kick out the unwanted Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1028 this week, with help from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Though the employees had already rid their workplace of the unwanted union earlier in the year, once their employer was bought out by another company, union officials began bargaining over workers' wages and working conditions with no legal authority whatsoever! The Foundation helped Russell Haasch and his coworkers immediately take action at the National Labor Relations Board.

Employees need to be vigilant, particulary when union officials don't take "no" for an answer. However, only a Right to Work law will provide widespread for Prairie State employees. Decertification elections are extraordinarily hard to come by and union lawyers often delay them for years by filing baseless charges.