Tennessee AT&T Workers Avert ‘Card Check’ Catastrophe with Foundation Aid
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CWA union officials tried to lock workers in inescapable unit without vote
President Biden, a longtime ally of radical CWA union officials, has stocked the National Labor Relations Board with ex-union lawyers who are manipulating labor law to give union bosses more options to trap workers in unions without a vote.
TENNESSEE – Over the years, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have successfully represented countless workers across the country who have opposed union officials’ attempts to force them under monopoly bargaining via the coercive “card check” process. Unsurprisingly, workers prefer to cast ballots in secret, as opposed to having that right snatched in favor of a scheme where union bosses can intimidate workers into signing a card “authorizing” union control.
Fortunately, workers can turn to the Foundation for free legal aid in fighting coercive card check unionization. For example, in March, Denis Hodzic and his fellow In-Home Experts from AT&T Mobility locations across Tennessee successfully challenged a card check campaign by Communications Workers of America (CWA) union bosses that would have almost certainly confined them in the union for the rest of their careers with the company.
Union Bosses Tried to Trap Workers, Then Fled When Faced with Actual Vote
CWA agents installed themselves over Hodzic’s work unit — which was comprised of over 100 AT&T In-Home Experts — by card check. Shortly after, however, Hodzic filed a petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a “decertification vote” to remove the union. Roughly two-thirds of his work unit signed the petition demanding a secret-ballot vote on the union’s presence.
CWA union officials filed objections in an attempt to stop the election, but an NLRB Regional Director rejected these and ruled that a decertification election should go forward. Before the vote could occur, CWA union officials filed paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing their control over the workers — likely to avoid an embarrassing rejection by employees at the ballot box.
Had Hodzic and his coworkers’ effort not succeeded, NLRB documents indicate that they would have been integrated into a nationwide bargaining unit comprised of thousands of employees, which would have made petitioning for a vote to kick out the union virtually impossible.
Biden NLRB Boosting Card Check Despite Unreliability
Cases like Hodzic’s serve as potent reminders that card check doesn’t represent the true will of workers vis-à-vis bringing in a union. Even AFL-CIO organizing guidelines admit that employees often sign cards during a card check to “get the union off my back.”
Despite this, the Biden NLRB is rapidly increasing union bosses’ ability to corral workers into a union via card check while cutting down workers’ ability to vote in secret-ballot union elections. In the August 2023 Cemex decision, the agency greatly expanded union bosses’ power to overturn elections that don’t go in their favor if an employer requests such an election to challenge a card check.
The Biden NLRB is also conducting rulemaking to overturn the Election Protection Rule (EPR), a set of Foundation-backed reforms that the NLRB adopted in 2020. The EPR permits employees to submit decertification petitions within a 45-day window after the finalization of a card check. This process was originally established by Foundation attorneys in the 2007 Dana Corp. NLRB case. Though this decision was later overturned by the Obama NLRB, “Dana elections” were codified in the EPR.
Hodzic and his colleagues were able to request their election under the auspices of this policy.
“The NLRB Election Protection Rule was essential for us to rely on as we went through the process of seeking resolution to our tricky situation,” Hodzic commented. “The 45-day petition window needs to remain regardless of which group holds the majority position in Washington . . . . [W]e hope that lawmakers see the necessity of having this rule in place, and that both unions and employers abide by the laid-out NLRB processes to ensure fair representation and protection of workers.”
“While Mr. Hodzic’s story had a happy ending, his situation illustrates just how dire things will get once the Biden NLRB’s anti-freedom agenda is fully realized,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “While American union bosses may desire a world in which they can force employees into inescapable work units without even a vote, Foundation attorneys will continue to fight for workers’ right to choose freely whether they want union control or not.”
Foundation to Justices: Workers Opposing Unions Isn’t ‘Harm’ to be Eliminated
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Brief in Starbucks-related SCOTUS case counters Labor Board attempts to impose union control
With the Supreme Court reviewing the standard used when the NLRB seeks injunctions that cement unions in power, the Foundation told the High Court such injunctions should not be allowed to infringe on workers’ legitimate right, under federal labor law and the Constitution, to oppose unionization.
WASHINGTON, DC – “Heads I win, tails you lose”: That’s how a brief filed by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys with the U.S. Supreme Court describes the Biden National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) argument that worker opposition to a union should count as a reason to impose union bosses’ demands on a workplace. The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on this issue in January, with arguments scheduled for late April.
“Evidence that employees support a union is taken to mean they want to support the union,” the brief says. “Evidence that employees oppose a union is taken to mean their employer must have wrongfully caused the employees not to support the union. All evidence conveniently leads to the conclusion desired by current NLRB leadership: employees should support unions.”
The Foundation’s brief before the High Court in Starbucks v. McKinney discusses how NLRB officials use this radical assumption to urge federal courts to hit employers with “10(j) injunctions” that coerce the employers to give into certain union-demanded behavior. As Foundation attorneys explain, the NLRB often tells courts that worker discontent with a union is a “harm” that the courts should rectify with a 10(j) injunction.
Foundation in Starbucks Case: Worker Opposition to a Union is a Basic Right
Foundation staff attorneys push back on this theory in their legal brief, arguing that an employee’s decision to not support a union is not a “harm,” but a “legitimate choice [they] have a right to make” under both the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Union bosses and their allies in the NLRB want the U.S. Supreme Court to establish a rule in Starbucks v. McKinney that permits injunctions against employers if their alleged conduct could potentially coerce workers into not supporting a union. Foundation attorneys instead argue that “the Court must require the NLRB to prove employees were unlawfully coerced not to support a union because, absent such proof, employees have every right to make that choice” (emphasis added).
Starbucks Workers Challenging NLRB Constitutionality
In addition to fighting cynical attempts by Biden NLRB bureaucrats to turn worker opposition to unions into a reason to beef up union officials’ coercive power, Foundation attorneys are assisting two groups of Starbucks workers with federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Biden NLRB as a whole.
The newest effort comes from San Antonio, TX-area Starbucks employee Reed Busler and his coworkers. They submitted a petition to the NLRB containing enough employee signatures to prompt a vote to “decertify,” or remove, the SBWU union. But an NLRB Regional Director blocked the vote based on union allegations of employer misconduct that have no proven connection to Busler and his colleagues’ effort to vote out the union. Busler himself noted in an NLRB filing that the move to decertify started “because the Union was a divisive force in our store” and ignored workers.
Busler has filed a federal lawsuit against the NLRB arguing its structure violates the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine because NLRB Board Members are insulated from at-will removal. The lawsuit seeks an injunction that halts the NLRB from proceeding with his decertification case until his federal lawsuit is resolved.
“Starbucks is becoming ‘ground zero’ for several key battles over worker freedom,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Underlying a large portion of the drama is the NLRB’s flawed theory that workers’ exercise of their right to oppose unions is an evil to be eradicated, which unions and their allies in the NLRB bureaucracy are trying to use to force down their agenda on workplaces across the country.
“An even bigger issue, however, is the fact that the NLRB has for decades operated as a kangaroo court run by powerful bureaucrats who exercise unaccountable power in violation of the Constitution,” Semmens added. “American employees shouldn’t be forced to fight for their rights in such a pro-union boss environment.”
Employees at Eight Philadelphia International Airport Restaurants May Soon Vote Out Unite Here Union Bosses
Federal labor board in Philadelphia rejected all union arguments for blocking employee-requested election; vote now scheduled for July 17
Philadelphia, PA (July 10, 2024) – After almost five months of litigation, Kale Mulugeta and her coworkers at various restaurants throughout Philadelphia International Airport will finally get a chance to vote on whether to remove Unite Here Local 274 union officials from power. Mulugeta, who is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, spearheaded the effort by filing a petition requesting such a vote – which is known as a “decertification election” – with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 4 in Philadelphia in February.
Mulugeta’s petition contained signatures from over 60% of her coworkers at New York Ice Cream, Inc., which operates two Dunkin Donuts locations, three Smashburger locations, two Jamba Juice locations, and one Bruegger’s Bagels location at Philadelphia International Airport. NLRB rules only require that 30% of a work unit express interest in having a union decertification election in order to trigger such an election.
After months of delay caused by union litigation, NLRB Region 4 announced in a June 27 Decision and Direction of Election that the election will occur on July 17 at Philadelphia International Airport.
Because Pennsylvania lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, Unite Here union officials are empowered by law to demand Mulugeta and her coworkers pay union dues just to keep their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work states, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary. If a majority of the New York Ice Cream employees vote on July 17 to remove the Unite Here union, they will be free from both the union’s bargaining power and forced-dues demands.
Union Bosses Tried to Portray Dues-Paying Employee as “Manager’s Agent” to Stop Vote
NLRB Region 4’s Decision and Direction of Election puts an end to nearly five months of litigation over Mulugeta’s petition. Unite Here union officials tried to argue that Mulugeta, who in addition to other restaurant duties often serves as a translator between managers and Amharic-speaking restaurant staff, was ineligible to submit the petition because she was an agent of the manager and not a rank-and-file employee. The union claimed she was ineligible despite the fact that she pays money to the union as a condition of staying employed.
The NLRB Region 4 Director rejected these union arguments, stating that “the record is devoid of any witness testimony from employees showing their perception of Mulugeta’s authority, or whether they believed that Mulugeta spoke for and on behalf of the Employer…”
“As such, Mulugeta’s role as a bilingual employee serving solely as the Employer’s interpreter is insufficient to elevate her status to that of an agent or apparent agent [of the employer],” the decision states.
The decision also threw out union contentions that Mulugeta and some of her other colleagues were “managerial employees” and thus outside the bargaining unit and ineligible to vote. “There is no evidence that Mulugeta [and her colleagues] attend any management meetings…or that they have any authority to formulate or effectuate high-level policy on behalf of the Employer,” the decision states.
Unite Here Local 274 Facing Second Removal Attempt by PHL Employees Since 2023
Mulugeta and her coworkers aren’t the only workers at Philadelphia International Airport that Foundation staff attorneys have aided recently in voting out Unite Here Local 274. In May 2023, employees at the airport’s location of Guava & Java voted to remove the union 32-9 after obtaining a vote with free Foundation legal aid.
“Ms. Mulugeta and her coworkers’ situation demonstrates the struggles that rank-and-file employees face when trying to exercise their right to free themselves from a union hierarchy that they don’t believe serves their interests,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Workers face legal resistance from union lawyers themselves. But it also doesn’t help that the perennially pro-union boss Biden NLRB has been pushing policy after policy designed to aid union bosses in trapping workers under union ‘representation.’
“Ms. Mulugeta and her coworkers deserve this chance to finally exercise their rights, and Foundation staff attorneys are proud to help them,” Mix added.
U.S. House Committee Spotlights Need for Employee Protections Against Forced Funding of Extremist Unions
Jewish MIT graduate student forced to pay dues to anti-Israel GSU union will testify alongside National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney
Washington, DC (July 9, 2024) – Today, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Ph.D. student Will Sussman, who is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation in filing federal anti-discrimination charges against union bosses on campus, is testifying before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Sussman is testifying alongside veteran Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman, who is providing free legal representation to Sussman and other MIT graduate students challenging forced-dues demands from the MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU-UE, an affiliate of the United Electrical Workers union).
The hearing, being held by Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) in the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), was called to focus on how union bosses have used their government-granted powers to force Jewish and other employees to associate with and fund unions – even as union officials are propping up increasingly radical protests and other objectionable activities on college campuses and workplaces across the country.
Jewish MIT Graduate Student: BDS-Linked Union Refused to Grant Religious Accommodation
Sussman, who is Jewish, objects to the anti-Israel advocacy of the GSU union, including the union’s endorsement of the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement. He and four other Jewish graduate students sent letters to GSU union officials earlier this year requesting religious accommodations to union dues payment.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires union officials to accommodate those that have religious objections to subsidizing union activities; in practice this usually entails letting the student pay an amount equivalent to dues to a charity. However, GSU union officials’ initial response was to brush aside students’ requests, claiming they didn’t understand their own faith and that their objections were actually political and not religious in nature.
“The union denied my request, telling me in a letter that ‘no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union,’ that one of UE’s founders was Jewish, and that opposition to BDS isn’t a position I hold for religious reasons. In other words, UE thinks it understands my faith better than I do,” Sussman’s testimony reads.
Sussman is one of six MIT graduate students that Foundation attorneys are representing in federal proceedings against the GSU union.
Biden NLRB Policy Lets Union Officials Seize Control Over Graduate Students
As Foundation attorney Glenn Taubman’s testimony describes, partisan rulings by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have bypassed Congress and given union bosses the ability to seize control over graduate students: “The current travesty of herding graduate students into anti-semitic unions finds its source with the Obama-Biden National Labor Relations Boards, which have by fiat turned graduate students into graduate employees – subject to unionization under the NLRA and, of course, the payment of forced union dues as a condition of their academic careers,” Taubman’s testimony reads.
Giving unions such monopoly bargaining power not only permits union bosses to dictate the conditions of graduate students’ academic work, but also gives them the power to force students to pay dues in states that lack Right to Work laws (like Massachusetts).
Even worse, union bosses are able to conduct disruptive strikes that stunt academic progress and frequently have outrageous political elements that have no connection to academics: For example, the recent strike United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials engineered against the University of California system was designed to defend anti-Israel rioters who were suspended and pressure university administrators into divesting from companies supporting Israel.
“Mr. Sussman’s situation should provide to American legislators a harrowing example of the kind of harm workers experience when union bosses seize monopoly bargaining power and become the mouthpiece for an entire workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The NLRB under Biden and Obama has done even more damage by expanding this coercion into academia, where campus unions have fomented unprecedented division all while threatening dissenting students with the loss of their academic work if they don’t pay up to support radical union activities.”
“National Right to Work legislation would ensure that those trapped under unwanted union influence can protect their hard-earned money from flowing into union bosses’ pockets,” Mix added. “Ultimately, though, no individual should be forced under union bosses’ so-called ‘representation’ against their will, no matter whether the source of their opposition is religious, political, or any other reason.”
Michigan Security Guards Fight to End Union Bosses’ Forced-Dues Power
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Worker blasts state Right to Work repeal: ‘Now… [we] must join or lose our jobs’
Freedom Fighter: Security guard James Reamsma is disappointed that the Right to Work repeal re-imposes forced-dues payments, but he and his coworkers still have a shot to restore their liberty.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – In February, Big Labor allies in the Michigan Legislature and union partisan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer saw their plans to enrich union bosses at the expense of workers come to fruition. The repeal of the state’s Right to Work law — which Whitmer and state legislators backed despite polling showing that 70% of Michiganders wanted the law to remain in place — became effective that month.
Michigan’s Right to Work law, which took effect in 2013, was popular for a reason: It protected the state’s private sector workers from being forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Michigan then experienced substantial economic gains while the law was effective. Now that union bosses can again force Michigan workers to pay dues or be fired, it’s no surprise that National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are seeing worker backlash to the change.
Despite Repeal, Western MI Guards Can Still Restore Worker Freedom
In a rebuke to the Right to Work repeal, security guards from government buildings across Western Michigan in February backed a “deauthorization petition” that will kick off a process that could strip union officials of the United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA) of their forced-dues powers. In a non-Right to Work state, deauthorization is the only option that workers have to remove union bosses’ forced-dues power apart from voting the union out in a decertification election.
Similar to the decertification process, workers who petition the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a deauthorization vote must obtain signatures from 30% or more of their colleagues to trigger a vote. James Reamsma, the security guard who submitted the deauthorization petition with free Foundation legal aid, had signatures far beyond this threshold.
“UGSOA union officials have threatened to have everyone who does not join the union fired,” commented Reamsma. “Many of us are retired police officers, or military, working part time, supplementing our income by providing security for government buildings across Michigan.
“When Right to Work was in place, guards were never forced to join the union. Now part-time guards are expected to pay the same high dues as full-time guards and all guards must join or lose our jobs,” decried Reamsma.
According to the petition, the requested deauthorization vote will take place among “all full-time and regular part-time security guards . . . performing services for the Company . . . in and around the cities of Alena, Cadillac, Petoskey, Traverse City, West Branch, Flint, Bay [C]ity, [Big] Rapids, Ludington, Mount Pleasant, Owosso, Saginaw, Escanaba, Houghton, Ironwood, Marquette, Sault Ste. Marie, Grand Rapids, Holland, and Muskegon, Michigan.”
In addition to providing free aid to Wolverine State workers like Reamsma and his colleagues who are taking legal action to counter forced dues, the Foundation also issued a legal notice in February to all Michigan workers explaining the new legal landscape.
In New Anti-Freedom Environment, Foundation Keeps MI Workers Informed
The notice explains that while union bosses again have forced-dues power in the private sector, private sector workers can still object to paying dues for union political purposes as per the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, or end forced dues in their workplace entirely by decertifying or deauthorizing the union.
As for public sector workers, the Foundation’s 2018 victory at the Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME ensures that their freedom from forced dues is still protected by the First Amendment despite the cynical Right to Work repeal.
“Within weeks of Michigan’s Right to Work repeal, we see the harm Big Labor’s coercive policy agenda inflicted on rank-and-file workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Mr. Reamsma and his colleagues, who will be providing security to Western Michigan’s government buildings during what is likely to be another turbulent election year, don’t deserve to be forced into financially supporting a union they disapprove of, nor does any Michigan private sector employee.
“While union boss powers have greatly expanded since the Right to Work repeal, workers still have some rights to resist union boss coercion, and Foundation attorneys stand ready to help them exercise those rights,” Mix added.
DC-Area Transdev Driver Takes Case Regarding Union-Instigated Assault to Federal Appeals Court
Biden Labor Board claims ATU union did not violate law even after worker experienced slap and termination attempt from union officials
Washington, DC (July 1, 2024) – Thomas McLamb, a Hyattsville, Maryland-based driver for transportation company Transdev, is appealing his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) case charging Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) officials with assaulting him to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. McLamb, whose case concerns retaliatory actions taken against him for being a union dissident, is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation.
McLamb filed charges with the NLRB in November 2021 and January 2022 against ATU for the retaliatory behavior, which in addition to being slapped by an ATU union steward also included a union-instigated termination attempt. McLamb argues that engaging in legally-protected action opposing the union hierarchy – including petitioning for an NLRB-supervised vote to remove the union – made him a target of union officials and adherents.
NLRB Region 5 in Baltimore issued a Complaint and Notice of Hearing on May 11, 2021, stating that the slap and an attempt by an ATU shop steward to get McLamb fired both constituted violations of federal labor law. An NLRB Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issued a decision declaring that the firing attempt was illegal, but the Biden NLRB reversed, claiming that the union did not violate the law at all.
McLamb is now asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to review and overturn the decision of the Biden NLRB.
ATU Union President Ordered Adherents to “Slap” Dissenters
In a statement filed in November 2021, McLamb said that the ATU Local 689 president, Raymond Jackson, told other union officers to “slap” employees who were opposing his agenda. McLamb later reported in a federal charge that he had been physically assaulted by ATU shop steward Tiyaka Boone. Both incidents occurred while McLamb was campaigning against the incumbent officers to serve on Local 689’s board.
McLamb reported in another federal charge that, shortly after this incident, ATU official Alma Williams requested that Transdev management fire him over his criticisms of the union steward that assaulted him.
Biden NLRB Decision Claims Physical Assault Was Personal
The Biden NLRB’s decision reversing the ALJ decision against the union claims that Boone’s assault on McLamb was motivated by “personal reasons” and not McLamb’s legally-protected opposition to the union’s chiefs. However, both McLamb’s Foundation attorneys and even the NLRB General Counsel showed the ALJ during trial a video of Jackson, the ATU president at the time, telling employees to slap other workers who spoke out against him.
The NLRB decision also defends Alma Williams’ asking the employer to fire McLamb, claiming that she was merely asking for Boone and McLamb to be disciplined “equally” for their conduct during and leading up to the assault.
“Workers should not have to face violence or retribution in exchange for criticizing or challenging union leadership, and the fact that Mr. McLamb has had to fight for years to defend his right to be free of such retaliation is outrageous,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “We believe that this decision by the Biden NLRB is wrong, and is yet another example of how the current administration defends scofflaw union bosses that steamroll employee rights in pursuit of greater power.
“Even worse is the fact that McLamb works in the non-Right to Work state of Maryland, where union officials are legally empowered to require dues payments as a condition of keeping one’s job,” Mix added. “No worker should be forced to fund a union hierarchy they disapprove of, let alone one that is actively fighting the worker in court.”
MIT Grad Students Slam Union with Federal Discrimination Charges
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union hierarchy forcing students to pay dues, deny legally-required religious exemption
When Will Sussman declared his religious beliefs forbade him from supporting a union engaged in anti-Israel causes, GSU officials shamelessly (and illegally) went on demanding his money.
BOSTON, MA – “First, no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union . . . Secondly, the statements in your letter demonstrate that your objection to paying dues is based on your political views and not your religious belief.”
This was the brazen response of United Electrical (UE) union officials to five Jewish graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who sought legally-required religious accommodations to the forced payment of dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU, an affiliate of UE). The students, William Sussman, Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Adina Bechhofer, and Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky see funding the union as a violation of their Jewish faith due to, among other reasons, the union’s vocal support for the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement.
GSU Union, MIT Failed to Provide Religious Accommodations
“Jewish graduate students are a minority. We cannot remove our union, and we cannot talk them out of their antisemitic position — we’ve tried,” explained Sussman in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the situation. “That is why many of us asked for a religious accommodation. But instead of respecting our rights, the union told me they understand my faith better than I do.”
The students are now fighting back with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. In March, they each filed federal discrimination charges against UE and GSU with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), declaring that the union is “discriminating against me based on a failure to accommodate my religious beliefs and cultural heritage” and “discriminating against me based on national origin, race, cultural heritage, & identity.”
Because MIT officials are involved in enforcing GSU union bosses’ forced-dues demands on the students, Foundation attorneys also sent a letter to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, notifying her of the EEOC charges and warning that the university will face similar charges if it does not promptly remedy the situation.
The graduate students are only subject to the union’s forced-dues demands as a result of a controversial Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling, now being enforced by the Biden Labor Board, that deems graduate students at private universities to be “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act. As a result, the MIT graduate students are subjected to the GSUUE’s monopoly union control.
Foundation Attorneys Have Track Record of Defending Religious Objectors
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections, union officials in the private sector (which includes private educational institutions like MIT) generally have the power to compel those under their monopoly bargaining power to pay union dues or fees. However, as per Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, religious accommodations to payment of dues or fees must be provided to those with sincere religious objections.
For decades, Foundation staff attorneys have successfully represented religious objectors in cases opposing forced dues. While religious accommodations in these cases have varied, all of them forbid union bosses from demanding the worker pay any more money to the union.
Union Already Conceded Some Illegal Dues Practices
Sussman already dealt a blow against GSU officials in late February, when he forced union officials to settle federal charges he filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concerning the union’s dues demands. In those charges, Sussman asserted his rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which prevents union officials from forcing those under their control to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s core bargaining functions.
While the settlement required GSU union officials to send an email to all students under their control stating that they would now follow Beck, Sussman and his fellow students’ current EEOC charges seek to cut off all financial support to the controversial union, as is their right under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“GSU union officials appear blinded by their political agenda and their desire to extract forced dues,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Their idea of ‘representation’ apparently includes forcing Jewish graduate students to pay money to a union the students believe has relentlessly denigrated their religious and cultural identity.
“GSU union bosses’ refusal to grant these students religious accommodations is as illegal as it is unconscionable, and Foundation attorneys will fight for their freedom from this tyrannical union hierarchy,” Mix added.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Medieval Times Performers Are Union-Free
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Performers banished union officials after they pushed unpopular, divisive strikes
Hail Queen Dean, Vanquisher of Unwanted Unions: Michelle Dean and her fellow Medieval Times performers ousted AGVA union officials, who had ordered employees on a lengthy and unproductive strike.
WASHINGTON, DC – Medieval Times, a nationwide chain of dinner theater “castles” in which a four-course meal is served while knights spar for Queen Doña Maria Isabella’s favor, provides guests a fun and captivating trip back in time.
But, at the castles in Buena Park, CA, and Lyndhurst, NJ, a more sinister plot was unfolding among the hardworking performers. Officials of the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA) union had ordered or were pressuring employees to go on strike, an unpopular move which caused division in the workplaces. At the California location, AGVA bosses issued an edict forcing many performers off the job for roughly nine months.
Majorities of Performers Backed AGVA Removal
Sensing that their fellow performers had had enough of AGVA’s attempts to control them, Artemisia Morley and Michelle Dean — who play the Queens at the New Jersey and California castles respectively — sought free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Both women filed petitions backed by their coworkers asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold votes at their workplaces on whether to banish AGVA union officials.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Majorities of performers at both castles backed the petitions — far exceeding the 30% threshold needed to trigger an election under NLRB rules.
Rather than face a secret ballot vote of the workers they claimed to “represent,” AGVA union chiefs filed “disclaimers of interest” and fled both castles before either election could take place — likely sensing that the majority-backed petitions signaled a defeat was coming.
Even after Morley had filed a decertification petition indicating the majority of her coworkers wanted a vote to decertify AGVA, union bosses tried to cling to power at the New Jersey castle. They attempted to block the vote by filing “blocking charges,” which are often-unrelated allegations against management meant to derail a vote.
The tide substantially turned against AGVA union officials in New Jersey after Morley’s Foundation attorneys successfully challenged a decision from an NLRB Regional Director that halted the decertification vote based on union officials’ “blocking charges.” Filings in Morley’s case indicated that the performers’ discontent with the union had nothing to do with Medieval Times management and was rather due to “secretive, self-interested, and divisive” behavior by union bosses and their insistence on a strike.
‘Secretive, Self-Interested’ Union Boss Behavior Led to Performers’ Revolt
Meanwhile, in California, AGVA union officials called off a roughly nine-month-long strike at the Buena Park Medieval Times just before Dean filed her decertification petition, likely aware of the tension the strike was causing and the growing number of performers who supported ejecting the union.
“AGVA union officials treated each Medieval Times castle as their own personal fiefdom, but their actions led to an uprising of the rank-and-file they purported to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “While the wishes of the Medieval Times performers have finally been obtained, it should be remembered that workers all over the country are subjected to union control they oppose, and they face fierce union and bureaucratic battles to secure secret ballot decertification votes.”.
