United Steelworkers Face Unfair Labor Practice Charges for Illegal Dues Objection Procedure
Morgantown, WV (November 17, 2008) – National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the United Steelworkers national union for two Morgantown workers for its illegal scheme to coerce them to pay full union dues.
Chemtura Corporation employs approximately 80 workers at its Morgantown factory who are “represented” by the USW. Because West Virginia is not a Right to Work state, nonmembers are forced to pay certain compulsory fees to the union, but only for activities which union bosses can prove are related to collective bargaining. Previous Foundation-won litigation has established that workers have the right to refuse formal union membership and that union officials may not charge nonmembers for activities like political activism, organizing, and member-only events.
The USW forces David Yost, Ronald EchegarAy, and other similarly situated Chemtura employees to renew their objections to payment of full union dues in a 30-day window period each year. Nonmembers who do not annually renew their previous objections are suddenly assumed to be “non-objectors” and against their will and without their consent are compelled to pay full union dues or lose their jobs.
In contrast, union officials do not need to get new consents each year from union members, re-establishing that they want to remain members and continue to pay dues through payroll deduction. As the charges explain, the USW’s policy is discriminatory and “solely designed to burden objecting nonmembers.”
With its arbitrary “Nonmember Objection Procedure,” the USW has violated its duty to represent fairly nonmembers in good faith. Moreover, federal labor law does not grant certified unions the authority to convert nonmembers into “non-objectors” without their consent.
In June, Yost sent a letter to USW union bosses asserting his procedural rights under Communication Workers of America v. Beck and related cases. The Supreme Court has held that unions must provide nonmembers a statement breaking down the union’s expenditures, verified by an independent auditor, and the opportunity to challenge the basis of the fee. In his letter, Yost declared his intent to file unfair labor practice charges if the union did not consider his objection permanent and continuing. Echegary sent a similar letter in August, before his objection was to expire. In both instances, a USW lawyer replied that the employee would need to re-object each year.
“It is unbelievable that United Steelworkers union bosses expect nonmembers to follow these arbitrary and illegal union procedures,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.
Should Congress Force Taxpayers to Bail Out the UAW Bosses??
Over the last couple of days, the media has devoted considerable print and airtime to a proposed bailout of the so-called Big Three — the Detroit-based car giants GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
"Big Labor Three" is more like it.
What really separates the Detroit automakers from the "foreign" automakers (who also make hundreds of thousands of cars in the U.S.) is compulsory unionism. Foreign manufacturers like Toyota, Honda and Nissan have U.S. plants that are free from monopoly bargaining, and they produce cars largely in Right to Work states, where forced dues are prohibited.
Some of the bailout coverage has addressed the destructive effects of the United Auto Workers union’s monopoly bargaining privileges (who can forget the $31/hour paid to over 12,000 UAW members to do crossword puzzles?) which have run these once-great companies into the ground and costing tens of thousands of jobs.
While the proposal is, at a minimum, an indirect bailout of the UAW and forced unionism in general, it appears the union bosses have a direct bailout in mind as well. The Washington Post explains,
The $25 billion would come on top of $25 billion in low-interest loans Congress approved in September for the car companies to retool factories to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. And the United Auto Workers plans to press next year for an additional $15 billion in public funds to cover the first payment the three companies are due to make into a new independent entity that will fund retiree pensions and health benefits.
After the UAW’s two-day strike against GM last year led to the creation of union-administered trusts to handle health and pension obligations to union retirees, CNN noted this amazing statistic:
Today, the number of UAW retirees and surviving spouses collecting benefits from the big three automakers – about 540,000 – outnumbers active members working at the three automakers by three to one.
If this sounds like a pyramid scheme, don’t be surprised to learn that this is exactly where the bailout money — tens of billions of taxpayer dollars — will be going. The Big Three simply won’t be able to afford payments to the union-boss-run trusts, and now they want all Americans to pay for them.
What has sadly gone unreported in this fiasco is the nature of union-administred trust funds. The National Right to Work Foundation has previously revealed the lack of accountability in union pensions, which have often been used by union bosses as slush funds. As we told you last month, despite new federal reporting requirements, union and trust fund officials can choose to hide any trust expenditures they wish from their members. Can we really expect the new administration to ensure that union trusts aren’t misusing their funds?
It seems unlikely that Americans will tolerate a bailout of the UAW bosses.
Houston Nurses Derail Union Sham Election
In another egregious example of Top Down union organizing, California Nurse Association (CNA) union officials and Tenet Medical Corporation attempted to corral unwilling nurses into union ranks by agreeing to forgo federal supervision during unionization elections.
With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, several nurses filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Now we learn that the NLRB has decided to put the sham "elections" on hold pending an official investigation into the charges. Here’s an excerpt from the Foundation’s press release:
Federal labor prosecutors have blocked a so-called “consent election” sought by the Tenet Healthcare Corporation and the California Nurses Association (CNA) while the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) conducts an inquiry into the legality of a secret backroom deal entered into by Tenet and CNA officials.
The National Labor Relations Board’s Regional Director heeded the wishes of Houston-area nurses who filed unfair labor practice charges against Tenet and the CNA with assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation. The scheduled “consent election” would have determined whether the CNA became the monopoly bargaining agent of nurses at the Houston Northwest Medical Center.
For more on top-down organizing, check out the Foundation’s webpage on the subject.
Tenet Nurses’ Unfair Labor Practice Charges Derail Union Officials’ Sham Election
Houston, Texas (November 11, 2008) – Federal labor prosecutors have blocked a so-called “consent election” sought by the Tenet Healthcare Corporation and the California Nurses Association (CNA) while the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) conducts an inquiry into the legality of a secret backroom deal entered into by Tenet and CNA officials.
The National Labor Relations Board’s Regional Director heeded the wishes of Houston-area nurses who filed unfair labor practice charges against Tenet and the CNA with assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation. The scheduled “consent election” would have determined whether the CNA became the monopoly bargaining agent of nurses at the Houston Northwest Medical Center.
Esther Marissa Cuellar, a nurse at Tenet’s Cypress Fairbanks location, and Linda D. Bertrand, a nurse at Tenet’s Park Plaza Medical Center, filed the charges on August 12 with the National Labor Relations Board in Fort Worth. The charges allege that an “Election Procedures Arrangement” Tenet and the CNA secretly agreed to violates employees’ rights.
The nurses’ charges detail how the agreement, signed by Tenet and CNA officials, subverts the NLRB’s role in supervising union certification elections and bypasses critical employee protections. The agreement calls for the NLRB merely to count ballots and “certify” the union without providing oversight for the actual process.
Tenet is also charged with providing unlawful assistance to CNA union organizers and discriminating against nurses opposed to unionization. Tenet managers were forbidden from answering workers’ questions about unionization, and employees who opposed a union presence in the workplace were prevented from using company facilities to express their views. CNA organizers, on the other hand, were given wide-ranging access to company grounds to facilitate unionization.
“California union militants, with the assistance of complicit Tenet officials, are attempting to corral unwilling nurses across the state of Texas into union ranks.” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “If similar agreements elsewhere are any indication, CNA may have sold out employees’ interests to become Tenet’s favored union. We’re pleased that the NLRB stepped up to investigate the matter before proceeding with more of these sham consent elections.”
The NLRB’s decision places the “consent election” on indefinite hold pending the outcome of the unfair labor practice charges.
“Streamlining” Union Intimidation
Last week, blogger Clayton Cramer gave his take on why Big Labor bosses would want to wipe out secret ballot elections from the American workplace. His account includes some telling examples of union boss intimidation:
I am more inclined to suspect that a lot of people sign the union authorization cards because they are either strongly encouraged or even directly threatened to do so. Labor unions are fundamentally institutions of organized violence. A friend who has since passed on left me this account of working in a union shop in California during World War II (when the federal government leaned pretty heavily on employers to accept unions):
Our next problem was that after three months on the job, workers were required to join the paper workers union. Those who did not received disfiguring beatings after hours. Having seen what happened to another girl in same position as Wanda and I, we decided that rather than face the same treatment we would quit our jobs before the three months ended.
I remember being quite young and surprised that my father was home during the day. He explained that his union, the Boilermakers/Blacksmiths, had gone on strike. "Can’t you go to work anyway?"
"Not if you want to live."
And unfortunately, this wasn’t just his imagination. There’s a fascinating decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. v. Enmons (1973), that held that the Hobbs Act that "makes it a federal crime to obstruct interstate commerce by robbery or extortion" did not apply to labor unions engaged in destroying power company transformers with rifles and explosives because such use of violence did not qualify as extortion.
Extortion means that you are getting something that you don’t have a right to get–while higher wages obtained through such violence was a legitimate union bargaining tactic. The Court may have actually come to the right conclusion, based on the legal definition of extortion and the legislative intent of the Hobbs Act–but it does show you something of how labor unions get things done.I had a friend in California who grew up in Michigan. His father was a UAW local official. He remembered vividly being in a coffee shop with his family one day. The guy in the next booth made some remark to a companion that was uncomplimentary to the union–and my friend’s father instinctively swung his coffee mug around and shattered it on this guy’s jaw.
There’s a long and ugly, bloody, deadly history of corporations and labor unions fighting it out in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There’s plenty of evil that was done by both sides. But this is not the situation today–not even close. Labor violence today is almost entirely by labor unions. I can easily believe that the reason that the AFL-CIO wants to "streamline" the process is that they are intimidating workers into signing authorization cards–and don’t dare risk a secret ballot.
Well said.
To learn more on how union organizers mislead workers into signing away their rights and to view an appalling example of an actual "authorization card" used by Teamster union organizers to deceive employees into compulsory unionism, click here: Spotlight on "Card Check" Deception.
Special Right to Work Podcast: Election Aftermath and the Looming Union Assault on Our Freedoms
In this special episode of the National Right to Work Podcast, National Right to Work Committee and Foundation President Mark Mix tells host Stefan Gleason about the ramifications of the power-shifting election.
New Right to Work Podcast: Compulsory Unionism and Public Education
In the latest episode, Foundation VP Stefan Gleason sits down with Matt Brouillette of the Pennsylvania-based Commonwealth Foundation to discuss the compulsory unionism stranglehold over much of America’s educational system. Check it out:
You can listen to the entirety of The Commonwealth Foundation’s radio program here.
You can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.
[Note: Some Firefox users have reported some audio distortion when using the player above. To ensure the podcast plays correctly just click here to listen.]
Worker Seeks Injunction to Prevent Unwanted Union from Acquiring Confidential Personal Information
This week, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida challenging the quid pro quo between Mardi Gras Gaming and UNITE HERE Local 355 union bosses:
Boca Raton, Florida (November 6, 2008) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, an employee at a Mardi Gras Gaming facility has filed a federal lawsuit to prevent UNITE HERE Local 355 union officials from obtaining illegal assistance in pressuring workers to unionize – including possession of workers’ personal addresses and other private information.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that union officials violated the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) by entering into an agreement with Mardi Gras Gaming that allows the union access to information about nonunion employees, use of the employer’s property for organizing, and control over the employer’s communications with workers. The LMRA expressly forbids employers from giving “any money or other thing of value” to unions.
The LMRA’s prohibition on transfers of things of value from employers to unions is intended to prevent deals that induce union officials to place their own interests or the interests of employers above the workers themselves.
Read the rest of the Foundation’s press release here.
Worker Seeks Injunction to Prevent Unwanted Union from Acquiring Confidential Personal Information
Boca Raton, Florida (November 6, 2008) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, an employee at a Mardi Gras Gaming facility has filed a federal lawsuit to prevent UNITE HERE Local 355 union officials from obtaining illegal assistance in pressuring workers to unionize – including possession of workers’ personal addresses and other private information.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that union officials violated the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) by entering into an agreement with Mardi Gras Gaming that allows the union access to information about nonunion employees, use of the employer’s property for organizing, and control over the employer’s communications with workers. The LMRA expressly forbids employers from giving “any money or other thing of value” to unions.
The LMRA’s prohibition on transfers of things of value from employers to unions is intended to prevent deals that induce union officials to place their own interests or the interests of employers above the workers themselves.
The Mardi Gras Gaming facility is not yet unionized, but in August of 2004, management entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with Local 355. In return for a union guarantee not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility, Mardi Gras Gaming agreed to hand over employees’ personal contact information – including home addresses – to union organizers, grant union officials access to Mardi Gras facilities for the purpose of organizing, and to refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether its employees actually want to unionize. This quid pro quo arrangement is of substantial monetary value to Local 355, as it would dramatically reduce the cost of successfully unionizing workers at the Mardi Gras facility.
Such so-called “neutrality agreements” between companies and unions give union organizers license to browbeat and intimidate workers into acceding to unionization. Armed with employees’ home addresses and access to company facilities, union officials frequently harass workers on and off the job until they agree to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization. In other Foundation-assisted cases, employees have testified to and documented the pressure, bribery, and outright fraud union organizers use to obtain signed authorization cards.
“UNITE HERE bosses made a secret deal to force Mardi Gras workers into the union whether they like it or not,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We intend to shut down this major violation of federal law and employee freedom.”
Foundation Action: Supreme Court Justices Hammer Union Lawyers During Oral Arguments
The cover story of the hot-off-the-press November-December issue of Foundation Action recaps the exciting oral arguments of the Foundation’s Locke v. Karass case, which was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in early October.
Read the whole story here (pdf) and sign up today for a free print subscription.
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