Salt Lake City, Utah (May 3, 2002) — Utah’s Third District Court has rejected union lawyers’ attempts to dismiss a counter suit, brought by employees represented by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, which calls into question the constitutionality of the fundamental union privilege known as monopoly bargaining.

In his ruling issued this week, Judge Stephen L. Henriod will also allow the employees to defend the constitutionality of Utah’s Voluntary Contributions Act (VCA) – a regulation that intends to give union members the right to withhold union dues spent for political activities. If the court refuses to uphold the VCA as constitutional, the court will consider the employees alternative argument that monopoly bargaining power – held in many locales by union officials of the Utah Public Employees’ Association (UPEA) and Utah Education Association (UEA) – is unconstitutional.

Even though Utah has a highly popular and effective Right to Work law that enables nonunion employees to pay no dues whatsoever to an unwanted union, the still-intact monopoly bargaining privilege forces employees to accept the rigid terms of “one size fits all” union-brokered contracts – contracts that tend to punish the best and most productive employees.

Union monopoly bargaining bars all employees – even union objectors – from individually negotiating over the terms of their own employment. And using their monopoly bargaining privilege, union officials refuse to allow non-union members any input into workplace issues that directly affect them.

“Monopoly bargaining often leaves employees who don’t support the union’s ideological agenda with an intolerable choice: Join the unwanted union and pay for its politics or give up their workplace voice,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed to intervene in this case on behalf of union members who oppose their unions’ politicking. Foundation attorneys argue that, if Big Labor lawyers succeed in overturning the VCA as an unconstitutional interference into private union matters, then monopoly bargaining must also be declared unconstitutional for all Utah’s government employees because of its inherent infringements on their rights to free speech and association.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.