Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Union for Retaliation Against Security Guard for Asserting Legal Rights

**El Paso, TX (February 5, 2007)** – National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) officials have issued a formal complaint and agreed to prosecute a local security guard union and employer for unlawfully suspending a local guard without pay in retaliation for asserting his legal right to refrain from union membership.

The complaint stems from charges Juan Vielma, a local AKAL Security employee, filed against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union and his employer with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Vielma’s charge details how the SPFPA union hierarchy holds a monopoly bargaining agreement with his employer that illegally makes financial support for the union a mandatory condition of employment.

AKAL Security, a national contract security provider, capitulated to the union hierarchy’s illegal demands when they indefinitely suspended Vielma without pay in June 2006 for failure to formally join union ranks and pay money to the union. Under protections afforded by Texas’ highly-popular Right to Work law, union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary. While Texas state prosecutors are yet to take action to enforce these clear violations of Texas criminal law, Foundation attorneys persuaded federal officials to pursue the matter to the extent possible under federal law.

AKAL Security and SPFPA union officials are falsely claiming that Vielma and his colleagues work on federal property that is not protected by the Right to Work law – and thus can be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment. NLRB investigators disagreed, and found that the union hierarchy violated federal law by restraining and coercing employees exercising their limited rights under the National Labor Relations Act to refrain from union participation.

“Such blatant violations of the freedom of association are unbecoming of the State of Texas’ long tradition of defending employees’ Right to Work,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The union hierarchy wants Mr. Vielma and his coworkers to just shut up and pay up.”

Foundation attorneys seek reinstatement and back pay for Vielma, as well as a notice to all AKAL Security employees about their rights to refrain from union membership and dues payment. The NLRB has scheduled a hearing for March 13, 2007, before an administrative law judge.

Colt Firearms Worker Asks Court to Order Federal Labor Board to Decide Another Long-Delayed Case

**Hartford, CT (January 31, 2007)** – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation an employee of Colt Manufacturing has filed a rare *mandamus* petition asking a federal appellate court in Washington, DC to order the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to rule in a long-delayed case that has languished at the federal labor board for nearly four years.

George Gally, a 40-year veteran Colt employee, originally filed unfair labor practice charges in 2003 challenging the United Autoworker (UAW) union’s nationwide policy of requiring employees to object annually in order to receive refunds of forced union dues spent for non-collective bargaining activities such as union politics and lobbying. Gally filed his *mandamus* petition at the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

In the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court *Communications Workers v. Beck* decision, the court recognized that workers have the right to refrain from formal, full dues-paying union membership and pay a reduced fee to cover the union’s collective bargaining costs. But UAW officials have violated the Supreme Court’s *Beck* and related appellate court rulings by requiring Gally and his co-workers to re-object every year – a practice intended to discourage them from reclaiming their money.

The current delay is part of a 15-year history of illegal actions by UAW officials against Gally. In December 2003, a federal administrative law judge awarded Gally nearly $31,000 in compensation plus interest for pay lost after he was illegally fired at the request of UAW Local 376 union officials in 1991. Earlier in 2003, Gally filed the unfair labor practice charges challenging the UAW union officials’ annual objection scheme.

“The issue is simple: for Gally and his co-workers, justice delayed is justice denied,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Instead of defending the rights of individual employees that have been victimized by compulsory unionism abuses, too often the NLRB has sat on its hands allowing union officials’ wholesale workers’ rights violations to continue.”

Gally’s case is far from the only example of delayed justice for workers at the NLRB, a federal bureaucracy long criticized for political in-fighting and institutional bias favoring compulsory unionism. Only a few weeks ago the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the labor board to produce a ruling in a Foundation-assisted case that began in 1989.

In that case the NLRB was ordered to rule by January 30, 2007, but when the decision was finally released – 17 years after Schreiber Foods employees Sherry and David Pirlott first filed the case – the majority of the Members issuing the decision refused to address the core legal issue of whether nonunion workers can be compelled to pay for union organizing activity.

Federal Court Orders Bush’s Labor Board to Resolve Key Employee Rights Case Delayed Since 1989

**Washington, DC (January 22, 2007)** – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, two Schreiber Foods employees from Green Bay, Wisconsin, persuaded a federal appellate court to order the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to rule in a long-delayed case the workers filed in 1989. Having refrained from formal union membership, the workers are challenging union officials’ use of their forced union dues for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, particularly union organizing costs.

Union organizing expenditures often comprise 20 to 40 percent of a union’s budget, and nonmembers have bristled at the notion of their compulsory dues being used to force even more workers into unions.

The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued the extraordinary order, mandating that the NLRB must rule in the case by January 30, 2007. The case – originally filed by David and Sherry Pirlott 18 years ago against Teamsters Local 75 in Wisconsin – is the oldest of scores of cases in which Foundation-assisted employees are trying to reclaim their forced union dues used for non-bargaining activity.

The NLRB, which has long been plagued by what critics have called political in-fighting and institutional bias favoring compulsory unionism, faced similar appellate court scrutiny in the Pirlott case in 1998. But rather than decide the case that had long been pending on the docket in Washington, DC, the Board sent the case back to an administrative law judge for further fact finding. The case returned to Washington, DC, in 2001 where it has since collected dust awaiting a decision.

The Pirlotts’ writ of mandamus petition, filed in June 2006, pointed out the Board’s egregious and unjustifiable delay in issuing a decision. The appellate court ruling grants the writ and denies the NLRB’s request for yet another extension of time – mandating that the NLRB issue a “judicially reviewable” ruling. Accordingly, the appellate court ruling forecloses the Board from once again shuffling the case around the NRLB bureaucracy in another attempt to shirk its duties.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “When asked to defend the rights of employees who labor under forced unionism, this agency has been AWOL all too often. And the status quo usually benefits union officials, not workers.”

Under the Supreme Court's rulings in *Communications Workers v. Beck* and *Ellis v. Railway Clerks*, cases brought by employees represented by Foundation attorneys, workers may not be lawfully forced to pay for any union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, contract negotiation, or grievance adjustment such as union organizing, politics, extra-unit litigation, and member-only programs.

ESPN/ABC Cameraman Challenges Pervasive Entertainment Industry Practice of Forcing Union Membership on Part-Time and Freelance C

**Fort Worth, TX (January 17, 2007)** – A television cameraman employed as a “daily hire” for the Walt Disney Company (ABC) through its subsidiary ESPN Television filed federal charges against the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) Local 41 union challenging a pervasive practice in the entertainment industry of forcing union membership on part-time and freelance independent contractors. The cameraman also filed charges against the Chicago-based union for threatening to have him fired for refusing to pay thousands of dollars in compulsory union dues.

Donald J. Geist filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after receiving multiple letters from NABET officials demanding that he join the union, pay a $1500 “initiation fee,” and then pay monthly forced dues in the amount of $125. When Geist refused to pay, union officials sent a letter to Geist’s sometimes employer ABC, threatening that their business relationship would end and that he would be blacklisted from future work.

The NLRB charges, filed by Geist with the assistance of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, show multiple violations of federal labor law by NABET officials. As a daily hire Geist should not be subject to compulsory union membership because he is never employed for thirty consecutive days, as defined by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Because he has never been employed continuously by ABC for 30 days, Geist cannot be subjected to compulsory union dues. Yet the contract that NABET union officials reached with ABC is illegal on its face because it requires employees to pay forced dues after only 20 non-continuous days of employment in any year or 30 days within two years.

Despite being facially invalid, requirements of this nature are commonplace in the entertainment industry. Often union officials use threats of blacklisting such workers from future work to press them into paying union dues in violation of federal law.

“The disgraceful behavior by NABET union officials shows just how far they will go to force people to pay up or lose their jobs – even if that means completely disregarding the rights of the individual workers they claim to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Unfortunately, this case is not an anomaly. All around the country employees in the entertainment industry are having unionization forced on them whether they like it or not.”

Even if Geist could have been subjected to the contract in the first place, his NLRB charge also lays out that union officials didn’t follow requirements handed down by the US Supreme Court in the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck case designed to ensure that employees’ right to object to paying forced union dues used for union political expenditures, lobbying, and organizing is protected.

Legal Counsel for Petitioners in First Amendment Battle Comment on Supreme Court Oral Argument

**Washington, DC (January 10, 2007)** – Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, made the following statement regarding today’s U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in *Davenport v. Washington Education Association*. The Foundation is a non-profit organization providing free legal aid to victims of compulsory unionism abuse, and whose staff attorneys filed the case in 2003 and successfully appealed the case to the Supreme Court on behalf of lead petitioner Gary Davenport and 4,000 other nonunion Washington State teachers.

“The *Davenport* case is a defensive battle that underscores how labor law is a stacked deck against the individual. In the 28 states without Right to Work laws, millions of employees are forced to choose between paying dues to a union they do not support and losing their job. Washington is one of these states.

“This case is a legal rescue mission that should have never been necessary. In responding to a law trying to limit this abuse, an activist ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court created from whole cloth a constitutional ‘right’ for union officials to spend dues taken from nonunion employees on politics. This precedent could cause sweeping damage to employee rights across America.

“The underlying campaign finance law – known as ‘paycheck protection’ – had been totally ineffective. Because of its fatally narrow definition of what constitutes a political expenditure, it cannot provide meaningful relief to employees forced to pay union dues.

“The real solution is to take away union officials’ special privilege to force employees to pay union dues just to get or keep a job.

“But we cannot allow the Washington court to use this ineffective law as a platform to cause sweeping damage to the First Amendment. If this activist ruling is upheld, even Right to Work laws could come under attack.

“Fortunately, there is a silver lining to this otherwise defensive battle. The Washington Court ruling has presented a major opportunity for the cause of employee freedom.

“National Right to Work Foundation attorneys representing the Petitioning teachers have asked the Justices to correct a problem flowing from a 45 year-old-ruling by this court. In a case that involved union members, this court said 45 years ago that employee ‘dissent is not to be presumed.’ Using this as justification, unions have set up cumbersome opt-out procedures to prevent nonunion members from paying anything less than full union dues.

“But the U.S. Supreme Court can now put a stop to it. National Right to Work attorneys are asking that the Supreme Court take the simple step of clarifying that when employees say no to union membership, they indeed ‘dissent’ from the union!

“This simple clarification – that ‘no’ indeed means ‘no’ – would sweep away the union objection procedures, and nonunion members would be entitled to an automatic reduction in their dues by several hundred dollars. Where employees do not enjoy the protections of a Right to Work law, they could still legally be forced to pay the cost of union bargaining.

“Since there are at least a million nonunion members in America that are forced to pay dues – a ruling on this point would nevertheless be a major breakthrough for employee rights.

“We hope the U.S. Supreme Court gives employees the help that they need in protecting their rights against the tyranny of compulsory unionism.”

Princeton, WV (December 26, 2006) – Walter Coeburn, a ResCare, Inc. assisted living employee filed federal labor board charges against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199 and ResCare for their attempts to force unwanted unionization on Coeburn, his co-workers and employees all across West Virginia. Coeburn filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 11 offices in Winston Salem, NC, with assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys. The unfair labor practice charges ask for an injunction to block the union and ResCare from continuing their unlawful activities, and they detail multiple violations of the National Labor Relations Act by SEIU officials and ResCare. As part of an agreement kept secret from employees, ResCare executives agreed to abandon even the limited protections offered to employees under a NLRB-supervised secret ballot election and instead impose a coercive “card check” procedure, in which union organizers can browbeat employees individually to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization. Because of the prevalence of union intimidation tactics directed at employees, card check is controversial for severely curtailing workers’ freedom of choice in deciding whether or not to unionize. Consequently, the organizing scheme has sparked numerous legal cases documenting coercive activities by union organizers, including threats, bribes, and stalkings of rank-and-file workers. In this case, witnesses said that SEIU organizers lied to many employees by stating that signing the cards was only a request “to get more information.” The “card check” procedure used at ResCare is part of a larger misnamed “neutrality and card check agreement” designed to have the employer assist union organizers in pushing workers into the union’s ranks. Under such agreements, the company commonly must give union officials unfettered access to workers on company property and the home addresses and phone numbers of employees, resulting in menacing home visits from groups of union organizers. Also, such agreements usually include a “gag rule” preventing the employer from commenting on any potential impact of unionization. In exchange for agreeing to assist the union with the card check scheme, ResCare executives received concessions from SEIU officials, including an agreed upon contract to be foisted upon the employees once the card check unionization was complete. Such “pre-recognition bargaining” clearly violates federal law, yet the SEIU and ResCare are now rolling this scheme out all over West Virginia and Ohio. “Union officials sold out the interests of the very workers they sought to ‘represent’ in order to force unionization and compulsory dues on these employees,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union organizers’ illegal behavior shows that they don’t respect the rights of the workers; they just want the forced union dues revenue.” In response to their ill treatment, Coeburn and his colleagues conducted a decertification drive to throw out the unwanted union. A majority of employees in the bargaining unit have signed a petition asking the NLRB to conduct an election to determine if the SEIU really has the majority employee support it claims.

An Astounding 35 Groups Sign Briefs Supporting Washington Teachers in U.S. Supreme Court Controversy Over Union Dues

**Washington, DC (November 15, 2006)** – A diverse group of 35 legal foundations, public policy groups, and federal government agencies this week filed supporting briefs asking the nation’s highest court to reverse a novel Washington State Supreme Court decision that found a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend on politics the forced dues extracted from nonunion employees. A failure to overturn the activist Washington ruling might jeopardize America’s 22 state Right to Work laws which ban forced union dues altogether.

The 35 parties from across the country filed 14 amicus (or “friend of the court”) briefs in *Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA)* and *Washington v. WEA*, which are scheduled for oral arguments on January 10, 2007. In the Davenport case, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are representing approximately 4,000 nonunion Washington State teachers. A list of the amici, as well as their underlying briefs, is available on the Foundation’s website.

In addition to asking for a reversal of the Washington State Supreme Court’s novel finding of a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend the compulsory dues of nonunion members, lead counsel Milton Chappell, a 30-year Foundation veteran in assisting union-abused employees, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify that it had never approved a pervasive union procedure designed to force nonunion members to pay full union dues, including hundreds of dollars per employee which are spent for a wide array of activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

While seeking to overturn the Washington State court’s dangerous precedent involving the First Amendment, Foundation attorneys are going on the offensive by asking the High Court to clarify its 45-year-old “dissent is not to be presumed” statement. Union officials have exploited that phrase from a 1961 ruling to force employees who resign union membership to take the additional affirmative step of objecting annually to cut off the use of their forced dues on politics and other non-bargaining functions. A victory on this argument would dramatically increase the impact of previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings won by Foundation attorneys establishing that nonunion employees cannot be lawfully compelled to pay for politics, lobbying, organizing, and a wide array of other non-bargaining activities.

Surprisingly, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation – a longtime proponent of Washington’s well-meant, but ineffective, “paycheck protection” law – argued in its amicus brief that the funds covered by the law were “miniscule… less than ¼ of 1% of the WEA’s total expenditures.” The law only governs a small fraction of union officials’ state and local electioneering expenditures.

“While there may now be nearly universal agreement that the underlying campaign finance statute has been ineffective, all agree that it is indefensible to use it as a springboard to create an even larger problem – a perversion of the long-standing interpretation of the First Amendment,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Washington ruling cannot be allowed to stand because of the collateral damage it is already causing to employee rights nationwide. Only weeks ago, a Colorado court relied on it in a similar ruling.”

Foundation attorneys and Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle filed Davenport in 2001 for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but are still forced to pay dues or be fired. In recent days, Washington Attorney General Robert McKenna also filed arguments for the state in a related case, *Washington v. WEA*.

Key Legal Documents

Merits brief filed by National Right to Work Foundation Staff Attorney Milton Chappell and Steve O’Ban (Davenport v. WEA)

Merits brief filed by Washington State Attorney General Robert McKenna (Washington v. WEA)



*Amicus* Briefs

13 Public Policy Groups (Evergreen Freedom Foundation,Cascade Policy Institute, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy, Excellent Education for Everyone, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Georgia Public Policy Foundation, James Madison Institute, John Locke Foundation, Nevada Policy Research Institute, Pacific Research Institute, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, Small Business Hawaii & Competitive Enterprise Institute)

Association of American Educators

American Legislative Exchange Council

Cato Institute, Reason Foundation & Center for Individual Freedom

States of Colorado, Alabama, Idaho, Ohio, Utah & Virginia

Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Religious Objector Members of the Northwest Professional Educators & Pacific Justice Institute

Pacific Legal Foundation

Institute for Justice

National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation & James Madison Center for Free Speech

United States Solicitor General, US Department of Labor, US Department of Justice & Federal Election Commission

Campaign Legal Center

Mountain States Legal Foundation

Teamsters Union Slammed with Federal Charges for Threatening to Have Workers Fired for Resisting Formal Union Membership

**Tacoma, WA (November 6, 2006)** – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a local group of mail equipment inspectors filed federal charges against the Teamsters Local 117 union today after union officials unlawfully misinformed them about their rights to refrain from formal union membership – and then threatened to have them fired for exercising those rights.

The workers’ charge, filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), details how Teamsters officials illegally informed over 90 Alan Ritchey, Inc. employees that they would be fired if they did not become formal union members and sign dues deduction cards that authorize the union hierarchy to seize full dues from their paychecks. These actions fly in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in *Pattern Makers v. NLRB* and *Communications Workers of America v. Beck*, a case won by Foundation attorneys. These rulings affirmed the right of private sector employees to refrain from formal union membership and pay a reduced amount of forced dues.

The workers argue that, due to the Teamsters union officials’ campaign of coercion and misrepresentation, not a single employee at the Auburn, Washington facility can be considered a voluntary member of the union. Their charges seek that all union memberships and dues deduction cards be voided until union officials provide the workers with correct information regarding their rights, as well as retroactively refund all dues seized under their illegal threats.

“These shameful tactics demonstrate that the Teamsters union hierarchy is more concerned with collecting forced dues than the interests of the employees they claim to ‘represent,’” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “So long as Washington State employees labor without the protections of a Right to Work law, which makes union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary, these unfortunate abuses are bound to continue.”

Despite Teamsters officials’ deliberate attempts to keep Alan Ritchey employees in the dark, a group of workers did send the union hierarchy objection letters asserting their right to pay a reduced forced dues amount that covers only the union’s proven collective bargaining costs – their right under *Beck*.

Union officials responded by declaring the reduced dues amount to be 98.7 percent of full union dues, but then failed to provide legally-mandated financial disclosure to support their forced dues demands. Teamsters officials also instructed the employees to renew their objections in April, and then annually thereafter during a union-imposed “window period.”

Foundation attorneys contend that such annual objection requirements also violate worker protections outlined by Beck.

Turtle Bay Resort Employee Files Federal Charges Against UNITE-HERE Union for Illegal Scheme to Seize Forced Dues for Politics

**Honolulu, HI (October 30, 2006)** – Challenging actions by union officials to seize compulsory union dues spent for political activities, an employee at the Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii has filed federal unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union.

The charges, filed with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, detail how UNITE-HERE union officials have ignored U.S. Supreme Court precedent by refusing to acknowledge objection letters sent by employees exercising their right to refrain from paying any more forced dues than the amount proven to cover collective bargaining costs.

In the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed employees’ right to object to paying forced union dues not used for collective bargaining, such as politics, lobbying, and organizing. Additionally, the NLRB has outlined a procedure where employees can exercise their Beck rights by sending an objection letter to union officials.

However, instead of recognizing the employees’ Beck objections, the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union hierarchy set up a series of illegal bureaucratic hurdles to discourage workers from exercising these rights. Such hurdles include forcing employees to annually renew their objections during a short window period and refusing to accept Beck objections during periods while a collective bargaining contract was not in place.

“In their rush to line their political coffers, UNITE-HERE union officials are violating the rights of the very employees they claim to ‘represent,’” said Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason. “This bullying highlights how workers are mistreated in states without Right to Work protections that would make union dues-payment strictly voluntary.”

The NLRB Regional Director will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint against the union local.

This is not the first time that UNITE-HERE Local 5 union officials have violated the rights of rank-and-file workers. In March 2005, an electrician at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort filed charges at the NLRB after union officials illegally forced nonunion workers to pay money into a union strike fund that was then used to support UNITE-HERE work stoppages in other industries, including outside of the United States in Guam and Saipan. Foundation attorneys forced UNITE HERE union officials to settle that case in July and stop illegally siphoning nonunion employees’ forced dues into the general strike fund.

“Ultimately, only ending forced unionism will allow workers to hold union officials accountable,” said Gleason.

Read the NLRB charges