Court Permission Sought to Alert More Than 12,000 Workers that Union Organizers Illegally Obtained Personal DMV Records

**Philadelphia, Pa. (September 19, 2007)** – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today filed a motion in federal court seeking to inform more than an estimated 12,000 individuals that union organizers have surreptitiously violated their privacy rights under federal law.

The Foundation filed the motion to intervene in *Pichler v. UNITE* in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after the court ordered the union to pay damages because union organizers unlawfully used the license plate numbers of over 1,500 Cintas Corporation employees to access their personal information in official Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records. Union operatives conducted an additional 12,100 searches on individuals who may be employees of other non-union companies targeted by the union. Those individuals are unaware of this illegal invasion of their privacy.

The *Pichler* lawsuit, currently on appeal by union lawyers at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, revealed that UNITE union organizers violated employee rights under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) of 1994. That federal law bars anyone from using motor vehicle records to obtain individuals’ personal information with limited exceptions. The union must potentially pay $2,500 per violation if the District Court’s decision is affirmed.

Union organizers illegally obtained the home addresses of Cintas employees for the purpose of conducting “home visits” to pressure and browbeat those workers into signing union authorization cards. The union intended to use these cards to bypass the secret-ballot election process for determining whether the employees wanted to unionize.

The U.S. District Court determined that union operatives conducted surveillance of numerous parking lots used by workers, collected license plate numbers, and conducted more than 13,700 searches of driving records. Cintas employees were alarmed to learn of this invasion of their privacy and filed their successful class-action lawsuit against the notoriously abusive union.

The Foundation’s motion seeks to modify a protective order in the case, which paradoxically prevents any of these other 12,100 Americans from being notified about the violation of their rights. The Foundation is seeking the right to do a one-time mailing under court supervision to each citizen the union operatives targeted. Ultimately, those 12,100 victims could be entitled to over $30 million in liquidated damages from the UNITE union.

“Thousands of employees deserve to know that UNITE union organizers may have violated their privacy by rifling through their DMV records,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Citizens should not be prevented from learning that union operatives are secretly using their private personal information.”

Download the motion

Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Union for Retaliatory Fines Against Five Former Landover Giant Foods Employees

**Landover, MD (September 5, 2007)** – A group of five ex-employees of Giant Foods, Inc. have prompted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to prosecute a Carpenter union affiliate for illegal coercion and fining them $2,500 each because they found new jobs at nonunion employers. Union officials also levied the fines because the workers refused to serve as union “salts” (plants that surreptitiously work to unionize a nonunion work place).

All five employees are former carpenters at Giant’s Landover warehouse where they performed various jobs for the Mid-Atlantic area grocery chain until that facility shut down. Attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation helped the workers file federal charges at the NLRB in May against the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters (MARCC) union.

Union officials had demanded that the workers join the Carpenter union affiliate over the past 20 years and have lied to them about their right to refrain from formal union membership and to withhold all forced dues except those spent on union monopoly bargaining. Ultimately, the employees learned independently of these rights and sought to exercise them.

After the Giant warehouse shuttered in August 2005, all of the employees were unemployed for weeks before securing new jobs. Upon learning the workers had chosen a nonunion employer, union officials insisted they work to organize a union in the workplace. When they refused, the union brass imposed vicious internal union disciplinary fines against the workers. However, since the employees were no longer union members, they cannot be legally subjected to union discipline.

“Union officials tried to drive these workers towards the poor house simply for exercising their freedom to find new jobs and for honorably refusing to thrust a union upon their new employer,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Because Maryland does not have a Right to Work law making unions voluntary, union officials have little accountability to the workers.”

In the Foundation-won *Communications Workers of America v. Beck* decision in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees laboring under the National Labor Relations Act are entitled to resign from formal union membership but can still be forced to pay for activities related to union monopoly bargaining. However, they cannot be compelled to pay for other activities such as union political activities.
The NLRB has scheduled a hearing on November 7, 2007 at its Region 5 headquarters in Baltimore to prosecute the union.

Download the Complaint

Goodyear Employees Win Settlement Against Steelworkers Union for Illegal Retaliatory Strike Fines and Intimidation

**Akron, OH (August 20, 2007)** – In order to avoid impending federal prosecution by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a local union backed down from its unlawful attempts to fine several Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (NYSE:**GT**) employees $620 each for refusing to abandon their jobs during a union-ordered strike.

The settlement won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys requires United Steel Workers of America (USWA) Local 2L union officials to stop threatening employees who are not formal union members with internal union fines, to discontinue holding internal union trials used to discipline such employees, and to cease coercing and intimidating employees who choose not to walk off the job during a union-ordered strike. The settlement also requires notices to be posted in visible areas throughout the Goodyear plant advising employees of their rights.

USWA union officials also must stop “using bullhorns to intimidate” and threaten retaliation against employees at their residences, according to the settlement. USWA union officials must now withdraw the illegal strike fines levied against Goodyear employees as well as expunge all internal union disciplinary records on file.

Foundation attorneys originally helped Frank C. Steen III file federal charges after union officials targeted him with illegal retaliatory strike fines, threats, hate mail, and other recriminations. Having issued a formal complaint in June 2007, the NLRB had scheduled a trial for tomorrow, August 21.

“The outright contempt that these thuggish union officials have for employees who refuse to toe the union line is despicable,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Such bully tactics underscore the Buckeye state’s need for a Right to Work law that would make union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary.”

Between October 2006 and January 2007, USWA officials ordered over 15,000 Goodyear employees across 16 plants in North America to walk off the job. However, in order to support their families, Steen and his coworkers resigned from formal union membership in November and exercised their right to return to work.

After resigning, Steen and his coworkers were ordered to appear at an internal “kangaroo” court (which the employees refused to attend), where union officials imposed the fines on the employees for continuing to do their jobs. USWA union officials also sought to retaliate against the workers for informing others of their legal right to refrain from formal union membership.

While at work during the strike, Steen received approximately 10 pieces of hate mail from union officials. On two different occasions, USWA union operatives shouted through bullhorns outside Steen’s residence, calling him a “low life” for refusing to abandon his job. And in a separate incident, another union-strike supporter threatened one of Steen’s coworkers over the phone that he would be fined for “everything he made and then some” and would be fired once the strike was over.

Download the settlement

Island View Casino Employees Seek Federal Injunction to Block Coercive “Card Check” Unionization Drive

**Gulfport, MS (August 14, 2007)** – Three employees of the Island View Casino have filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop union organizers from obtaining confidential information about Island View employees and from demanding other organizing assistance from Island View management in violation of federal labor law.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi with the help of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the three employees, detail how Teamsters, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) and UNITE-HERE union officials are attempting to violate the Labor Management Relations Act by demanding that Island View hand over “things of value” to union organizers. Among these, Teamsters, IUOE, and UNITE union organizers have demanded confidential records containing personal information about employees, sweeping physical access to Gulfside’s properties for organizing, and control over all communications Gulfside has with its employees concerning the unions.

The federal law provisions at issue are meant to prevent sweetheart deals between employers and unions which induce union officials to sell out the interests of the employees they are supposed to represent.

The unions’ demands are part of a “Memorandum of Agreement” that union officials signed with the management of the Grand Casino Gulfport. The remaining assets of the now-defunct Grand Casino were purchased by the Gulfside Casino Partnership in December 2005 after the Grand Casino was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

So-called “neutrality and card check” agreements give union organizers sweeping power to browbeat rank-and-file workers into union ranks. Armed with confidential personnel information, union organizers often make “house calls” where they can intimidate or harass employees into signing cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization. “Card checks” also deny employees the privacy and limited protections afforded workers during a National Labor Relations Board-run secret ballot election over whether to unionize.

In past National Right to Work Foundation-assisted cases, employees have reported being misled about the cards’ true purpose, and some employees have even had to threaten police action to get union organizers off their property. The Island View employees and their co-workers are particularly concerned about the prospect of home visits from union organizers, after hearing stories of intimidation during organizing drives at other area casinos.

“Union bosses are determined to force unionization on Island View employees from the top down, like it or not,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These employees believe that the union bosses are more concerned with bolstering union ranks than with representing rank-and-file employees.”

Mississippi is one of 22 Right to Work states in which union membership and dues payment is strictly voluntary. However, if union officials are granted monopoly bargaining power over Island View employees, the workers will no longer be free to negotiate individually over their own wages and working conditions.

Download the Federal Lawsuit

Foundation Forces Union Officials to Abandon Their Illegal Scheme to Coerce Engineers into Union Ranks

**Aberdeen, MD (August 8, 2007)** – Following challenges by employees unlawfully unionized by “card check,” International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) union Local 2424 officials backed down and settled federal labor charges pending against them.

The settlement came after federal investigators found that union officials had violated the employees’ rights during a so-called card check organizing drive which bypassed the secret-ballot election process.

Last month, three employees working for private contractors at the Aberdeen Test Center military facility obtained free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation. Foundation attorneys filed charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5 office in Baltimore. The NLRB charges detailed multiple union violations of the employees’ rights, including unionizing employees who did not support the union, unlawfully transferring these employees into a union bargaining unit, and threatening employees with termination if they did not join the union.

To avoid an embarrassing NLRB prosecution, IAM officials formally settled the charges by renouncing monopoly bargaining privileges over the more than 150 employees who were unlawfully unionized. The union brass also agreed that they would not attempt to unionize the engineers under a card check scheme, but instead would only use the less coercive NLRB-supervised secret-ballot election process.

“IAM union bosses got caught red-handed violating the rights of the very employees they claimed to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “While this case highlights the coercion inherent in so-called ‘card check’ unionization, ultimately these abuses by union bosses will not end until their compulsory unionism privileges are eliminated.”

The case is one of many documented instances of fraud and abuse in card check organizing drives. Under card check, union-controlled authorization cards are used as “votes” for unionization. Employees report that cards are often collected under false-premises or through intimidation. In this case, the union declared a victory in their card check drive when it did not even have cards from a majority of employees.

The employees also filed charges against their employers (Jacobs Technology Inc., LogSec. Corporation and Science and Technology Corporation) for their role in imposing the unwanted union on the workers by recognizing IAM officials as the employees’ collective bargaining representative without proof that the union had the support of a majority of the employees.

16 Year-Old Girl Hits Union Officials with Federal Charges After Illegal Threats Against Her Albertsons Job

**San Diego, CA (August 7, 2007)** – A local employee of Albertsons, Inc. filed federal charges against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 135 union after union officials unlawfully demanded she be fired from her job unless she joined the union and paid full dues.

Sixteen year-old high-school student, Danielle Cookson, a front courtesy clerk for the grocery giant, obtained free legal assistance from attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The federal charges highlight that UFCW Local 135 union officials are failing to respect employees legal rights and requiring them to join and pay dues to the union as a job condition.

In late July, UFCW Local 135 union officials sent a “termination notification” letter to Albertsons requesting Cookson be fired from her position. In their demand, union officials ordered Cookson to pay the forced dues within seven days of the notification, or else she would be removed from the schedule and terminated.

Since she began working at Albertsons in May, union officials have attempted to seize forced dues from Cookson’s paycheck. However, Cookson was never informed of her right to refrain from formal union membership or given proper financial notice of how her forced dues would be spent, as required by Foundation-won court decisions.

“In their lust for compulsory union dues, union officials will even bully children who are working to save money for their future. But they made a big mistake trying to push Danielle around,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This abuse is all too common in California because there is no Right to Work law to ensure that payment of union dues is strictly voluntary.”

In the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision *Communications Workers v. Beck*, the Court affirmed that workers have the right to resign from formal union membership and halt and reclaim the portion of forced union dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union politics. Unfortunately, they can still be forced to pay for bargaining expenses, even if they do not want union “representation.” However, employees have the right to have an independent third party audit the union expenditures and certify that the percentage of dues that non-members are forced to pay does not include political spending and other non-collective bargaining expenses.

Despite Cookson’s formal objections, the union hierarchy failed to provide her with an independently audited breakdown of union expenditures, as required by law. The NLRB’s Regional Office will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint and prosecute the union.

“The attempts by union officials to run roughshod over workers’ rights show the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from forced unionism,” said Gleason.

Security Guard Forces Employer to Settle After Unlawfully Threatening Firings for Refusal to Pay Union Dues

**Corpus Christi, TX (August 1, 2007)** – A security guard helped by attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation has forced Asset Protection and Security Services (Asset) to settle federal charges he filed in April after company and union officials required him to pay union dues in violation of Texas’ Right to Work law.

Carlos Banuelos, a Corpus Christi-based Asset employee, filed federal charges against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union and his employer, a federal contractor at a detention facility at Port Isabel.

The settlement requires Asset to reimburse Banuelos for dues paid and post a notice informing all security guards at the Corpus Christi facility about their rights. Specifically, Asset agreed not to “threaten” employees with termination for refusal to pay dues as well as make whole Banuelos “for any monies, plus interest, lost as a result of the discrimination against him.”

Banuelos’ charge detailed how the SPFPA union hierarchy maintains an illegal monopoly bargaining agreement with his employer that makes financial support for the union a mandatory condition of employment. Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board agreed to issue a complaint and prosecute the SPFPA union for threatening to have workers fired for refusal to pay dues. While Asset has settled, the defiant SPFPA union refuses and is scheduled to appear at trial before an Administrative Law Judge in October.

SPFPA union officials falsely claim without proof that Banuelos and his coworkers work on an “exclusive federal enclave” that is not protected by the Right to Work law – and thus can be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Meanwhile, evidence shows that union officials have established these forced dues requirements at multiple worksites across Texas under apparently fraudulent agreements.

“Evidence indicates that union bosses have duped potentially thousands of Texans into paying compulsory union dues in violation of the law,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “They must refund every dollar seized – no one should be forced to pay union dues just to get or keep a job.”

After the National Right to Work Foundation called on Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office for over eight months, his office followed up on two Foundation-led cases by initiating legal proceedings to enforce the state’s Right to Work law. Filed on July 24, the state’s lawsuits seek permanent injunctions against the collection of forced dues by the SPFPA union, as well as Asset in Corpus Christi and AKAL Security in El Paso.

In a parallel case, Foundation attorneys successfully secured reinstatement and back pay for Juan Vielma, a security guard for AKAL Security in El Paso, whom union officials had had illegally suspended without pay for over a year for refusal to pay dues. Agreeing with Foundation attorneys, a federal Administrative Law Judge ruled that SPFPA union officials had no legal authority to compel Vielma to pay dues.

Download the NLRB Settlement

Employee Rights Group Reacts to Attorney General Abbott’s Long-sought Legal Action to Enforce Texas’ Right to Work Law

**Corpus Christi & El Paso, TX** (July 24, 2007) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason made the following statement regarding Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s long-sought legal action this afternoon to initiate the state’s enforcement of the highly popular Right to Work law:

“The National Right to Work Foundation welcomes the Attorney General to our ongoing battle to prevent the erosion of Texans' Right to Work. No employee should be forced to pay union dues just to get or keep a job. But the violations Foundation attorneys uncovered in Corpus Christi and El Paso may only be the tip of the iceberg.

“Evidence obtained several months ago by Foundation attorneys during a federal labor board trial suggests that Big Labor's phony 'exclusive federal enclave' scheme to violate the Right to Work law is widespread. Foundation attorneys are pressing ahead to protect all employees who are victim to this compulsory unionism scheme, and we urge the Attorney General to do the same.

“Union officials must be put on notice that a Texan's Right to Work is sacred. Every violation must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, or union officials will only be emboldened.”

**Background**: National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are currently representing two Texas security guards in cases before the National Labor Relations Board and have convinced federal officials to prosecute the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union for unlawfully threatening the security guards’ jobs. Foundation attorneys first brought Texas Right to Work law violations to the attention of the Office of the Attorney General in November 2006. Today’s action is the first formal legal action taken by the State.

In April, Foundation attorneys filed federal charges for Carlos Banuelos, an Asset Protection and Security Services guard in Corpus Christi, against the SPFPA union and his employer after union officials unlawfully threatened to have him (and other employees) fired for asserting their legal right to refrain from formal union membership and payment of union dues.

Meanwhile, in recent days, Foundation attorneys successfully secured the reinstatement of Juan Vielma, a security guard for AKAL Security in El Paso, whom union officials had illegally suspended without pay for over a year for refusal to pay dues. Agreeing with charges filed by Foundation attorneys last November, a federal Administrative Law Judge ruled in June that SPFPA union officials had no legal authority to compel Vielma to pay dues.

Texas is one of 22 states that have a Right to Work law, ensuring that union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Union for Threatening to Have Security Guards Fired for Refusal to Pay Union Dues

**Corpus Christi, TX (July 9, 2007)** – Spearheading an effort to prevent erosion of Texas’ highly popular Right to Work law, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys have persuaded National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) officials to prosecute a union for unlawfully threatening local security guards’ jobs. But the state’s own prosecutors have yet to take formal legal action to enforce multiple violations of Texas law.

Carlos Banuelos, a local Asset Protection and Security Services guard, filed federal charges in April against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union and his employer after union officials unlawfully threatened to have him (and other employees) fired for asserting their legal right to refrain from formal union membership and payment of union dues.

Banuelos’ charge details how the SPFPA union hierarchy maintains an illegal monopoly bargaining agreement with his employer that makes financial support for the union a mandatory condition of employment. Union officials enforced that illegal requirement and ordered Banuelos and his coworkers to pay a fee to the union or face termination. Texas is one of 22 states that have a Right to Work law, ensuring that union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

This is the second complaint issued within months in Texas where Foundation attorneys have helped employees fight back against unlawful dues demands from the SPFPA union hierarchy. SPFPA union officials falsely claim that Banuelos and his coworkers work on an “exclusive federal enclave” that is not protected by the Right to Work law – and thus can be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment.

Foundation president Mark Mix reiterated his earlier requests to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate and aggressively prosecute widespread violations of the Right to Work law. In oral argument in a parallel case, an attorney for another company with a contract with the SPFPA union even boasted that they require employees to pay dues “across the country in Right to Work states.” Evidence shows union officials have established these forced dues requirements at multiple worksites under apparently fraudulent agreements.

“Union officials are trampling the employee freedoms provided under Texas law,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The time has come for Attorney General Greg Abbott to take aggressive action to stop union officials from thumbing their noses at his state’s Right to Work law.”

In the parallel case in El Paso, Foundation attorneys successfully secured a reinstatement offer for Juan Vielma, a security guard for AKAL Security whom union officials had illegally suspended without pay for over a year for refusal to pay dues. Agreeing with Foundation attorneys, a federal Administrative Law Judge ruled that SPFPA union officials had no legal authority to compel Vielma to pay dues.

Staunch Employee Opposition Forces Union out of Multiple Kaiser Permanente Facilities Across Southern California

**Los Angeles, CA (July 9, 2007)** – A group of four Kaiser Permanente employees have forced the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers (SEIU-UHW) union to abandon multiple Kaiser Permanente units across the Southern California area after use of coercive union organizing methods. The action comes in the wake of unfair labor practice charges the employees filed just weeks earlier on June 21, and it will impact up to 400 Kaiser Permanente employees throughout the area.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys helped Lisa Eklund and three of her co-workers file the federal charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the SEIU-UHW union and Kaiser. The charges alleged that union officials deceived Kaiser employees into signing union “authorization” cards that would later be counted as “votes” favoring unionization. Union officials also falsely told employees that signing the card was merely a request for more information about unionizing and promised higher pay raises and benefits. Lastly, SEIU-UHW officials engaged in unlawful bargaining over the employees’ wages and working conditions before the employees had even selected union officials as their representatives.

On December 28, 2006, Kaiser management recognized SEIU-UHW on the basis of the “card check” count. However, Eklund’s charge highlights that SEIU-UHW union officials manipulated the size of the bargaining unit and secured signatures from employees who were ineligible to participate in the “card check” organizing drive. Upon the heath care employees’ request to disclose the names of employees who were eligible to participate, union officials were unable to indicate which employees were inside or outside of the alleged bargaining unit.

Within two weeks of filing the federal charges, the NLRB indicated its intention to formally investigate the apparently unlawful “card check” organizing scheme. Upon the NLRB Region 21’s initial investigation, SEIU-UHW union officials and Kaiser rapidly abandoned the “card check” count.

“SEIU officials have been repeatedly caught red handed running roughshod over employee rights during these coercive organizing drives,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These campaigns give employees two basic choices- union ‘yes,’ or union ‘yes.’”

“Card check” union organizing strips workers of the limited protections of a government-supervised secret ballot election in deciding whether or not to unionize. Instead, union agents frequently mislead or badger workers one-on-one into signing cards that are then counted as “votes” favoring unionization.

Only months earlier National Right to Work Foundation attorneys forced SEIU Local 49 to abandon the coercive “card check” union organizing process in Oregon and Washington for six months because of repeated and widespread abuses.