Foundation attorneys argue IAM union “opt-out” requirement to escape payment for union officials’ political activities violates Supreme Court’s Janus standard

Washington, DC (May 24, 2021) – Today staff attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation filed a petition for writ of certiorari in United Airlines employee Arthur Baisley’s federal class-action civil rights case, which charges International Association of Machinists (IAM) union bosses with forcing him and his coworkers by default to pay for union political expenditures in violation of the First Amendment and the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

In particular, Baisley challenges a union requirement that employees who choose not to join the union must opt out of funding the union’s political and ideological activities during a brief annual “window period,” or else have money automatically seized from their paychecks for those purposes against their will.

Baisley’s attorneys argue the opt-out arrangement violates workers’ rights under the RLA, and the First Amendment under the standard laid out in the landmark 2018 Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME decision.

They contend that, under Janus and the 2012 Knox v. SEIU Supreme Court case – both of which were argued at the High Court by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys – no employee can be charged for union political or ideological expenditures without first giving their affirmative and knowing consent, because language from a 1961 case that union lawyers use to prop up “opt out” language was only dicta.

Baisley is not a member of the IAM but is still forced to pay some union fees despite being based in the Right to Work state of Texas. The RLA preempts state Right to Work protections which make union membership and all union financial support strictly voluntary. However, under longstanding law, even without Right to Work protections nonmembers cannot, as a condition of keeping their jobs, be required to pay fees for anything beyond the union’s expenses directly related to bargaining.

Baisley’s petition details the convoluted union boss-created process that workers must navigate just to prevent money from being taken from their paychecks in violation of their First Amendment rights. In Baisley’s situation, even though he sent a letter to IAM agents in November 2018 objecting to funding all union political activities, union officials only accepted his objection for 2019, and told Baisley he had to renew his objection to full dues and fees the next year or else be charged full union dues.

The lawsuit challenges this union-created policy on the grounds that it requires employees to withdraw from paying union fees that they have no legal obligation to pay and thus breaches workers’ First Amendment rights. The complaint also alleges that the IAM’s opt-out requirement violates the RLA, which governs labor in the air and rail industries and protects the right of employees to “join, organize, or assist in organizing” a union of their choice, as well as the right to abstain from all union activities.

Baisley’s lawsuit seeks to strike down the opt-out requirement not only as it is applied to him, but also for his coworkers whose rights are similarly restricted by the IAM’s opt-out policy. Union officials would then be required to get nonmember workers to give affirmative consent to paying for union boss activities beyond the bargaining-related expenses they can legally be required to subsidize under the RLA.

“The sordid goal of these kinds of union ‘opt-out’ requirements is clear: trap unsuspecting workers into subsidizing union bosses’ radical political agenda without their consent and in violation of their constitutional rights,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Supreme Court ruled in the Foundation-won Janus case that union officials must first seek the affirmative approval of public sector workers before charging them for union politics, and this case simply seeks to ensure that Mr. Baisley and all employees subject to the Railway Labor Act enjoy those same basic protections.”

UFCW union officials demanded employer hand over unique information only about worker who petitioned to oust union, not any coworkers

Selbyville, DE (May 18, 2021) – Delaware Mountaire Farms employee Oscar Cruz Sosa is challenging National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5’s dismissal of his federal charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union. Cruz Sosa charged Local 27 officials with illegally surveilling him while he was helping his coworkers exercise their right to vote out the union.

Cruz Sosa submitted a petition in February 2020 signed by hundreds of his coworkers – enough to trigger an NLRB-supervised vote to remove the union (known as a “decertification election”) – but UFCW officials sought to block the vote by claiming that a “contract bar” existed that prevented any election. The “contract bar” is a non-statutory NLRB-concocted policy that forbids workers from voting out unpopular union bosses for up to three years after management and union officials broker a monopoly bargaining contract.

Over the union’s objections, the NLRB Region 5 Director in Baltimore allowed the vote Cruz Sosa and his coworkers requested because he found that the union contract contained an illegal forced-dues clause, and thus the “contract bar” did not apply. However, unwilling to lose power over 800 forced-dues payers in Cruz Sosa’s workplace, UFCW lawyers petitioned the full NLRB to reimpose the “contract bar.” In response, Foundation staff attorneys urged the Board to reform the restriction or eliminate it entirely.

The case was under consideration by the full Board until last month, when it reversed the Regional Director’s months-old ruling that the contract was invalid, kept the controversial “contract bar” in place, and ordered that hundreds of employee ballots cast in the election to remove the unpopular UFCW union bosses be destroyed rather than counted.

While the case was still being litigated, the NLRB issued a complaint against Mountaire Farms in a separate case UFCW union officials filed, which revealed that Mountaire Farms officials had not acquiesced in union officials’ March 2020 demands for “[c]opies of the daily hours of work and the time and attendance records for employee Oscar Cruz Sosa between August 1, 2019 and March 15, 2020.” Cruz Sosa submitted the employee-backed petition for a vote to decertify UFCW union officials in February 2020.

Foundation staff attorneys subsequently filed an unfair labor practice charge for Cruz Sosa, arguing the union’s demands for Cruz Sosa’s private information were an obvious attempt to intimidate and retaliate against him and stymie his and his coworkers’ efforts to exercise their right to vote union bosses out of power.

Cruz Sosa’s Foundation-provided staff attorneys defend that charge in the current appeal, contending that NLRB Region 5’s dismissal of his charge was wrong because “Local 27 had no legitimate representational objective for this information―unless surveilling your decertification opponent (an employee you purport to represent) is now considered ‘legitimate representational activity.’”

The appeal reiterates the intimidating and harassing nature of UFCW officials’ actions, emphasizing “that Local 27 made no similar information requests about any of the 799 other chicken processors employed at Mountaire Farms.”

“UFCW bosses have unequivocally shown that they value maintaining power at the Selbyville Mountaire plant far more than respecting the rights of the employees they claim to represent, whether that entails unlawfully surveilling an employee who is engaging in protected activity or fighting for the destruction of workers’ ballots,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “No American employee should have to go to work thinking that they are being spied on merely for helping their fellow employees exercise their right to resist union power.”

Union officials’ vague letters to workers failed to acknowledge requests to end dues deductions

Washington, DC (May 13, 2021) – Michigan Rieth-Riley Construction Company employees Jesse London and Rob Nevins are appealing to the National Labor Relations Board Office of Appeals their case charging International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 324 union officials with blocking their right to refrain from union financial support.

Their appeal, filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, challenges IUOE bosses’ cryptic responses to London’s and Nevins’ requests in early 2020 to resign from the union and stop all dues deductions from their checks.

According to their appeal, IUOE officials responded to both men’s letters in April 2020, acknowledging their resignations but not accepting their dues revocations, instead telling them to refer to copies of their dues authorization forms “with respect to revocation.” Both men assert that they had submitted their requests to terminate dues deductions within a 15-day “window period” for such demands imposed by IUOE officials, and it was unclear what the union bosses’ reply meant.

The appeal also recounts that IUOE bosses mailed a check to each man for roughly $250, though no explanation was given on what the money was for or whether the checks meant that “Local 324 actually had honored their revocations so that roughly $2,100-2,500 in union dues would not be taken out of their” checks later in the year.

The appeal comes after NLRB Region 7 in Detroit, last month, refused to prosecute IUOE Local 324 for the inadequate responses, even though the Region had issued its second amended complaint just a month earlier stating that the union officials’ responses violated London’s and Nevins’ rights.

The rationales given for this reversal included Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr’s rescission of a memo from former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb. That memo urged NLRB Regional Directors to prosecute unions who didn’t communicate with workers who missed union-imposed “window periods” in their attempts to stop dues deductions. NLRB Region 7 also magically cited “newly submitted evidence” that supposedly obviated London’s and Nevins’ assertions about the insufficiency of the union’s response.

The appeal argues that Ohr’s withdrawal of Robb’s memo is completely irrelevant to the case because Robb’s old memo “only required unions to actually communicate with employees regarding untimely revocation requests,” and London’s and Nevins’ requests were timely.

It also contends that NLRB Region 7 was wholly unspecific when referring to the “newly submitted evidence” from the union. Although this “evidence” presumably was the “two checks with no explanation or cover letter,” the appeal says, that does not “change the fact that Local 324 failed to accept Mr. London’s and Mr. Nevins’ revocations.”

London’s and Nevins’ appeal coincides with Michigan Rieth-Riley workers’ continued effort to safeguard their right to vote IUOE bosses out of their workplace. In February of this year, the NLRB announced that it would hear Rieth-Riley employee Rayalan Kent’s case that he and his coworkers already-cast ballots should be counted, after NLRB Region 7 officials ordered them destroyed based on unproven union “blocking charges.”

The appeal also was submitted amidst Acting NLRB General Counsel Peter Ohr’s continued attempts to undermine Foundation cases brought for workers who seek to free themselves from coercive union boss control. Just weeks after President Biden fired General Counsel Peter Robb before his Senate-confirmed term was over and installed Ohr, Ohr began dismissing complaints against unions that had forced themselves on Foundation-represented workers via coercive “card check” drives. He also began nixing multiple memoranda issued by Robb which drew on Foundation advice.

“So-called ‘Acting’ General Counsel Peter Ohr will have to make a decision: side with Mr. London and Mr. Nevins against clear violations of their right to refrain from financially supporting union bosses, or add both men to the growing list of rank-and-file workers he has betrayed by letting union officials trample their freedoms,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union dues deductions should be completely voluntary, not the result of union boss deception. Foundation staff attorneys will continue to fight to ensure that all Rieth-Riley workers know their ‘no means no’ when it comes to dues deductions.”

Union officials tried to mask forced fees outlawed by Janus Supreme Court decision as “agreement administration fees”

Cincinnati, OH (April 30, 2021) – City of Hamilton employee Timothy Crane has successfully defended his First Amendment right to refrain from funding the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 20 hierarchy in his workplace.

Crane, who is not a union member, filed a lawsuit in December 2020 with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys that challenged so-called “agreement administration fees” that IUOE officials forced him to pay as a condition of keeping his job. Legal documents now confirm that IUOE bosses have backed down from enforcing the deceptive dues scheme and have also refunded to Crane all dues that they seized from him under it.

Crane’s lawsuit maintained that the “agreement administration fee” requirement violated his rights under the Foundation-argued 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. In Janus, the High Court ruled that no public worker can be coerced into paying union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. The Court also held that union dues or fees can only be deducted from a public employee’s paycheck if that employee clearly and affirmatively waives his or her constitutional right not to pay. Justice Alito wrote for the Court majority that “such a waiver cannot be presumed” by union or state officials.

According to Crane’s lawsuit, he sent letters to IUOE union officials in both August and September of last year attempting to exercise his First Amendment Janus right to end dues deductions from his paycheck. After sending these two letters, he discovered that an “agreement administration fee” was being taken from his pay by the City at the behest of IUOE union bosses.

The complaint contended that that this fee was just a so-called “agency fee” – a forced union payment charged to employees who refrain from formal union membership that was definitively outlawed by the Janus v. AFSCME decision – masquerading under a different name.

With this victory, Crane’s suit is now the fifth resolved favorably by Foundation staff attorneys for Buckeye State employees who have sought to defend their First Amendment Janus rights from union boss wrongdoing. This includes the July 2020 settlement in the Allen v. AFSCME case, in which nearly 30,000 Ohio public employees were freed from an “escape period” scheme imposed by Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA) union chiefs, which limited to just a handful of days every few years the time in which a public employee could exercise his or her Janus rights.

“Once again, a Foundation-backed Ohio public employee has prevailed over a duplicitous attempt by union officials to keep worker money flowing illegally into their pockets while trampling workers’ First Amendment rights,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Any Ohio public workers who are subjected to similar arrangements, or are coerced or intimidated by union bosses in any other way into funding a union agenda against their will should contact the Foundation for free assistance in defending their First Amendment Janus rights.”

Notice given after workers submitted majority-backed petition urging employer to drop union, details right to rebuff likely illegal union strike demands

Philadelphia, PA (April 29, 2021) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys have issued a special legal notice to drivers, packers, warehouse staff, and other employees at J. Ambrogi Food Distribution (JAF) in West Deptford, New Jersey, affected by an impending strike that may be ordered by Teamsters Local 929 union officials.

The legal notice informs rank-and-file JAF workers of their rights to refuse to abandon their jobs and keep working to support their families despite the union-ordered strike. The notice discusses why workers across the country frequently turn to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid in such situations.

The notice comes after JAF management filed a federal lawsuit against the Teamsters Local 929 union. The lawsuit maintains that the threatened strike order is illegal because the current contract brokered between JAF and union officials prohibits such “work stoppages.” Reports indicate that Teamsters officials have already engaged in aggressive tactics to prevent workers from doing their jobs, including blocking facility entrances and physically preventing individual drivers from unloading cargo, according to that lawsuit.

“This situation raises serious concerns for employees who believe there is much to lose from a union boss-ordered strike,” the notice reads. “Employees have the legal right to rebuff union officials’ strike demands, but it is important for them to be fully informed before they do so.”

The full notice is available at https://www.nrtw.org/ambrogi-legal-notice/.

The strike threat also follows JAF management’s announcement in February that it would withdraw recognition of the Teamsters union in one bargaining unit, after rank-and-file employees submitted a majority-supported petition asking the company do so once the current monopoly bargaining contract expires. A Foundation-won 2019 decision before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) called Johnson Controls permits the process by which employees can petition their employer to end recognition of an unpopular union after the expiration of a contract.

The legal notice outlines the process that JAF employees should follow if they want to exercise their right to return to work during the strike and avoid punishment by union bosses, complete with sample union membership resignation letters.

Further, the notice encourages employees to seek free legal aid from the Foundation if they experience union resistance as they attempt to exercise any of these rights.

“Rather than accept that a majority of employees want nothing to do with their so-called ‘representation,’ Teamsters union bosses are attempting to bully workers into complying with the union’s self-serving strike,” commented National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “With reports of union agents using dishonest and intimidating tactics to coerce workers into abandoning their jobs, rank-and-file JAF employees should immediately contact the Foundation for free legal aid in defending their rights against this coercive Teamsters boss campaign.”

Employee asserts that NJ law’s tiny “escape period” to stop dues deductions violates rights under Janus Supreme Court decision

Trenton, NJ (April 28, 2021) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Heather Anderson, an employee of the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, is suing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 33 union and the State of New Jersey for illegally restricting her and her coworkers’ First Amendment right to stop union dues deductions from their paychecks.

The class-action civil rights lawsuit was filed today in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and challenges a New Jersey law that forbids workers from ending financial support for the union except during a tiny 10-day “escape period” once per year. Anderson’s suit says the state-enforced restriction, which union officials endorsed in their contract with the state, violates her and her coworkers’ rights under the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision.

In Janus, the High Court ruled that no public employee can be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. The Court also held that union dues or fees can only be deducted from a public employee’s paycheck if that employee clearly and affirmatively waives their right not to pay. Justice Alito wrote for the Court majority that “such a waiver cannot be presumed” by union or state officials.

Anderson is challenging New Jersey’s so-called “Workplace Democracy Act” (WDEA), which mandates 10-day “escape periods.” The WDEA was passed only months before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Janus, seemingly in a preemptive attempt by union-allied legislators to limit any rights the Court recognized in Janus to cut off union financial support.

According to her lawsuit, Anderson exercised her Janus rights in February of this year when she informed IBEW union bosses that she wished to terminate dues payments. New Jersey officials rebuffed her request, claiming it could only be accepted if she submitted it within an “escape period” that would not begin until August, and that the state would continue to seize dues from her paycheck until that time. The “escape period” was not mentioned in any dues checkoff authorization card she signed, according to her lawsuit.

Anderson’s lawsuit asks the federal District Court to declare the WDEA’s “escape period” scheme unconstitutional, and seeks refunds of all dues seized from her paycheck in violation of Janus after she invoked her rights.

Across the country, Foundation staff attorneys are currently representing public servants in more than a dozen cases where union officials have tried to confine their First Amendment Janus rights to an “escape period,” and have favorably settled 8 such cases. The pending cases include that of New Jersey public school teachers Susan Fischer and Jeanette Speck, who were trapped in a similar arrangement by New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) union officials.

“The ruling in the Janus decision was crystal clear: public servants have a First Amendment right to refuse to associate with union bosses whose so-called ‘representation’ they oppose,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It is blatantly unconstitutional that the WDEA prevents public workers from exercising their constitutional right for more than 97 percent of the year.”

Oscar Cruz Sosa moves to intervene in union case charging employer with refusing to help them surveil and harass him

Washington, DC (April 8, 2021) – Delaware Mountaire Farms poultry worker Oscar Cruz Sosa, who is spearheading a worker effort to vote United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union bosses out of the Mountaire Farms plant in Selbyville, DE, is now seeking to intervene in UFCW union officials’ case against Mountaire Farms management for refusing to hand over to them his private employee information.

Cruz Sosa filed a Motion to Intervene at Region 5 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Baltimore today with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. Foundation staff attorneys are also assisting Cruz Sosa and his coworkers in defending their right to oust UFCW officials from their workplace.

The new motion comes after Cruz Sosa himself filed federal charges last month against UFCW brass for illegally retaliating against him and attempting unlawful surveillance of his activities, by demanding from Mountaire Farms records of his activities in and around the plant.

Cruz Sosa’s charge incorporated information from a complaint NLRB Region 5 issued in the UFCW bosses’ case against the employer, which revealed that Mountaire Farms officials had rebuffed intrusive union requests for “[c]opies of the daily hours of work and the time and attendance records for employee Oscar Cruz Sosa between August 1, 2019 and March 15, 2020,” and “the daily admission log…for all access points to the Selbyville plant identifying by name” anyone who has accessed the plant since March 2020.

As Mr. Cruz Sosa’s filing points out, many “Board and federal court cases support [his] intervention to protect his rights to campaign for decertification without being spied upon.”

Meanwhile, Cruz Sosa and his coworkers are still waiting for the NLRB in Washington to rule in their decertification election case. In that case, the workers are defending their already-cast ballots from UFCW lawyers’ attempts to have those ballots destroyed. UFCW lawyers claim that a non-statutory NLRB policy called the “contract bar” should have blocked Cruz Sosa’s petition, even though it was signed by hundreds of his colleagues requesting the election. The non-statutory “contract bar” policy entrenches unions for up to three years after management and union officials broker a contract.

NLRB Region 5 ruled that the decertification vote should proceed because of an invalid forced dues clause in the contract, and UFCW lawyers quickly demanded review of that ruling by the full NLRB. The NLRB agreed to review the case, but also agreed with Foundation staff attorneys’ arguments that the entire “contract bar” policy should be re-evaluated, as it arbitrarily blocks workers’ right to remove unpopular union bosses for as long as three years.

Cruz Sosa and his coworkers are also fighting in another unfair labor practice case to get back dues collected under the illegal forced dues clause that blocked the contract bar and threw a wrench in UFCW bosses’ initial attempt to stop the vote. Just weeks ago, Cruz Sosa objected to a settlement proffered in that case by NLRB Region 5. According to his objections, that proposal “[sought] to ferret out for relief what is likely to be a minuscule handful of employees” even though all of his coworkers were harmed by the clause, which unlawfully compelled employees to pay dues immediately upon hiring or be fired. Federal law mandates a 30-day grace period on such demands. Cruz Sosa’s charge demands unit-wide dues refunds for all employees.

“UFCW union bosses’ campaign to thwart Mountaire Farms employees’ right to vote them out of their workplace is pernicious and far-reaching, and even includes the current attempt to twist the employer’s arm for personal information so they can unlawfully surveil an employee in retaliation for assisting his coworkers in exercising their rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Mr. Cruz Sosa’s attempt to intervene in this case should serve as a reminder of his strong motivation to fight back, and highlights the lengths to which union officials will go to maintain their one-size-fits-all ‘representation’ against the will of the very workers they claim to represent.”

Employee asserted right under Beck Supreme Court decision to opt-out of paying for union politics

Hawaii (April 6, 2021) – By filing federal charges against the UNITE HERE Local 5 union, Hawaii Kaiser Permanente employee Nina Chiu has successfully defended her rights under the CWA v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision. She received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in filing her charges.

Beck was won by Foundation staff attorneys in 1988. The Court held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) mandates that union officials cannot force private sector workers who decline formal union membership to pay union fees as a condition of keeping a job for anything unrelated to the union’s bargaining functions. This includes the union’s political expenditures. The Beck precedent also requires union bosses to provide nonmember employees with an independent audit of the union’s breakdown of expenditures, their process for determining the reduced union fee amount, and information on how to challenge the union’s determination.

Chiu, though she is not a union member, can still be forced to pay this reduced amount of union fees as a condition of employment because Hawaii lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees. Under Right to Work, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

According to Chiu’s charge against the UNITE HERE Local 5 union, even after she submitted two letters exercising her Beck rights, she had “not received a financial breakdown and [was] still being charged the equivalent of full dues.” Consequently, her charge argued, the UNITE HERE Local 5 union breached Chiu’s rights under the NLRA, which guarantees all workers the right to “refrain from any or all” union activities.

NLRB documents now show that UNITE HERE officials have backed down and reduced Chiu’s dues payments “consistent with Union’s determined dues chargeable rates” and mailed her “the Union’s Auditor’s Report, Union’s Statement of Expenses, and procedure for challenging the Union’s dues chargeability determination.”

Chiu’s victory comes as Foundation staff attorneys assist many other workers subjected to Beck rights violations by union officials. Most recently, Foundation attorneys aided Queens, NY-based UPS employee Kamil Fraczek in filing a federal charge against Teamsters Local 804 officials, who had unlawfully demanded that he become a union member and authorize full dues deductions from his paycheck or be fired.

“While we are pleased that Ms. Chiu has successfully defended her rights under Beck to abstain from paying for union politics, employees should not have to file federal charges to get union bosses to respect their rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “That Ms. Chiu and other employees across the islands can be forced to pay anything to union bosses they have actively chosen to dissociate from again demonstrates why Aloha State legislators need to pass a Right to Work law, so union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.”

Burdensome “strawman” process made workers create fake union in order to have National Mediation Board schedule vote to remove incumbent union

Washington, DC (April 2, 2021) – The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this week issued a decision rejecting a lawsuit by AFL-CIO union lawyers to overturn a National Mediation Board (NMB) rule change, which allows workers in the airline and railroad industries to petition directly for elections to remove unwanted union “representation.” The rule, which was finalized by the NMB in 2019, replaced a confusing and needlessly complex NMB process in which workers had to create and solicit support for a fake “straw man” union just to vote out the incumbent union officials.

In March 2020, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys filed a legal brief on behalf of Allegiant Airlines flight attendant Steven Stoecker defending the rule change from the AFL-CIO’s lawsuit. The brief was also filed for the Foundation itself, which has provided free legal representation to numerous workers under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which the NMB is charged with enforcing.

Stoecker, whose employment is governed by the RLA, attempted from 2014 to 2016 to remove the Transport Workers Union (TWU) from its monopoly bargaining status in his workplace, but those attempts ultimately failed when he lost his “straw man” election.

“The National Mediation Board’s Final Rule simplifies the union selection or rejection process under the Railway Labor Act and erases nonstatutory barriers that hinder employees’ efforts to freely choose or reject a representative,” read Stoecker’s brief. “In response, the Plaintiffs, a group of labor unions that benefit from the complexities of the straw man decertification process, challenge the Final Rule and the Board’s statutory authority to establish it.”

Before the NMB issued the final rule in 2019, workers like Stoecker had to sign authorization cards designating an employee to be the “strawman” even though that employee had no intention of representing the unit. In the election that followed, the ballot options included the name of the union workers wished to decertify, the name of the straw man applicant, e.g., “John Smith,” the option for a write-in candidate and, confusingly, the option for “no union.”

Under the old guidelines, workers who voted for either the straw man or “no union” in hopes to oust union officials would unknowingly be splitting the vote opposed to unionization, as votes counted for these options were not tallied together but separately. The NMB’s new rule allows workers to vote out union representatives directly, without the cumbersome procedural hurdles.

The District Court’s ruling rejects a union argument that the RLA forbids workers from directly petitioning for a decertification vote, pointing out that the RLA “does not require employees or their representative to pretend to seek certification in order to vindicate their statutorily protected right of complete independence in the workplace,” and also that the Supreme Court “held long ago that workers covered by the Act have ‘the right to determine…whether they shall have’” a union in the workplace at all.

“The District Court was correct in striking down this union boss lawsuit, which blatantly sought to reimpose a convoluted process by which union chiefs could remain in power in a workplace even when there was clear evidence a majority of workers wanted them gone,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, more needs to be done to ensure the freedom of America’s railroad and airline workers.”

“For example, currently the RLA prevents workers from being protected by state Right to Work laws, which ensure union financial support is strictly voluntary,” added Mix. “That’s why, ultimately, a National Right to Work law is needed to protect railway and airline employees from being forced to pay a union boss or else be fired.”

Educators submitted amicus brief in similar case before SCOTUS challenging “escape period” which curtails right to refrain from dues

Chicago, IL (March 25, 2021) – Two Chicago Public Schools (CPS) educators are appealing to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals their class-action civil rights lawsuit charging the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) with illegal dues seizures.

The suit challenges a union policy that blocks teachers from exercising their First Amendment right to stop payments to the union outside of the month of August.

The lawsuit seeks refunds of all dues seized from dissenting teachers by the Chicago Board of Education under the policy. The Board enforces the arrangement at the behest of the CTU union and is also named as a defendant.

The educators, Jones College Prep Tech Coordinator Joanne Troesch and Newberry Math and Science Academy second-grade teacher Ifeoma Nkemdi, are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. The lawsuit contends that the dues scheme perpetrated by CTU officials violates the First Amendment protections laid out in the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The appeal comes shortly after Troesch, Nkemdi, and other public employees submitted an amicus brief in Belgau v. Inslee, which is currently pending on a petition for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court. That class-action suit involves a group of Washington State employees, led by Melissa Belgau, who are fighting similar policies imposed by Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) union officials and the State of Washington.

In Janus, which was argued by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney William Messenger, the High Court struck down mandatory union fees as a violation of the First Amendment rights of government employees. The Court ruled that taking any dues without a government worker’s affirmative consent violates the First Amendment, and further made it clear that these rights cannot be restricted absent a clear and knowing waiver. Messenger is on Troesch and Nkemdi’s legal team.

Troesch and Nkemdi’s lawsuit explains that they “did not know they had a constitutional right not to financially support” the union hierarchy until the fall of 2019. The pair independently discovered their First Amendment Janus rights while they were researching how to exercise their right to continue working during a strike that CTU bosses ordered in October 2019, the lawsuit notes. They sent letters the same month to CTU officials to exercise their Janus right to resign union membership and cut off all dues deductions.

Both educators received no response until November of that year, when CTU officials confirmed receipt of the letters but said that they would continue to seize dues from the teachers’ paychecks “until September 1, 2020.” CTU bosses relied on the fact that Troesch and Nkemdi had not submitted their letters within a union boss-created “escape period,” which limits when teachers can exercise their First Amendment right to end dues deductions.

Troesch and Nkemdi contend that CTU officials’ attempt to curb employees’ right to stop dues deductions with an “escape period” and the Board’s continued dues seizures both violate the First Amendment. Their lawsuit seeks to make the CTU union and the Board of Education stop enforcing the “escape period,” and notify all bargaining unit employees that they can end the deduction of union dues at any time and “retroactively exercise that right.”

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed Troesch and Nkemdi’s lawsuit on February 25, 2021. The court ruled that CTU officials didn’t violate Janus by forbidding the two educators from exercising their First Amendment right to cut off union dues except for one month a year. This prompted Foundation attorneys to appeal the case to the Seventh Circuit for the educators.

Foundation staff attorneys in December 2020 filed a similar lawsuit for University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System employee Johnathan Shepard, who is challenging an “escape period” foisted on him and his coworkers by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 bosses. Across the country, Foundation staff attorneys represent public servants in at least 14 cases where union officials have tried to confine their First Amendment Janus rights to an “escape period.”

“Each day that the courts refuse to uphold the clear logic of Janus is another day that union bosses are allowed to hold onto the hard-earned money of dissenting public servants in clear violation of their First Amendment rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation is proud to stand with Ms. Troesch and Ms. Nkemdi, and will continue to defend all educators who simply want to serve their students and community without being forced to subsidize union activities.”