Local Union Bosses Face Federal Labor Charge for Illegally Taking Money from Workers’ Paychecks
Local Union Bosses Face Federal Labor Charge for Illegally Taking Money from Workers’ Paychecks
Union officials’ illegal forced-dues scheme highlights need for Right to Work law
Detroit, MI (October 22, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Farmington Hills-based nursing home employee has filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against a local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate.
In October 2009, Donna Smith, a Botsford Common Nursing Home custodian, refrained from formal, full-dues-paying union membership from the SEIU Healthcare Michigan union.
Under Foundation-won precedent in the Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck, the Court held that nonmember employees in states without Right to Work protections for its workers may still be forced to pay certain union fees as a condition of employment, but they do have the right to refrain from paying union dues spent for activities like political activism, lobbying, and member-only events.
Despite her being a nonmember, SEIU union officials continued to collect full union dues from Smith’s paycheck for 10 more months. In September 2010, Smith and SEIU union officials reached a settlement in which she received the difference of full union dues and the union fees that she is forced to pay for the union bosses’ so-called “representation.”
Local Union Bosses Face Federal Labor Charge for Illegally Taking Money from Workers’ Paychecks
Detroit, MI (October 22, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Farmington Hills-based nursing home employee has filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against a local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate.
In October 2009, Donna Smith, a Botsford Common Nursing Home custodian, refrained from formal, full-dues-paying union membership from the SEIU Healthcare Michigan union.
Under Foundation-won precedent in the Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck, the Court held that nonmember employees in states without Right to Work protections for its workers may still be forced to pay certain union fees as a condition of employment, but they do have the right to refrain from paying union dues spent for activities like political activism, lobbying, and member-only events.
Despite her being a nonmember, SEIU union officials continued to collect full union dues from Smith’s paycheck for 10 more months. In September 2010, Smith and SEIU union officials reached a settlement in which she received the difference of full union dues and the union fees that she is forced to pay for the union bosses’ so-called “representation.”
However, Smith later found out that SEIU Healthcare Michigan union bosses and Botsford Common Nursing Home do not have a union monopoly bargaining contract in place, and therefore, she is not forced to pay any union dues or fees at all. Under federal law, workers cannot be forced to pay union dues or fees when a union monopoly bargaining contract is not in effect at their workplace.
“SEIU Healthcare Michigan union bosses apparently are deliberately keeping rank-and-file workers in the dark to keep their forced-dues gravy train going,” said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation legal information director. “No worker should be forced to subsidize the very scoundrels whose only goal is to seize forced union dues from their paychecks at all costs.”
“This case highlights why Michigan desperately needs a Right to Work law making union affiliation and dues payments completely voluntary.”
Teamsters Bosses Hit with Federal Charges for Retaliating against Husband of Driver Who Opposed Union Presence
Grand Junction, CO (October 22, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a bus driver who was fired because his wife opposed unionization has filed federal unfair labor practice charges against First Student, Inc. and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 455 union officials.
Clark Kelley, a mechanic employed by First Student for over 20 years, is married to Traci Kelley, a former First Student bus driver. Mrs. Kelley vocally opposed a Teamsters organizing campaign in late 2009, and subsequently filed unfair labor practice charges against Teamster officials for attempting to force her to join the union. Although Clark Kelley is also employed by First Student, he did not work in the same bargaining unit and was not a union member.
A month after she filed unfair labor practice charges, Traci Kelley and her husband were suspended from their jobs. On April 21, 2010 Clark Kelley was fired from First Student in retaliation for his wife’s refusal to join the Teamsters union and for the unfair labor practice charges she filed.
Although First Student claims that he was terminated for faulty maintenance records, Clark Kelley believes that this was a pretext for retaliation against his wife. Moreover, several other First Student employees believe that Kelley was terminated “to get to” his wife for opposing the Teamsters’ presence.
While Colorado workers can be forced to pay certain union dues as a condition of employment, employees cannot be disciplined for opposing unionization or refusing to join a union. Employers are also prohibited from using disciplinary action to discourage other independent-minded workers from speaking out against union officials.
Clark Kelley’s charges will now be investigated by the National Labor Relations Board.
“In a heavy-handed attempt to quash employee dissent, Teamster bosses had Clark Kelley fired because his wife took a stand against workplace intimidation,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Workers shouldn’t be punished for speaking out on the job, and we hope the National Labor Relations Board will intervene promptly to ensure company and union officials are held accountable for their thuggish tactics.”
How Union Monopoly Bargaining Threatens Public Safety
At National Review, John Berlau explains how the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act – better known to Freeom@Work readers as the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill – threatens public safety:
But as with health care, liberals want to take away federalism in fire protection and force all American communities into a one-size-fits-all unionized model. The biggest congressional priority of the IAFF over the past few years has been the so-called Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would force unionization and collective bargaining on every one of the nation’s local fire departments.
And far from delivering fire protection that is quick and efficient, this legislation is almost guaranteed to bring big-city slowdowns to every town. According to the watchdog Public Service Research Council, public-employee strikes quadruple, on average, in the years after state laws mandating public-sector collective bargaining take effect.
So the question is, to paraphrase Krugman: Do you want to live in the kind of society in which this happens? Too bad if you answered “no,” because Krugman’s allies are determined to take the choice of non-unionized fire departments away from fire fighters and homeowners.
Read the whole thing here. As Berlau notes, the consequences of union-instigated fire department strikes have been devastating:
Similar damage and destruction occurred in the 1975 fire fighters’ strike in Kansas City, Mo. In The Municipal Doomsday Machine, his 1970s exposé of corruption in public-safety unions, journalist and National Review founding editor Ralph de Toledano vividly described a city paralyzed by union violence. According to his and other accounts, when fires hit — in suspiciously high numbers, as in Memphis — non-striking firefighters found fire extinguishers that had been filled with flammable liquid, oxygen tanks that had been emptied, and fuel tanks of fire trucks that had been fouled with water.
The 23-day Chicago fire fighters’ strike in 1980 was mostly free of the violence that plagued Memphis, Kansas City, and other places, but its duration made it much more deadly. On February 14, all but 400 of Chicago’s 4,300 fire fighters gave the Windy City a valentine by walking off the job. They formed picket lines in front of its 120 fire stations, shutting down more than half of them.
During the strike, “24 people died in incidents involving calls for help from the fire department,” the Chicago Tribune would recount 20 years later. One tragedy that could have been avoided was the death of brother and sister Tommie and Santana Jackson — ages 1 and 2, respectively — who perished in a fire in an apartment that, according to Time magazine, was “just half a block from a closed fire station.”
The risk of public safety strikes is just one more reason why the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill is such a bad idea. For more information on the bill, click here.
Bus Drivers Slam the Brakes on Teamster Union Boss Intimidation and Threats
Bus Drivers Slam the Brakes on Teamster Union Boss Intimidation and Threats
Teamster bosses bullying independent-minded workers to sign self-disparaging letter just to exercise their constitutional rights
Long Island, NY (October 8, 2010) – Two Syosset-based bus drivers have filed federal charges against a local Teamster union for refusing to recognize, without condition, their constitutional right to refrain from formal union membership and instead are intimidating independent-minded workers who exercise that right.
With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, the two Acme Bus Corp. drivers filed the charges late last week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Brooklyn.
Teamsters Local Union 1205 officials are failing to acknowledge without condition the workers’ rights to refrain from formal, full dues-paying union membership established under Foundation-won precedent in the Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck. Instead, Teamster Local 1205 union bosses are forcing nonmember employees to sign a self-disparaging letter characterizing themselves as “dues complainers.”
Bus Drivers Slam the Brakes on Teamster Union Boss Intimidation and Threats
Long Island, NY (October 8, 2010) – Two Syosset-based bus drivers have filed federal charges against a local Teamster union for refusing to recognize, without condition, their constitutional right to refrain from formal union membership and instead are intimidating independent-minded workers who exercise that right.
With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, the two Acme Bus Corp. drivers filed the charges late last week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Brooklyn.
Teamsters Local Union 1205 officials are failing to acknowledge without condition the workers’ rights to refrain from formal, full dues-paying union membership established under Foundation-won precedent in the Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck. Instead, Teamster Local 1205 union bosses are forcing nonmember employees to sign a self-disparaging letter characterizing themselves as “dues complainers.”
In Beck, the Supreme Court held that workers who refrain from formal union membership – while still forced to pay certain union fees as a condition of employment – have the right to refrain from paying union dues spent for activities like political activism, lobbying, and member-only events. Teamster union bosses are further required to provide an independent breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures. So far, they have failed to adequately fulfill that requirement.
Meanwhile, the employees are also being forced to illegally subsidize the union bosses’ strike fund even though nonmember employees are not eligible under union rules to receive payments from it.
“Teamsters Local 1205 union bosses need to stop this illegal behavior immediately and cease violating the rights of rank-and-file workers,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Ultimately, the best way to protect the rights of workers in the Empire State is for New York to pass a Right to Work law ending union officials’ power to have workers fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees and making union membership strictly voluntary.”
Worker Advocate: Labor Board’s Discriminatory Rule Change Is Back Door Card Check Provision
Worker Advocate: Labor Board’s Discriminatory Rule Change Is Back Door Card Check Provision
Obama Administration bureaucrats changing rules to enact portion of the Card Check bill that was rejected by Congress
Washington, DC (October 5, 2010) – Late last week, the Acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a memorandum to the board’s regional offices establishing new procedures in cases involving union claims that an employee has been fired unlawfully during a union organizing campaign.
The new procedure directs the NLRB’s regional offices to file an injunction in federal court – referred to as a 10(j) injunction for the section it is established under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) – requiring the employer keep a union organizer on payroll until the pending case is resolved. Notably, the new rules protect union organizers during aggressive organizing drives but do nothing for employees who are victims of union official misconduct.
Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation released the following statement regarding the rule change:
“The NLRB Acting General Counsel’s one-sided dictate creates a double standard against employees who want nothing to do with a union.
“For over 40 years, the National Right to Work Foundation has fought for the rights of hundreds of thousands of workers whose rights have been violated by union officials. Foundation attorneys frequently request 10(j) injunctions in cases in which union bosses are committing unfair labor practices against nonmember workers, but NLRB officials ignore those requests in virtually every case.”
To read Mark Mix’s entire statement, click here.
Worker Advocate: Labor Board’s Discriminatory Rule Change Is Back Door Card Check Provision
Washington, DC (October 5, 2010) – Late last week, the Acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a memorandum to the board’s regional offices establishing new procedures in cases involving union claims that an employee has been fired unlawfully during a union organizing campaign.
The new procedure directs the NLRB’s regional offices to file an injunction in federal court – referred to as a 10(j) injunction for the section it is established under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) – requiring the employer keep a union organizer on payroll until the pending case is resolved. Notably, the new rules protect union organizers during aggressive organizing drives but do nothing for employees who are victims of union official misconduct.
Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation released the following statement regarding the rule change:
“The NLRB Acting General Counsel’s one-sided dictate creates a double standard against employees who want nothing to do with a union.
“For over 40 years, the National Right to Work Foundation has fought for the rights of hundreds of thousands of workers whose rights have been violated by union officials. Foundation attorneys frequently request 10(j) injunctions in cases in which union bosses are committing unfair labor practices against nonmember workers, but NLRB officials ignore those requests in virtually every case.
“The Acting General Counsel’s quick-snap injunctions rule creates a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ standard that will be used by union organizers to pressure employers into helping push employees into union ranks.
“After Big Labor’s Card Check bill has been successfully blocked for two years in Congress, the Obama Administration is now implementing provisions of the card check bill through the executive branch. This new rule is a shameful political payoff to the union bosses who spent over $1 billion in 2008 electing Obama and forced-unionism supporters to Congress.”
Right to Work on Fox Business: Shady SEIU Fundraising Tactics Escape Political Scrutiny
Foundation President Mark Mix appeared on Fox Business’s "Varney and Company" to discuss the SEIU’s shady political fundraising practices:
For more on this issue, check out Mix’s recent op-ed in The Washington Examiner:
Imagine the outcry if McDonalds executives demanded that franchise owners collect “voluntary” contributions totaling $25,000 for the company’s Political Action Committee (PAC) from employees at every restaurant.
What if the fast food titan’s headquarters followed up with a threat – pay us, or face a $37,500 fine? Do you think this heavy-handed scheme would raise a few eyebrows at the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?
Replace “McDonalds” with “SEIU” in that description and you’ve got a pretty good idea of Big Labor’s latest political fundraising strategy. To meet their ambitious fundraising targets, Service Employees International Union bosses are now threatening to fine any local affiliate that doesn’t meet its PAC contribution requirements.
The only problem with this racket is that FEC guidelines explicitly prohibit organizations from collecting PAC funds by threatening members with financial reprisals . . .
Michigan Child Care Providers Take Their Case to the Airwaves
As we recounted earlier this month, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are fighting a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to hand over all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to government union bosses.
Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, and Carrie Schlaud, the courageous lead plaintiff of the providers’ class-action lawsuit against Granholm and the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions appeared on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends to discuss the case:
