Truck Drivers and Dockworkers Fight Back Against Teamster Union Intimidation

Employees seek to throw out union after union bosses’ ugly campaign of harassment and coercion

Seattle, Washington (March 5, 2009) — Employees from nine collective bargaining units of Oak Harbor Freight Lines, Inc. have filed decertification petitions seeking elections to oust the Teamster union as the workers’ monopoly bargaining agent.

With help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the employees – drivers and dockworkers – filed the decertification petitions with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking secret ballot elections to determine whether the workforce wants to retain the Teamster union as their monopoly bargaining agent.

On September 22, 2008, Teamster union brass called a strike against Oak Harbor Freight. Teamster union operatives picketed Oak Harbor Freight’s clients with the goal of discouraging them from doing business with the company. Teamster union bosses sought publicly to damage Oak Harbor Freight’s reputation and openly celebrated when clients refused to do further business with the company.

Teamster union bosses organized a subsequent campaign of intimidation and harassment of Oak Harbor Freight employees who continued to work during the strike. Teamster union partisans participated in ambulatory strikes, in which they stalked and picketed Oak Harbor Freight drivers on their daily routes.

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U.S. Supreme Court Agrees With Right to Work Foundation: Unions Have No Right to Payroll Deduction

More effective alternative would have been stopping government payroll deduction for all union dues

Washington, DC (February 24, 2009) — The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled 6-3 in Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Association that states may prohibit union officials from using payroll deduction to divert government workers’ money into union coffers.

In overturning a Ninth Circuit appeals court decision and upholding an Idaho law banning payroll deduction for union political dues from state and local government employees, the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, agreed with arguments made by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. The lower court had blocked the state from requiring local government bodies to comply with the state law.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys – joining with the Sutherland Institute, Utah Taxpayers Association, and the National Federation of Independent Business – successfully argued in their amicus brief (pdf) that unions, in fact, have no constitutional right to use government resources to deduct dues from workers’ paychecks.

“The Supreme Court's decision makes clear what should be obvious, that union officials have no constitutional right to use government resources to line their pockets,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. "It is bad public policy for government bodies essentially to act as bagmen for union political monies.”

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In March, at the urging of the National Right to Work Foundation, the U.S. Supreme Court took up Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Association. Now the Foundation has jointly filed an amicus curiae brief (pdf) in the case.

The High Court is reviewing a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that says that Idaho's state law banning payroll deductions for union political expenditures (narrowly defined) can not apply to payroll deductions at the local government level. 

As the Foundation's brief explains, the Ninth Circuit's ruling wrongly forces Idaho taxpayers to subsidize union political activities by offering valuable payroll deduction services to union officials.

When the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would take the case, Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason noted "like state governments, local governments should not act as bagmen for union political funds."

And even more alarmingly should the Supreme Cout fail to overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling, it will open the door for union lawyers to misuse the court's reasoning to launch fresh new attacks on state Right to Work laws as applied to local government bodies.

The Foundation's joined with the Utah Taxpayers Association, the Sutherland Institute, and the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Center in filing the brief.

Another so-called "paycheck protection" campaign finance regulation has been struck down in federal court. (A similar law has been struck down in Utah.)

As noted by former Federal Election Commission chair Brad Smith in The Washington Times in the wake of the Right to Work Foundation's defensive victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in June, such regulations are both bad policy and bad politics.