Worker Files Brief Defending Rights in Teamster Union Discrimination Federal Appeal

Despite multiple rulings, Teamster union bosses try to validate discrimination against worker

Denver, CO (November 23, 2011) – An Interstate Bakeries employee from Ponca City, Oklahoma has filed a brief in federal court asking the court to uphold repeated decisions in his favor against Teamster union workplace discrimination.

With continued free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Interstate Bakeries employee Kirk Rammage filed the brief Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Rammage was the single nonunion sales representative with Dolly Madison for over 15 years before his division was merged in 2005 with Wonder Bread/Hostess. Although the company initially wanted to retain Rammage and protect his seniority during the merger, Teamsters Local 523 union bosses demanded that union members receive preferential treatment, putting Rammage at the bottom of the seniority roster despite his workplace tenure. The company later caved into the union bosses' demand.

At Interstate Bakeries, seniority increases employees' chances of securing desirable sales routes. By insisting that Rammage lose his seniority, Teamster officials effectively signaled that union workers took priority over their nonunion colleagues. As a result, Rammage was forced to commute to a new work location more than 70 miles away.

Read the entire release here.

As previously reported on the Freedom@Work blog, union militants are certainly making headlines of late using violent tactics and vandalism to prove their point.

Stunningly, union thugs in Michigan may have taken this to the next level last week when John King, owner of King Electrical Services, was reportedly shot by a union goon spraying the word "scab" on the side of his car in the driveway.

Of course this should surprise no one familiar with the violent legacy of Big Labor, including that of AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka. But for good measure, the Investor's Business Daily (IBD) opined today about union bosses' reliance on violence to get their way:

The attack on King is emblematic of the sad fact that the leading perpetrators of political violence today are U.S. labor unions.

They've grown more violent in their rhetoric as their political power grows and their appeal to workers diminishes.

According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, a right-to-work think tank in Washington, there have been 4,400 incidents of union violence in the last 20 years.

The Teamsters are the leading perpetrators, with 454 incidents. But IBEW, which some suspect in the King incident, is in the top 10, having engaged in 125 incidents.

All told, there have been 11,600 incidents of union violence against workers, management and the public since 1975.

In 1973, the United States Supreme Court actually ruled to grant union officials the special privilege to be exempt from federal prosecution for union violence. And shocking these numbers may seem, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research states that for reported incidences of union violence between 1975 and 2000, only three percent of those incidents have led to an arrest and conviction.

The numbers used by IBD also don't account for the fact that most incidents of union violence go unreported (a study of one strike found seven instances of violence for every on reported on in the media) meaning that the already staggering numbers the article cites are just the tip of the iceberg.

Teamster Union Bosses Hit with Federal Charges for Having Coca-Cola Worker Illegally Fired

Incident shows Pennsylvania’s workers desperately need Right to Work protections

Houston, PA (July 5, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a former Coca-Cola employee has filed federal charges against a local Teamster union and the company for discrimination and illegally firing him from his job.

Keith Smiesko of Saxonburg filed the federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Pittsburgh on Thursday.

Earlier this year, Teamster Local 585 union officials ordered Smiesko – who had refrained from full union membership and dues payments – to immediately pay full union dues for the previous three years along with additional union initiation fees without ever notifying him that he was being charged for their so-called "representation." Union officials illegally threatened Smiesko with job termination if he did not pay.

Smiesko refused, exercising his rights under the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck, which allows workers to refrain from full-dues-paying union membership. Teamster Local 585 union officials then demanded that Coca-Cola fire Smiesko and Coca-Cola complied with the union bosses' command.

Read the entire release here.

On Capitol Hill, New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt is a prominent Big Labor enabler: He's cosponsored the notorious "card check" forced unionism bill, taken tens of thousands of dollars from union bosses who use their forced-dues powers to funnel money into politics, and generally opposed expanding workplace freedom at every turn. His latest stunt? A heavy-handed attempt to block a decertification election that would have thrown an unwanted union out of a New Jersey workplace.

Recently, Holt wrote a letter (pdf) urging the NLRB to block a decertification election that would have removed Teamster bosses from the Durham School Bus offices in Middletown, New Jersey. Holt claims that the company's unfair labor practices tainted the election, but even if his assertion were true, workers attempting to eject unwelcome union bosses shouldn't be punished for management's mistakes. Moreover, Big Labor operatives frequently resort to frivolous legal challenges to prevent employees from getting rid of unions. 

Although the election was held as scheduled and Teamster officials ultimately held on to their forced-dues privileges, Holt's letter demonstrates Big Labor's staggering political influence. Union bosses will stop at nothing to push more workers into their forced-dues paying ranks. Getting a sitting Congressman to intervene in what was supposed to be an even-handed union decertification election is just the latest example of their political pull. After all, they've done it before, and they'll surely do it again. 

Army Wives Driver Wins over $55k in Lost Wages After Teamster Union Boss Blacklisting

Teamster union bosses’ ugly retaliation prevents employee from making a living

Washington, DC (March 17, 2011) – An ABC Studios movie/television driver has won over $55,000 in lost income after Teamster union officials refused to allow him to do his job for nearly a year.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys helped the driver win the case before a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge in Charleston, South Carolina.

Teamster Local 509 union officials currently enjoy exclusive bargaining privileges with ABC Studios in Charleston – and thus have a monopoly bargaining agreement with ABC that forces workers to go through Teamster Local 509’s hiring hall in order to obtain a job.

However, because Local 509 union members were working on other television and movie productions, Thomas Coghill – who was from Wilmington, North Carolina and a member of Teamster Local 391 – worked on the set of the Charleston-based Army Wives television series. Coghill worked during the show’s first two seasons beginning in 2008 as a makeup truck driver.

However, as more Local 509 union members became available to work on the production of Army Wives, a dispute over who should be eligible to work on the set of Army Wives erupted between various Teamster union officials and Coghill was removed from Local 509’s “Movie Referral List” because he was not a member of Local 509. Meanwhile, Local 509 union members continue to receive preferential treatment in job placement on the set of Army Wives.

Read the entire release here.

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.

Federal Labor Board Rejects Frivolous Teamster Union Charges Against National Right to Work Foundation

Fearing a lack of support, union bosses attempt to abuse process to prevent employee election

Seattle, WA (February 2, 2010) – The National Labor Relation Board’s (NLRB) regional office in Seattle has dismissed as unwarranted and unsupported frivolous charges filed by Teamsters union officials against the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Teamsters Local 117 union bosses filed the unfair labor practice charges against the Foundation in a desperate attempt to stall an employee vote at Alan Ritchey, Inc. which would allow the employees to rescind the union hierarchy’s forced dues privileges – which requires employees to pay union dues and fees as a condition of keeping their jobs.

After reviewing the charges, the NLRB regional director in Seattle outright rejected the charges as unwarranted and unsupported.

Click here to read the full release.

Employees Slap Teamster Union Officials with Federal Charges over Illegal Forced Dues Policy

Union officials fail to provide adequate disclosure to nonunion employees, then threaten the workers with termination

Philadelphia, PA and Baltimore, MD (December 16, 2009) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, four workers forced to pay fees to a regional Teamsters union council have filed unfair labor practice charges against the union for providing inadequate financial disclosure and illegally threatening to have workers who didn’t pay fired.

Under the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent Communication Workers v. Beck, nonmember employees can be forced to pay certain union dues as a condition of employment, but they cannot be compelled to pay for politics, lobbying, and member-only events. Union officials are also legally obligated to inform workers of these rights and to provide workers with an independently verified audit of chargeable and non-chargeable expenses.

Graphic Communications Conference/International Brotherhood of Teamsters, District Council 9, union bosses have exclusive representation power over employees at Perfecseal, Inc. in Philadelphia, PA, and Standard Register in Salisbury, MD, but have not provided nonmember employees with the level of disclosure Beck requires. Nonmembers’ “agency fees” paid to the union council have increased by a greater percentage than corresponding increases in dues amounts for union members, and union bosses are demanding that the nonmembers pay the increased fees or be fired without providing an adequate breakdown of expenditures.

Click here to read the full release.

Here on Freedom@Work a couple of weeks ago, we told you about the SEIU union boss threatening to file grievances against Boy Scouts for doing volunteer work and not paying union dues. But if you don't think this kind of despicable behavior is par for the course -- that union militants DON'T routinely put their own self interest above the public good -- here's another almost unbelievable story (emphasis added):

The American Red Cross won a court injunction today against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 929 after its members illegally blocked vehicles from leaving the facility, interfering with blood shipments to local hospitals.

...

The Red Cross says these tactics put patients at risk and required them to take legal action to stop this conduct. Doctors at area hospitals are now waiting for the safe delivery of Red Cross blood and blood products. Earlier today, the Red Cross says it had to inform union members that a two-year-old child's life depended on our blood delivery before they would allow a Red Cross vehicle to exit the yard to get the necessary blood products to the hospital.

Federal Judge Upholds Injunction Against Teamster Union Bosses for Illegal Dues Scheme

Union officials failed to provide Pennsylvania Turnpike employees with an adequate breakdown of expenditures

Pittsburgh, PA (December 8, 2009) – A judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of seven Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) employees, maintaining a permanent injunction against the Teamsters union and PTC for seizing forced union dues in violation of the employees’ constitutional rights.

With free legal aid from staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation, the seven Turnpike workers filed a federal lawsuit in 2007 against Teamsters Local 250, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), and the PTC. Exercising monopoly bargaining power over PTC employees, Local 250 officials may collect forced union dues from nonmembers – but only for expenses which union officials can prove are spent on collective bargaining.

Last year, the District Court levied a permanent injunction against Local 250 from seizing forced dues from nonmembers until it complies with the due-process and adequate disclosure requirements in the Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson and Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association line of U.S. Supreme Court cases. Charges must be verified by an independent auditor, and workers must have the opportunity to challenge the fee’s basis.

Read the rest of the Foundation's press release.