Full Foundation Action November/December 2022 Newsletter Now Online
All articles from the November/December issue of Foundation Action are now on the website.
In this issue:
- South Jersey Bus Drivers Challenge Dues Trap Scheme in New Janus Lawsuit
- Slot Machine Technicians Appeal Outrageous Decision Denying Decertification Vote
- Worker Wins $18,000+ for Illegal Firing at IAM Union Bosses’ Behest
- Mark Mix in The Wall Street Journal: Jennifer Abruzzo’s Plan to Abolish Union Elections
- Flight Attendant Battling Religious Discrimination Beats Union Attempt to End Case
- Forced Dues For Politics: CWA Union Hit with Federal Charge by Pennsylvania Metal Worker
Recent articles can be found here. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of this page.
Disney Worker Hits UNITE HERE Union Bosses with Federal Charge for Illegal Dues Seizures
Labor Board charge: Union violated federal law by ignoring worker’s request to stop dues payments without any explanation
Orlando, FL (February 24, 2023) – Jose Alejandro Class Robles, a Disney Parks and Resorts employee in Orlando, Florida has filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against UNITE HERE Local 362 for illegally deducting dues from his paycheck. The unfair labor practice charges were filed with the NLRB Region 12 office with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Since 1943, Florida’s Right to Work protections make union membership and financial support strictly voluntary. However, rather than respect workers’ ability to decide individually whether or not to voluntary financially support the union, UNITE HERE union officials are blocking Class from exercising his rights under the law and stonewalling his request for required information regarding the dues deductions.
According to his charge, in December 2022, Class resigned his union membership and revoked the union’s authorization to deduct dues from his paycheck. That December letter also requested that, if union officials did not immediately accept his dues checkoff revocation, that the union provide him with a copy of any checkoff he may have signed within 14 days of receipt.
To date, the union has not stopped collecting dues from his wages, nor has it provided him with the requested copy of a signed checkoff authorization, which might specify when revocation is allowed. “In an all too common situation, union officials are blatantly ignoring a worker’s right to end financial support to a union just so they can fill their coffers by seizing union dues from unwilling employees,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Workers everywhere, especially in Right to Work states, should know they can turn to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid to help enforce their rights.”
Houston-Area Kroger Employee Slams UFCW Union with Federal Charges for Seizing Union Dues Using Altered Union Card
Employee objected to union membership and financial support during orientation meeting; union taking dues under guise of altered form
Houston, TX (February 21, 2023) – Cypress-area Kroger employee Jessica Haefner has just hit the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union at her workplace and her employer with federal charges. Haefner maintains that union and Kroger officials are unlawfully seizing union dues from her paycheck based on an altered union membership form that ostensibly indicates her consent to union dues deductions, even though she followed instructions on how to exercise her right to refrain from union membership and support. Haefner filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Haefner’s charges state that UFCW Local 455 union officials’ actions violate her and her coworkers’ rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which guarantees American private sector workers’ right to abstain from any and all union activities. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the NLRA.
Texas’ Right to Work protections also prohibit union officials from forcing private sector workers like Haefner to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of getting or keeping a job. In contrast, states lacking Right to Work laws permit the firing of private sector workers for refusal to pay money to a union hierarchy.
Union Form Was Altered
On August 22, 2022, Haefner attended a mandatory orientation meeting during which she was required to listen to a UFCW agent, her charges state. The UFCW agent passed out a union membership application and a dues checkoff on a single form that he claimed was mandatory for attendees to complete. Another piece of onboarding literature stated that Kroger management had the “opinion that you should participate and be active in the Union.”
When Haefner asked about how she could exercise her right to refrain from joining the union or paying union dues, the union agent instructed Haefner to write “$0” in the field marked “union dues” on the form. Texas’ Right to Work law protects Haefner’s right to abstain from union membership and dues payment.
Haefner followed these instructions, but later found out that union dues were coming out of her wages, her charges say. Haefner quickly obtained a copy of the form that Kroger and UFCW officials based their dues deductions on, and discovered that the “$0” she had written in the union dues field had been replaced with an amount of several dollars to induce dues deductions from her paycheck.
UFCW Bosses Across Country Illegally Snubbing Worker Requests to Abstain from Union Activity
UFCW’s violation of Haefner’s rights is not an isolated incident. In Pennsylvania, Foundation staff attorneys are also representing Giant Eagle supermarket cashier Josiah Leonatti, who charges UFCW Local 1776KS union officials with refusing to accommodate his religious objections to union membership. His charges say union officials tried to subject him to an illegal “religion test” before they considered granting him an accommodation.
“UFCW union officials seem to adhere to a nationwide policy of prioritizing dues revenue over employees’ free association rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Foundation attorneys have already witnessed that UFCW bosses are willing to discriminate against religious employees in the pursuit of more dues deductions, and in Ms. Haefner’s case their malfeasance may be as bad as flat out altering employee forms to deduct dues.”
“As cases brought for workers with free Foundation legal aid show, UFCW bosses have a long and documented history of violating workers’ rights, whether through thousands of dollars in illegal strike fines, illegal religious discrimination, threatening teenagers’ jobs, and now by altering a worker’s dues authorization,” Mix added.
Workers Win Cash Back in Case Challenging Illegal Discrimination for Non-Union Status
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Machinists union scheme sought to deny non-union workers’ bonuses because they opposed union association
IAM bosses regularly discriminate against dissident workers. In 2011, Foundation-assisted South Carolina Boeing employee Dennis Murray recounted how IAM officials tried to shutter his plant because workers there had voted the IAM out.
RIDGWAY, PA – Twelve nonunion factory employees at Clarion Sintered Metals, Inc., have each received $1,000 in back pay bonuses after being illegally discriminated against by International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Local 2448 and their employer. With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, factory worker James Cobaugh filed federal charges against Clarion and IAM as he sought justice for himself and other non-member workers subject to unlawful discrimination.
Mr. Cobaugh’s charges against the union and his employer were filed on April 22, 2022, with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The charges came after the union and Clarion Sintered Metals gave $1,000 bonuses to union members, but denied them to workers who exercised their legal right not to join the union. Rather than face prosecution by the NLRB, both the union and employer have now agreed to settle the case.
In addition to the non-union employees receiving the bonuses they were previously denied as a result of the illegal discrimination, both the IAM and Clarion Sintered Metals are required to post notices that inform workers of their right to refrain from joining a union. The notices also state union officials will not maintain or enforce such discriminatory agreements going forward.
Machinists Union Bosses Already Forced Non-Union Workers to Pay Dues
Because Pennsylvania lacks Right to Work protections for private sector employees, unions can force workers to pay up to 100% of union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. This means that Mr. Cobaugh, although not a formal IAM union member, can be forced to pay up to 100% of IAM’s union dues to keep his job at Clarion Sintered Metals.
Even in Right to Work states, under federal law union bosses are granted the power to impose “representation” on individual workers against their will, including forcing non-member workers under union monopoly contracts they oppose. By stripping workers of their right to bargain for their own terms and conditions of employment, individual workers by law are prohibited from negotiating for themselves with their employers for better conditions.
Forced Union Monopoly ‘Representation’ Long Used to Discriminate
Union officials frequently use these government-granted powers to harm certain workers, for example those workers who, based on their productivity, would otherwise earn performance bonuses or higher compensation. Although union officials can impose one-size-fits-all monopoly contracts that favor some workers over others, there are some limits on how union monopoly powers can be used to discriminate.
The U.S. Supreme Court imposed these limits after union officials wielded their powers to negotiate and enforce racially discriminatory contracts (Steele v. Louisville & N.R. Co. et al.). Explicitly discriminating against workers who exercise their legally protected right to not formally join a union and not be subject to internal union rules, as the IAM officials did in this case, has also long been illegal.
“This situation highlights how workers less knowledgeable of their legal rights are susceptible to blatantly illegal tactics of power-hungry union bosses,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Mr. Cobaugh courageously stood up to the union’s unlawful actions, not only for himself, but also for the other non-member workers subjected to this illegal discrimination.”
Fox Cities Essity Employee Hits Steelworkers Union with Federal Charges for Illegal Termination Threat
Longtime employee of paper products company exercised right to leave union and stop dues deductions, Steelworkers union now demands her firing
Fox Cities, WI (February 16, 2023) – Greenville, WI, resident Kerri Wenske has just filed federal charges against United Steelworkers Local 2-1279 union officials at her Essity workplace in Neenah, WI. Wenske, who has worked for decades at Essity, maintains that Steelworkers officials ordered the company to fire her after she exercised her right to end her union membership and cut off dues deductions. Wenske filed her charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Wenske argues that Steelworkers union officials are violating her rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which ensures that American private sector employees can abstain from any or all union activities. Wisconsin’s Right to Work law also forbids union officials from forcing Wisconsin workers to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment. In non-Right to Work states like neighboring Illinois, union chiefs can have workers fired for refusal to pay for union “representation” they don’t support.
Steelworkers President Hurls Termination Threat at Veteran Employee Who No Longer Supports Union
According to Wenske’s charge, she submitted a letter to Steelworkers president Bill Kilishek in early February in which she resigned her union membership and requested that all dues deductions from her paycheck stop, as is her right under the state’s Right to Work law. Because the dues deduction authorization form she signed allows for an immediate cessation of deductions upon resignation of her union membership as permitted by long-established NLRB precedent, Wenske’s resignation letter should be sufficient to end both her membership and any flow of union dues from her paycheck.
However, Kilishek told Wenske shortly after receiving her letter “that she would be terminated from her employment based on her decision to resign her union membership,” Wenske’s charge states. Afterward, a union agent from Steelworkers International even showed Wenske a copy of a letter written by the union ordering Essity to fire Wenske for resigning from the union.
“The Employer has yet to act on this request,” says Wenske’s charge.
Steelworkers Union Has Recent Streak of Employee Rights Violations
Wenske’s case is the latest in a number of recent cases in which Foundation staff attorneys have defended workers from Steelworkers union officials’ coercive practices. Just last month, metal workers at Latrobe Specialty Metals/Franklin Carpenter Technology in Franklin, PA, successfully voted Steelworkers officials out of their facility with free Foundation legal aid, after Steelworkers chiefs tried to trap workers under a contract they voted against twice. Also last month, Foundation attorneys spurred the NLRB’s prosecution of Steelworkers Local 832 for illegally seizing months of dues from Kentucky employee Melva Hernandez.
“Steelworkers union officials are continuing their nationwide campaign of punishing workers who disagree with the union’s agenda,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “That Steelworkers chiefs tried to get Ms. Wenske – a veteran Essity employee – fired merely because she no longer supports the union demonstrates just how little they care about the free choice rights of workers and winning over employee support voluntarily.”
“Essity officials should not become complicit in Steelworkers bosses’ illegal scheme, and Foundation attorneys will fight this and any further attempts to violate Ms. Wenske’s right to abstain from union activity,” Mix added.
Southwest Ohio School Employee Hits OAPSE Union with Charges for Illegally Seizing Union Dues
Union officials misled worker and ignored revocation request in attempt to deduct dues for entire school year over employee’s clear objection
Cincinnati, OH (February 10, 2023) – Southwest Public Schools employee Richard Koch has filed charges against the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4) union, telling the Ohio State Employee Relations Board (SERB) that union officials have unlawfully locked him into an entire school year of union dues deductions against his will. Staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation represent him for free.
Koch, who is not a union member, charges that OAPSE union bosses are arbitrarily restricting the time in which school employees can exercise their right to cut off union dues deductions to less than 3% of the year. He further explains that OAPSE officials continue seizing dues from any employee who misses the tiny, unilaterally-imposed “window period” to opt out of dues deductions, rather than acknowledging the request and effectuating it at the next “window period.”
Koch argues that state law prohibits OAPSE officials’ behavior, including the Ohio statute protecting public employees’ right to “refrain from forming, joining, assisting, or participating in” a union. Public employees also have a First Amendment right under the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision to refrain from paying union dues to a union they oppose.
OAPSE Union Officials Force School Employee to Pay Entire School Year’s Worth of Dues Despite Resignation
Koch sent a letter to OAPSE union officials on June 4, 2022, resigning his union membership and requesting that dues deductions from his paycheck cease. A union official replied to Koch later that month, telling him that his request to stop dues was “untimely,” but not informing him of the appropriate time in which to submit a revocation request.
After the 2022-2023 school year began, OAPSE union officials continued to take full union dues from his wages. Koch questioned school officials about why dues deductions were continuing despite his resignation. In October 2022, five months after Koch sent his resignation letter, a school administrator forwarded him an email from OAPSE representative John Horn explaining that union dues revocation requests are only accepted within a narrow 10-day window each year.
No union official informed Koch of this restriction, and at the time Koch indirectly found out about it, the “window period” (which was in August) had already passed. The union is now attempting to illegally seize dues from his paycheck for an entire school year instead of simply honoring Koch’s revocation request.
In addition to illegally restraining his right to abstain from union activities, Koch argues, OAPSE union bosses also violated Ohio law by deliberately concealing the actual dates in which he could cut off dues, and by not telling the school to stop taking dues from his paycheck, despite their knowledge of his desire to stop paying.
Foundation President: OAPSE Union Officials Value Dues Revenue Over Employees’ Rights
Koch seeks to stop all dues deductions from his paycheck, and force OAPSE union officials to return all dues seized illegally from his paycheck since he sent in his resignation letter. If Koch’s case is successful, it could set a precedent requiring Ohio union officials to honor every revocation request.
“Mr. Koch’s case shows that OAPSE union officials don’t even pretend to care about the rights of workers who disagree with them, and will readily violate those rights if it means the union can fill its coffers with more of those employees’ money,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Beyond blatantly violating Ohio law, OAPSE union officials are also ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s First Amendment command in the Janus v. AFSCME decision that union officials can only take union dues from workers who have affirmatively consented to support the union.”
Foundation attorneys scored a significant victory for Ohio public servants’ Janus rights in a 2020 lawsuit against another Ohio AFSCME affiliate, Council 11. Rather than face off against Foundation attorneys, those AFSCME union officials backed down and settled the case. As a result, Foundation attorneys freed almost 30,000 Ohio public employees from a “maintenance of membership” scheme that limited the exercise of Janus rights to roughly once every three years.
Foundation Attorneys & PA Metal Workers Fight Steelworkers Union Contract Deception
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union bosses lied to metal workers and covertly signed forced-dues contract to keep grip on power
In NLRB documents, Steelworkers union officials openly defended their deception of employees, calling such behavior “irrelevant” to whether they should remain in power.
FRANKLIN, PA – Workers under the thumb of union bosses have many reasons to oppose the union’s “representation.” It could be they oppose a bad contract the union negotiated, or maybe it is the union’s divisive political activity for candidates they oppose. Whatever the reason, workers have a right under federal labor law to vote to free themselves of such unwanted union “representation.”
But federal labor law also has no shortage of workarounds for union bosses bent on clinging to their monopoly bargaining power over workers. Kerry Hunsberger and her coworkers at Latrobe Specialty Steel’s Franklin, PA, facility are currently defending their right to throw out unpopular Steelworkers union officials, after the union chiefs secretly signed a contract workers had voted down twice.
Steelworkers Officials Tried to Dodge Employee Accountability
Steelworkers chiefs did so to activate a so-called “contract bar” and remain in power at the plant when they knew a decertification election was coming. Steelworkers officials held two ratification votes to make workers think they had control over whether the contract went into effect. But in reality, union officials have no legal obligation under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute that governs private sector labor relations, to even conduct such a ratification vote, much less heed the workers’ actual vote tally.
The pro-union boss National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) created out of whole cloth the “contract bar” policy. It immunizes union officials from employee-backed attempts to vote out a union for up to three years after union bosses and management finalize a contract — even a contract that isn’t supported by a majority of workers.
Hunsberger’s petition asking the NLRB to hold a vote to remove the union contains the requisite number of signatures under NLRB rules, but union officials argue the “contract bar” should block the election anyway.
Union Bosses Ignored Two Votes by Workers Rejecting Forced-Dues Contract
The Latrobe Specialty Steel workers first voted July 25 on the contract drawn up by Steelworkers union officials. The workers soundly rejected the contract, and Hunsberger began collecting employee signatures for a decertification petition shortly afterwards.
According to documents and transcripts filed with the NLRB, when Steelworkers union officials discovered a decertification petition was circulating, they secretly and hurriedly signed the unpopular contract on July 28, without telling the employees or the employer, in an attempt to activate the “contract bar” rule and avoid being voted out.
The slapdash contract lacked basic In NLRB documents, Steelworkers union officials openly defended their deception of employees, calling such behavior “irrelevant” to whether they should remain in power. elements, like start and end dates. Even though the union now claims this contract was immediately in effect on July 28, union officials held a new employee ratification vote on August 1, encouraging workers to “ratify” the contract. But the union bosses never told the workers their “vote” was a meaningless sham because union officials had already signed the forced-dues contract in secret.
Hunsberger’s decertification petition was filed at 2:00 PM on August 1, just hours before the sham contract vote occurred. As with the previous vote, the workers rejected the contract by a lopsided margin. But later that night, at around 9:00 PM, union officials suddenly announced to the employer that the contract was already in effect and the employee ratification “vote” was irrelevant because of the union bosses’ covert signing on July 28.
In sworn testimony, one union boss admitted that Steelworkers union bosses execute contracts despite employees voting them down, and that union officials deceived the Latrobe workers and ignored their votes in this case “to protect the integrity of the union.” Apparently the Steelworkers bosses’ lust for monopoly bargaining power and compulsory union payments takes precedence over the actual wishes of the rank-and-file workers union officials purport to “represent.”
‘Contract Bar’ Encourages Unions to Force Through Unpopular Contracts
“Steelworkers union bosses drew up a contract that my coworkers and I hated, so naturally we wanted them out of our workplace and out of our pocketbooks. But to add insult to injury, they apparently didn’t even think they owed us a duty of honesty,” said Hunsberger.
“This entire ordeal has been incredibly frustrating and we are grateful for the help of the National Right to Work Foundation in defending our right to vote the union out.”
Kerry Hunsberger’s Foundationbacked brief defending her and her coworkers’ rights states that the Steelworkers’ contract ploy is “nothing more than a smokescreen, concocted by a desperate and unpopular union to entrench itself and bar employee free choice” under federal law.
“The ‘contract bar’ arbitrarily blocks, often for years, workers’ statutory right under federal law to vote out union officials they oppose. Worse, it encourages union officials to cynically impose a contract at all costs, especially when union bosses know rank-and-file workers would see such a contract as a reason to get rid of so-called union ‘representation,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “This case presents an easy choice for the NLRB: defend the rights of rank-and-file workers, or side with Steelworkers union officials, who repeatedly misled those workers and disregarded their votes simply to protect union power. The case also demonstrates that there is no such thing as ‘union democracy’ in America.”
National Right to Work Foundation Submits Comments Blasting Biden NLRB’s Rule to Trap Workers in Unions They Oppose
Biden National Labor Relations Board plans to overturn Election Protection Rule, undermining workers’ statutory right to vote whether to remove unpopular unions
Washington, DC (February 3, 2023) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has just submitted comments opposing the Biden National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposed rule to re-impose several onerous restrictions on workers. The rule is designed to, once again, trap private sector workers under the so-called “representation” of a union opposed by a majority of employees in a workplace.
The slated rule changes will overturn the Election Protection Rule, which the NLRB adopted in 2020 after the Foundation advocated for the elimination of several non-statutory policies that union officials often manipulate to avoid being voted out of a workplace by employees. The current comments opposing the changes rely on the Foundation’s unique perspective as the leading organization providing free legal aid to private-sector workers who face obstacles to exercising their right to vote on whether to remove an incumbent union (known as “decertification” elections).
“The Foundation is uniquely situated to comment on and oppose these rules, as its staff attorneys have represented individual decertification petitioners in many of the leading cases in this area of the law,” the comments say. “Foundation lawyers provide pro bono representation in a large percentage of the Board’s current decertification cases. To take just one recent snapshot, Foundation staff attorneys represent approximately 50% of the employees who filed decertification petitions in the month of December 2022.”
Biden NLRB Rule Change Will Let Union Officials Use “Blocking Charges” to Delay Elections
The Foundation’s comments explain that, if the Election Protection Rule is tossed, union officials will again be able to exploit often-unproven allegations of employer behavior to cancel employee-requested union decertification votes. Prior to the 2020 reforms, union officials could often stall a decertification vote for months or even years by filing so-called “blocking charges.”
The 2020 Election Protection Rule overturned the “blocking charge” policy, so workers now are allowed in most cases to cast ballots in a decertification vote before the NLRB deals with any allegations surrounding the election. If the Rule is jettisoned, workers would be blocked from even voting, let alone having their votes counted, any time union officials conjure up claims of workplace malfeasance.
“The bottom line is this: the former blocking charge policy incentivized [union officials] to file meritless or even frivolous unfair labor practice charges because they know the election will be delayed,” the comments say.
Foundation staff attorneys have provided legal assistance to many workers faced with “blocking charges.” Notably, the Foundation assisted a group of Alaskan bus drivers who were freed in December 2019 from an unpopular Teamsters union after three years of attempts to remove it. One employee in that situation commented to the NLRB shortly before the adoption of the Election Protection Rule that the NLRB’s continued blocking of the election based on the Teamsters’ unfair labor practice charges was “the most unfair and anti-democratic event” with which he had ever been involved.
Abuse-Prone “Card Check” Drives Likely to Become Irrebuttable
The Biden NLRB’s slated elimination of the Election Protection Rule will also block workers from filing for secret-ballot decertification elections to challenge so-called “card check” drives. A “card check” is a process in which union officials claim majority support among employees in a workplace based solely on authorization cards signed by employees and submitted by union officials, bypassing the election process entirely. The cards’ indication of true majority status is dubious as union agents may collect them directly from workers and often use threatening or intimidating tactics to do so.
The Election Protection Rule added a check to the misnamed “voluntary recognition bar,” a non-statutory policy that blocked workers from filing for a secret-ballot decertification election for a year after a union was installed via “card check.” The Election Protection Rule instead provided workers the ability to challenge a “card check” by petitioning for a secret-ballot vote, a theory first espoused in the Foundation-won 2007 Dana Corp. NLRB decision. If the Election Protection Rule is scrapped, the “voluntary recognition bar” would return.
Barring worker-submitted union decertification petitions “only shields what may well be a minority union from challenge” and “destroys employees’ [statutory] rights,” the comments assert.
Construction Workers Could Be Unionized with No Evidence of Majority Support
The comments finally warn that, if the Election Protection Rule is removed, construction workers would be exposed to unilateral attempts by union bosses and employers to impose union monopoly power with absolutely no evidence of majority employee support. The comments explain that these arrangements defy federal labor law and lay waste to employee free choice rights: “To cavalierly defer to unproven employer and labor organization assertions concerning employees’ exercise of their rights is akin to a farmer putting two foxes in charge of guarding his henhouse.”
Foundation staff attorneys represented a victim of such a scheme in Colorado Fire Sprinkler, Inc., a case that ended when a U.S. DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled that the company’s workers were unlawfully unionized despite no evidence of majority employee support for the union.
“The move to eliminate the Election Protection Rule will re-impose arbitrary policies that trample workers’ rights and allow union bosses to maintain power despite the overwhelming opposition of rank-and-file workers,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Biden NLRB, now stocked with former union lawyers, is putting on full display that its priorities lie with top DC union brass, not rank-and-file American workers.”
Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Kentucky Steelworkers Union for Threatening, Seizing Money from Northern KY Worker
Former Duro Hilex Poly employee filed charges against union and employer in 2022, National Labor Relations Board complaints affirm employee allegations
Erlanger, KY (January 31, 2023) – Melva Hernandez, a former employee of paper bag manufacturer Duro Hilex Poly in Erlanger, KY, has scored a victory in her federal case charging United Steelworkers (USW) Local 832 union officials and her employer with taking dues money from her paycheck illegally. Hernandez is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.
In response to federal charges Hernandez filed in July 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has begun prosecuting the USW union. A complaint issued January 25 by the NLRB asserts union officials violated federal labor law by seizing money from Hernandez’s paycheck after she ended her union membership, and by threatening her after she told other employees about how to exercise their right to resign from the union.
Hernandez’s July 2022 charges also contended that “escape period” limitations USW officials used to restrict when workers could end dues deductions are not enforceable under federal law.
In Kentucky and 26 other states with Right to Work protections, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary and the choice of each individual worker. In states lacking such protections, union bosses can demand that workers under their control pay union “fees” as a condition of keeping their jobs. The Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet Secretary could decide to separately prosecute the USW union for breaching Kentucky’s Right to Work law.
Union Officials Forced Duro Employee into Membership & Dues Payment, Sought to Ban Speech Critical of Union
Hernandez worked at Duro Hilex Poly from 2011 until 2022. Her July 2022 charge explained that she first submitted a letter to union officials in August 2021 exercising her right to end her union membership and all dues deductions to the union. A union agent rejected her request, alleging that it would only be accepted within a so-called “escape period” created by union officials.
The complaint says Hernandez resubmitted her request in April 2022 on a date falling within the union-concocted “escape period,” only to be redirected by union agents to USW Local 832 President Tara Purnhagen.
After Hernandez tendered her resignation to Purnhagen, “Ms. Purnhagen scolded and harassed me, accusing me of trying to convince my fellow co-workers to drop their union memberships,” Hernandez’s charges say. Purnhagen also forbade Hernandez from discussing with her coworkers reasons to refrain from union membership. Until Hernandez quit her job at Duro Hilex Poly, USW officials continued taking money unlawfully from her paycheck.
Her charges argued that union officials’ actions infringed on her rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protects the right of workers to abstain from union activities if they choose, and not be retaliated against by union officials for exercising or advocating that right.
NLRB Complaint States Union Committed Multiple Rights Violations
The NLRB’s complaint affirms that USW union officials broke federal labor law by taking dues from her paycheck “notwithstanding the absence of an employee authorization for the deductions and remittance,” and by threatening Hernandez and other employees who exercised their right to leave the union or talked about doing so.
However, on the dues deduction issue, the NLRB’s complaint only seeks to prosecute USW bosses for money seized from Hernandez’s paycheck after she opted out of the union the second time, within the union’s so-called “escape period.” Hernandez filed an appeal to the NLRB in Washington, DC, contending that her first attempt should have stopped the flow of dues, because the restriction is unenforceable.
“It’s outrageous that the only way Ms. Hernandez could escape the predatory dues practices of Steelworkers union officials was to quit and find another job entirely,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Although it’s encouraging that the NLRB is finally taking action against Steelworkers officials’ patently illegal behavior, rank-and-file workers should not have to file federal cases, let alone quit their jobs, simply to preserve their freedom of association.”
