Wisconsin AFSCME Union Bosses Face Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Forced Dues for Politics
Wisconsin AFSCME Union Bosses Face Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Forced Dues for Politics
Wisconsin needs Right to Work law to protect workers from forced unionism abuses
Milwaukee, WI (March 16, 2011) – A U.S. Bank customer service and support employee has filed federal charges against a local union after local union officials illegally attempted to force him and his colleagues into full-dues-paying union membership.
Peter Quinones of Milwaukee filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
After American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 777 union officials were granted monopoly bargaining privileges over approximately 300 U.S. Bank employees, Quinones sent a letter to union officials stating that he was exercising his right under National Right to Work Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck to refrain from full dues paying union membership.
Because Wisconsin is a forced unionism state, workers who refrain from formal union membership can still be forced to pay a certain amount of union dues, but cannot be compelled to pay the portion of union dues used for the union’s political, lobbying, and member-only activities.
Despite his letter, AFSCME Local 777 union officials continued to extract full union dues from his paycheck. After Quinones filed an unfair labor practice charge, union officials still refused to honor his request to exercise his legal rights.
Wisconsin AFSCME Union Bosses Face Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Forced Dues for Politics
Milwaukee, WI (March 16, 2011) – A U.S. Bank customer service and support employee has filed federal charges against a local union after local union officials illegally attempted to force him and his colleagues into full-dues-paying union membership.
Peter Quinones of Milwaukee filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
After American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 777 union officials were granted monopoly bargaining privileges over approximately 300 U.S. Bank employees, Quinones sent a letter to union officials stating that he was exercising his right under National Right to Work Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck to refrain from full dues paying union membership.
Because Wisconsin is a forced unionism state, workers who refrain from formal union membership can still be forced to pay a certain amount of union dues, but cannot be compelled to pay the portion of union dues used for the union’s political, lobbying, and member-only activities.
Despite his letter, AFSCME Local 777 union officials continued to extract full union dues from his paycheck. After Quinones filed an unfair labor practice charge, union officials still refused to honor his request to exercise his legal rights.
Quinones’ latest charge seeks to prevent the AFSCME union hierarchy from requiring him to pay forced union fees by automatic deduction from his paycheck in violation of federal law.
“As we have seen in recent weeks, AFSCME union officials will stop at nothing to collect forced union dues from workers – whether they are in the public or private sector – to pay for their political activism,” said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation legal information director. “Wisconsin’s workers desperately need Right to Work protections to protect them from the very union bosses that claim to care about workers’ rights while violating workers’ rights.”
If enacted, a Wisconsin Right to Work law would end compulsory union dues by making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary. Polls consistently show that 8 in 10 Americans support the Right to Work principle, that no worker should be compelled to join a union or pay union dues to get or keep a job. Twenty-two states have already passed Right to Work protections for their workers.
Right to Work in the News: The Case for Free Choice in the Workplace
With public attention being paid to state battles over union boss powers, Right to Work proposals have received plenty of attention from national publications. In The Washington Examiner, Right to Work President Mark Mix explains that states are turning to Right to Work laws to jump-start their troubled economies and safeguard workers’ rights:
The logic of state Right-to-Work laws is ironclad: Not only is safeguarding worker freedom the right thing to do,it also yields tremendous economic benefits. Recent studies from the Cato Institute and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research suggest that Right-to-Work states enjoy higher job growth and more cost-of-living-adjusted disposable income for workers than their forced-unionism counterparts.
They also seem to be weathering the recession better than old Midwestern industrial bastions like Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, states that lack protections for individual workers’ rights.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence in favor of state Right-to-Work laws was reported in a Wall Street Journal editorial last year. Citizens are voting with their feet, leaving forced-unionism states in droves for job opportunities with their Right-to-Work neighbors.
Elsewhere, Deroy Murdock lays out the case for a National Right to Work Act:
The NRTWA’s economic rationale is compelling:
? Among America’s 22 right-to-work states (including Florida, Georgia, and Texas), non-farm private-sector employment grew 3.7 percent from 1999 to 2009, while it shrank 2.8 percent among America’s 28 forced-unionism states (e.g. California, Illinois, and New York).
? During those ten years, real personal income rose 28.3 percent in right-to-work states and sank 14.7 percent in forced-unionism states.
? In 2009, cost-of-living-adjusted, per-capita, disposable personal income was $35,543 in right-to-work states versus $33,389 in forced-unionism states. Americans in right-to-work states enjoyed more freedom — and a $2,154 premium.
Notwithstanding that right-to-work states are comparatively prosperous engines of job growth, the case for right-to-work laws is not merely economic, but moral.
“Government has granted union officials the unprecedented power to force individual employees to pay up or be fired and to coerce workers into subsidizing union speech,” says the National Right to Work Committee’s Patrick Semmens. “This fundamental violation of individual liberty — an infringement on freedom of speech and freedom of association — finally would end with passage of the NRTWA.”
If you’re looking for a straightforward introduction to the economic and moral case for Right to Work laws, both pieces are a good place to start.
Workers’ Rights Are At Stake in Labor Battles Nationwide, But Not in the Way Union Bosses Claim
Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, pointed out in Investor’s Business Daily that the real issue in the ongoing battles between Big Labor and reform-minded public officials in various states across the country is getting lost in the union bosses’ self-serving rhetoric.
As Mix notes, given the media coverage of the battle in Wisconsin:
Americans learning about organized labor’s battles in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states from TV, radio and newspaper reports may understandably be confused about what is at stake, especially if they have no personal experience with unions themselves. From afar, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that public employees’ right to join a union is at stake.
Of course a worker’s right to join a union is not the issue at all. The real issue at stake is that Big Labor enjoys numerous government-granted special privileges at the expense of workers’ individual rights:
…What reform-minded elected officials are seeking to curtail, and in
some cases even abolish, is government union chiefs’ legal power to
force public servants into a union as a condition of employment.Under the current labor laws of nearly half of the states, government union officials have been explicitly authorized to force all public employees in a workplace to pay union dues or be fired, as long as a majority of their fellow employees (among those expressing an opinion) support unionization.
Such forced-unionism laws, which Big Labor is now fighting furiously to keep on the books in the face of increasingly intense public opposition, actually trample on, rather than protect, employees’ freedom to make personal decisions about unionism.
And that’s the point. So next time you hear union bosses like Richard Trumka shouting about "protecting workers’ rights," it’s important to keep in mind that what he really means is "protecting union bosses’ special powers."
Right to Work on Fox: Foundation President Mark Mix talks Ohio, Wisconsin, and Public Sector Unions
Right to Work President Mark Mix sat down with Fox Business host Stuart Varney to discuss Ohio, Wisconsin, and the current debate over public sector unions. You can watch the full interview below:
Right to Work Radio Round-up: Mark Mix talks public sector unions, Wisconsin, and monopoly bargaining
Over the past week, Right to Work President Mark Mix was interviewed on several radio programs about public sector unionism and the protests in Wisconsin. First, here’s Mix on Savage Nation. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:
Mix also appeared on the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson show. Click here to listen or use the player below:
Mix was also interviewed for the ‘Coffee and Markets’ podcast. You can listen to that here.
As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.
Worker Advocate Challenges Proposed NLRB Rule Designed to Push Workers into Union Ranks
Washington, DC (February 24, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation, which provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, submitted comments criticizing a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposal to implement new rules governing the notification of employee rights. Foundation attorneys say that the rules are not authorized by the National Labor Relations Act and would unfairly benefit union organizers.
Under current law, employers can be required to post notices of workers’ rights only when a violation of labor law has been proven in an unfair labor practice case. The proposed rules, however, would require every employer to post incomplete information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if they’ve never been found to have committed unfair labor practices.
Under the proposed rules, every private-sector employer in the country would have to inform workers about their rights to organize, support a union, and engage in union activities such as strikes. However, the proposed notice would not tell workers in states that allow agreements requiring union “membership” as a condition of employment that they have a right to resign at any time from a union and not pay union dues for political and other non-bargaining activities. The proposed notice also fails to inform workers in Right to Work states that they cannot be required to join or pay anything to a union to keep their jobs.
Union officials, on the other hand, are not required to post any notices under the proposed rules. In non-Right to Work states, workers do not have to be informed that an organizing campaign could result in the mandatory payment of union dues as a condition of employment. The proposed rules also fail to require union organizers to explain to workers exactly what signing means when presented with union authorization cards during controversial “card check” organizing drives.
The proposed rules are the result of a biased and ideologically-charged Labor Board, which prioritizes advancing union officials’ interests over providing truthful and accurate information to employees. The agency’s forced unionism tilt is on display for all to see.
“The proposed rule changes are just the latest example of the NLRB’s biased approach to labor law,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “If the NLRB was really interested in protecting workers, they’d inform them of the dangers of coercive ‘card check’ drives and publicize their rights, under law, to remove an unwanted union.”
New Right to Work Podcast: Mark Mix talks Wisconsin Labor Law Reform
On WSAU-AM Central Wisconsin Morning News, Right to Work President Mark Mix explains why ending union monopoly bargaining privileges is so important as Wisconsin faces widespread, union-instigated protests. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:
As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.
Worker Asks Labor Board to Review Request for Secret Ballot Unionization Election
Sacramento, CA (February 10, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, Dennis McLeod is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to reconsider his request for a secret ballot unionization election at the Thunder Valley Casino.
In the spring of 2010, UNITE HERE Local 49 union officials initiated a coercive “card check” organizing drive to unionize McLeod and his coworkers. Although union organizers claimed to have collected enough signed cards from employees to obtain monopoly bargaining privileges, the casino’s workforce expanded following unionization, raising questions about whether a hurried card check campaign actually reflected the views of a majority of employees.
Under the Foundation-won Dana decision, workers may collect signatures to request a secret ballot election during a 45 day window period following notice that their employer has recognized a union based on a card check organizing drive. The ruling is intended to counteract coercive practices frequently associated with union card check campaigns, which allow organizers to bully or mislead employees into signing cards that count as “votes” toward unionization.
On April 29, 2010, Thunder Valley Casino employees were notified of their rights under the Dana precedent. McLeod and several of his coworkers proceeded to collect signatures from casino employees to trigger a secret ballot unionization election.
Through a quirk of the calendar, the 44th and 45th day of the Dana window period fell on a weekend. Although McLeod faxed and mailed his request for a secret ballot election to the NLRB on the 44th day, the Board’s regional director originally found that his submission was “untimely.” Following an appeal, the regional director again declined to hold an election because McLeod allegedly failed to submit the accompanying signature petitions with his request for a secret ballot election, despite the fact that the petition and the signatures were already in the mail before the window period ended.
With the help of Foundation attorneys, McLeod is now appealing this ruling to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC.
“Workers should never be forced into a union’s forced dues-paying ranks without a secret ballot vote,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “UNITE HERE union bosses forced their way into this workplace through a notoriously unreliable card check scheme. The NLRB should respect the intent of workers and order a timely secret ballot election so that Thunder Valley employees have a chance to vote the union out.”
Teachers Collect Settlement After Foundation Supreme Court Victory
Gary Davenport with his wife and three children at the U.S. Supreme Court.
As a result of the National Right to Work Foundation’s precedent-setting victory before the United States Supreme Court in Davenport v. WEA, Washington state’s teachers are receiving compensation for the forced unionism abuses and First Amendment rights violations they suffered at the hands of teacher union officials.
In 2001, Gary Davenport, a history teacher at Kentwood High School, and fellow teachers across the state of Washington who refrained from formal union membership, were being forced to pay $500 or more each per year in fees for the Washington Education Association (WEA) union bosses’ so-called “representation” because their state does not have Right to Work protections for its workers.
It was then that Davenport discovered that WEA union officials were illegally using his and some 10,000 other nonmember teachers’ forced union dues for the union bosses’ political agenda.
After a protracted legal battle in various courts, the U.S. Supreme Court finally weighed in. The Court unanimously ruled in favor of the teachers, declaring unions have no constitutional right to collect fees from nonmembers and allowing states to require union bosses to obtain affirmative consent before spending nonmember public employees’ forced fees on political activities.
After the case went back to state court, WEA union bosses finally settled with the teachers and agreed to refund the dues that were improperly confiscated.
The checks (some of which are pictured below) were sent to thousands of Washington teachers last week.
For more information regarding the National Right To Work Foundation’s history-shaping legal precedents on behalf of abused workers, click here.
