UConn Professor Refunded Over $5,000 in Union Fees Seized in Violation of his First Amendment Rights
Supreme Court’s Janus decision leads AAUP union officials to quickly settle civil rights lawsuit filed by UConn School of Business accounting professor
Storrs, CT (April 24, 2019) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys have secured a victory for a University of Connecticut School of Business professor who filed a lawsuit in January seeking the return of forced union fees seized from him by union officials in violation of his First Amendment rights.
Under the settlement, the American Association of University Professors union (AAUP) has returned $5,251.48 in unlawfully obtained union fees to accounting professor Steven Utke. Union officials were forced to settle because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, a 2018 Foundation-won case that found that any mandatory union payments taken from public employees without their consent violate their First Amendment constitutional rights.
Since Utke was hired by the university in 2015, AAUP, which has monopoly bargaining powers over all professors, including those opposed to union representation, deducted fees from Utke’s paycheck. Utke was not a member of the AAUP, and further never consented to have the money deducted from his paycheck.
Eventually Utke, with free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for Connecticut on January 14, 2019, on the grounds that AAUP officials had infringed his First Amendment rights. The suit cited the Janus v. AFSCME decision, which declared that forced fees for government employees constitute coerced speech and are thus unconstitutional.
Janus v. AFSCME, which was decided in June of 2018, overturned the wrongly-decided 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that public-sector workers could be compelled as a condition of employment to pay union fees for bargaining-related purposes. In Janus, the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to require government workers to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of employment, because bargaining with the government is political. Additionally, the Court clarified that no union dues or fees can be taken from workers without their affirmative consent and knowing waiver of their First Amendment right not to financially support a labor union.
Rather than face Foundation staff attorneys in court, AAUP backed down and settled the case earlier this month. Now, as stipulated by the terms of the settlement, AAUP officials have returned to Utke almost four years of union fees seized in violation of his rights plus interest. They further pledged not to collect any dues or fees from Utke’s future wages unless he affirmatively chooses to become a member of AAUP and authorizes such deductions.
“Steven Utke joins the growing ranks of workers across the country who, citing the Janus precedent, are receiving refunds for the forced union fees seized from them by greedy union officials in violation of the First Amendment,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Unfortunately, tens of thousands of other public employees are still waiting for the refunds they should get, with Foundation staff attorneys continuing to litigate numerous such cases.”
Foundation staff attorneys secured the first-in-the-nation refund of forced union dues after Janus for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife employee Debora Nearman, and subsequently have won similar refunds for public employees elsewhere.
The Foundation has created a special website, MyJanusRights.org, to assist public employees in exercising their rights under Janus, which was successfully argued by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney William Messenger.
National Right to Work Foundation Offers Free Legal Aid to VW Chattanooga Workers Targeted for Unionization by UAW Officials
Scandal-ridden Detroit-based union was rejected by workers in 2014 vote
Chattanooga, Tenn. (April 15, 2019) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping workers protect their rights against compulsory union abuses, is offering free legal aid to employees at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant. The offer comes as United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials once again attempt to force workers at the plant into the union’s monopoly bargaining ranks.
UAW organizers attempted to unionize the facility’s workers five years ago, even demanding that the company install the union through a coercive union card check. However, when the VW workers eventually held a secret ballot vote they rejected UAW representation 712-626. Foundation staff attorneys provided free legal aid to VW workers both before and after the 2014 vote, including in defending the result of the vote after UAW lawyers moved to overturn the union’s defeat at the National Labor Relations Board.
Foundation staff attorneys also assisted VW workers in filing charges, citing improprieties in the UAW’s card check campaign in Chattanooga, which included union attempts to get workers to sign union authorization cards through coercion and misrepresentation and the UAW’s use of cards signed too long ago to be legally valid.
To guard against similar improprieties surrounding the proposed election now sought by union organizers, the Foundation is once again offering free legal aid to VW Chattanooga team members. Additionally, Foundation staff attorneys have created a special legal notice to the workers explaining their legal rights. That notice can be found on the Foundation’s website here.
Regarding UAW officials’ renewed push for union monopoly bargaining powers over the Volkswagen Chattanooga employees, National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix offered the following comments:
“UAW boss demands that both Volkswagen and the community be silent suggests they are scared that if workers get all the facts the workers will want nothing to do with this scandal-ridden union. Just days ago a federal judge labeled the UAW a ‘co-conspirator’ in a corruption and embezzlement scandal that has already resulted in numerous UAW officials being sent to prison for their role in illegally stealing workers’ training funds. The UAW’s desire to hold this vote as quickly as possible is apparently an attempt to make workers vote without the full facts and before the next embarrassing development in the union’s ever-expanding corruption scandal.”
Final Brief Filed Asking Supreme Court to Hear Case Challenging Forced Union Affiliation as First Amendment Violation
Minnesota home-based personal care providers argue being forced under SEIU union monopoly ‘representation’ violates their freedom to associate
Washington, D.C. (April 17, 2019) – Today, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys filed the final brief in Bierman v. Walz asking the Supreme Court to hear a group of Minnesota home care providers’ challenge to forced union affiliation.
The home care providers are challenging a Minnesota state law used to force tens of thousands of home care providers under union monopoly “representation.” The providers, who work at home caring for disabled family members as part of a state-run Medicaid program, oppose union affiliation.
The case’s lead plaintiff, Teri Bierman, filed the suit with seven other home care providers to challenge a 2013 Minnesota state law used by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare Minnesota to force home care providers to associate with it as a condition of providing care under the state Medicaid program. Bierman v. Walz asks the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free association guarantee the unions’ monopoly bargaining privileges, by which a union forces its representation on individuals receiving state funds who do not consent to the representation.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, issued the following statement about the case:
“These home care providers are bravely challenging an unconstitutional scheme that compels them to associate with a union to receive state funds to care for their own children in their own homes. We hope the Supreme Court takes this opportunity to apply the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of association to Big Labor’s unparalleled monopoly bargaining ‘representation’ privileges that force individuals to submit to union bosses’ control.”
Background Information
Teri Bierman and the other home care providers provide critical care to their family members who receive state assistance to help pay for their care. Bierman provides care at home for her daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy and requires care throughout the day. The other plaintiffs in the case care for children diagnosed with severe autism, epilepsy, Rubenstein-Taybi syndrome, or other significant disabilities. Like the other plaintiffs, Bierman receives aid from a Minnesota Medicaid program (which provides funds to families to care for disabled relatives).
By asking the Court to declare monopoly bargaining a violation of the First Amendment, Foundation staff attorneys seek to build off two recent Foundation-won Supreme Court decisions. In the 2014 Harris v. Quinn decision, the Court applied exacting First Amendment scrutiny to rule that providers like the Bierman plaintiffs cannot be required to pay union fees.
Next, in the June 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, the Court declared that forced union fees for all public sector employees violate the First Amendment and opened the door to further cases seeking to uphold workers’ rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association. In his opinion for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the Court that “designating a union as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual employees.”
Both Harris and Janus were argued by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney William Messenger, who is also the lead attorney in Bierman v. Walz. Bierman now asks the Supreme Court, for the first time, to apply the same First Amendment standard to forced association as it has already applied to forced subsidies of union speech.
