Kentucky Worker Hits Teamsters Union Bosses with Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Union Dues
Georgia Pacific worker sent multiple letters to stop all payments as allowed by Right to Work law, but Teamsters continued dues collections
Lexington, KY (April 7, 2022) – Pam Ankeny, an employee in the printing department for Georgia Pacific, has filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 651 union. Ankeny’s charges, which were filed with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, say that Teamsters union bosses illegally collected union dues after she submitted two letters of revocation.
In July of 2021, Ankeny submitted a resignation and dues check-off revocation letter to union officials. The union responded two weeks later by claiming that Ankeny had missed her “window period” for dues check-off revocation.
In response, Ankeny submitted a second letter in August again reiterating her resignation and check-off revocation. She further requested a copy of the authorization union officials were using to block her request. The union acknowledged that Ankeny’s letter constituted a valid check-off revocation and indicated it would stop dues deductions. However, it failed to provide Ankeny with the requested authorization.
Despite the union acknowledging her valid August 2021 check-off revocation, beginning in January 2022 dues deductions resumed without Ankeny’s authorization and have continued as of the filing of her charges. In addition to the charge against the union, a charge was filed against Georgia Pacific for making the illegal dues deductions.
The charges allege that both practices are unlawful under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which safeguards private sector employees’ right to abstain from any or all union activities. Further, in the 27 states with Right to Work protections, including Kentucky, union membership and dues payments are strictly voluntary.
“While Kentucky’s Right to Work law protects workers from being fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees, unless workers are vigilant, unscrupulous union bosses will still attempt to stuff their pockets with illegal forced dues,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Any worker subjected to illegal union dues seizures should not hesitate to reach out to the National Right to Work Foundation for free assistance in exercising their legal rights to cut off dues payments.”
CEA Union Officials Back Down after Plainville Community School District Teacher Exercises Right to Cut Off Dues
Union officials tried to limit educator’s First Amendment right to abstain from union financial support to arbitrary “escape period”
Hartford, CT (April 4, 2022) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Plainville Community School District educator Christina Corvello successfully exercised her First Amendment right to stop subsidizing the activities of a union she opposes.
Despite Connecticut Education Association (CEA) union officials trying to restrict the exercise of her right to a narrow span of days several months away known as an “escape period,” Corvello was able to opt-out of the union before the “escape period” and is no longer paying dues to the CEA hierarchy.
Corvello invoked her rights under the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, in which the Justices recognized that no public worker can be forced to pay union dues as a condition of getting or keeping a job. The High Court in Janus also ruled it a First Amendment violation to seize dues from a public employee’s paycheck without his or her affirmative consent.
Educator Believed Union Policies Were Detrimental, but Union Officials Tried to Force Her to Pay Dues
Corvello grew dissatisfied with CEA officials’ policies, including COVID-19 restrictions promoted by union officials, which she believed worked against the interests of students and teachers. When Corvello tried to raise concerns regarding these issues, union officials disregarded her and treated her with disrespect. After union officials ignored her pleas for support and change, Corvello decided to end her union membership and terminate dues deductions.
With guidance from Foundation attorneys, in November 2021 she began sending messages — through email and certified mail — to both union and school officials. In her correspondence, she tried to exit the union and stop dues deductions based on her First Amendment rights recognized in Janus. But the CEA denied her requests to stop funding the union. CEA bosses stated that she could only stop payments yearly during August. Corvello, however, remained undeterred. She continued to ask the union to stop taking her money.
After trying for five months to leave the union and stop funding it, CEA union officials finally backed down in March 2022 after Corvello contacted Foundation attorneys. Dues deductions then stopped.
Battle by Public Servants to Knock Down Union Boss-Invented Janus Restrictions Continues
Corvello’s victory comes at a time when union bosses across the country are trying to defend schemes they use to undermine public sector workers’ Janus rights, including so-called “maintenance of membership” provisions. In a Foundation-backed case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Savas v. California Statewide Law Enforcement Agency (CSLEA), several California lifeguards are challenging CSLEA union officials’ continued dues seizures from the lifeguards’ paychecks even after they ended their union memberships.
Union bosses alleged that the lifeguards had agreed to “maintenance of membership” language in their contracts that trapped them in union ranks for almost four years after they tried to resign. The contracts did not inform the lifeguards that they were waiving their First Amendment right under Janus to abstain from union financial support for that period of time.
“Even after Janus, public sector union officials routinely trample the First Amendment rights of workers they claim to ‘represent’ in order to fill their coffers with coerced union dues and fees,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Such malfeasance often includes limiting these rights to a phony, narrow ‘escape period,’ not informing workers of when they are waiving Janus rights, and not even telling workers that they have these rights in the first place.”
“American public sector workers should know that they can’t be forced to subsidize or associate with a union of which they disapprove. The National Right to Work Foundation is proud to serve as a resource for information on workers’ rights and to provide free legal representation to workers when union officials refuse to comply with Janus,” Mix added.
National Right to Work Foundation in the Detroit News: Big Labor’s Latest Attack on Michigan Right to Work
A recent op-ed from National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix in the Detroit News discusses union bosses never-ending attempts to overturn or undermine Michigan’s Right To Work protections for workers.
The article explains how union officials wield their monopoly power against workers in the union-controlled “grievance process” and why the Foundation recently filed an amicus brief in a case currently at the Michigan Supreme Court in which union officials are attempting to circumvent Right to Work:
Courts have long recognized that, in unionized workplaces, union kingpins effectively own the process through which workplace grievances regarding alleged misapplications or misinterpretations of company policies are handled.
Five-and-a-half decades ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan’s majority opinion in NLRB v. Allis Chalmers bluntly acknowledged that America’s national labor policy “extinguishes the individual employee’s power to order his own relations with his employer,” while “clothing” union bosses with monopoly-bargaining power.
And Justice Thurgood Marshall’s 1975 Emporium Capwell opinion resoundingly affirmed that a union controls all grievances under “exclusive” union bargaining, notwithstanding any employee attempts to redress grievances independently.
Their ironclad control over employee grievances is undoubtedly a boon for union bosses. Two current federal lawsuits filed by Michigan workers against United Auto Workers union bosses and Fiat Chrysler executives vividly illustrate why.
In one of these cases, 42 current and former employees of FCA (now known as Stellantis) charge that they were cheated out of wages and benefits they were promised by UAW bosses when their pay was cut from $28 an hour to $16 an hour after they switched from part-time to full-time jobs.
When the workers complained about the pay cut, local UAW bosses allegedly promised to file grievances on their behalf — but never did.
In the other case, 47 current and former engineers allege that FCA violated the union contract when it transferred them from a facility in Auburn Hills to another one in Trenton. Grievances they filed regarding the matter were mishandled or withdrawn without explanation by the UAW brass.
As outrageous as UAW bosses’ failure to follow up adequately on workers’ grievances in these two cases may seem to ordinary citizens, the fact is that federal law permits union bosses with monopoly-bargaining power to refuse to advance workers’ legitimate grievances simply because they don’t think it’s in the interest of the union to do so.
[…]
But even this extraordinarily privileged status isn’t enough to satisfy government union officials in Michigan. In Technical, Professional, and Officeworkers Association of MI v. Daniel Renner, a case now pending before the Michigan Supreme Court, they are brazenly contending they may vindictively refuse to process the grievances of union nonmembers to punish them for not joining and bankrolling the union, even when the union contract prohibits the individual employee from filing grievances on his or her own behalf.
Though union lawyers’ outrageous claims in Renner’s case have already been rejected at the Michigan Employment Relations Commission and at the State of Michigan Court of Appeals, there is no guarantee they will be dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court.
That’s why the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed a brief Friday in the case defending Daniel Renner’s rights under Michigan’s right-to-work law.
The Michigan Supreme Court must reject this cynical attack on Wolverine State workers’ legal protections against being forced to fund a union they disapprove of.
Read the entire article on the Detroit News website.
More details on the case and the Foundation’s brief can be found here. Read the brief here (PDF).
National Right to Work Foundation Issues Special Legal Notice for California Grocery Workers Impacted by UFCW Strike Threat
Strike would affect over 47,000 workers at Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions, and Ralphs, but employees have right to rebuff union boss strike demand
Los Angeles, CA (March 31, 2022) – Today, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation issued a special legal notice for workers potentially affected by a strike being threatened by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials at Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions, and Ralphs grocery store locations in Southern California.
According to news reports, the UFCW is preparing to order a strike against Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions, and Ralphs grocery stores, impacting over 47,000 employees. The Foundation’s legal notice informs these affected workers of the rights union officials often hide, including that the workers have the right to continue to work to support their families.
Importantly, the notice gives workers who want to exercise their right to work information on how to avoid fines and punishment that would likely be imposed by union officials.
“The situation raises serious concerns for employees who believe there is much to lose from a union-ordered strike,” the legal notice reads. “That is why workers confronted with strike demands frequently contact the Foundation to learn how they can avoid fines and other union imposed discipline for working during a strike to support themselves and their families.”
The Foundation’s special legal notice highlights workers’ rights to resign union membership and to revoke their union dues check-offs. The notice also provides helpful information for removing unaccountable union officials from a workplace by using a decertification petition to obtain a secret ballot vote whether to remove the union.
The National Right to Work Foundation is the nation’s premier organization exclusively dedicated to providing free legal assistance to employee victims of forced unionism abuse. The full notice can be found at https://www.nrtw.org/ufcw-ca/
“Despite what union officials may tell workers or try to pressure them into doing, workers always have the right to continue to work during a strike. However to do so, there are important steps they should follow to defend themselves from vindictive union retaliation,” National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix said. “For decades, the Foundation has provided free legal aid to workers to protect them from Big Labor’s coercive tactics, which are especially common during union boss-instigated strikes.”
Court Rejects Union Attempt to Dismiss Cuyahoga County Officer’s First Amendment Challenge to Police Union Dues Deductions
Union officials took full union dues from nonmember officer without consent, then ignored requests to return illegally-seized money
Cleveland, OH (March 31, 2022) – Cuyahoga County probation officer Kimberlee Warren has just defeated an attempt by Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) union officials to shut down her case asserting that union officials violated her First Amendment right to opt out of union membership and financial support.
With free legal representation from attorneys with the National Right to Work Foundation and The Buckeye Institute, Warren contends that FOP union officials ignored her constitutional rights recognized in the landmark 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision.
A Northern Ohio District Court judge just rejected FOP lawyers’ attempt to have the case dismissed on the grounds that Warren has no constitutional claim under federal law because, according to union lawyers, the union was not a “state actor” in jointly participating with the state to illegally take money from her paycheck. The judge instead ruled that “Warren has sufficiently pleaded that the FOP acted under color of state law when it continued to collect union fees from Warren’s wages post-Janus.”
With the union lawyers’ motion to dismiss denied, Warren’s case will now continue. Her lawsuit seeks not only the return of all monies that FOP union officials took from her paycheck for more than two years after the Janus decision was handed down, but also punitive damages because FOP showed “reckless, callous” indifference toward her First Amendment rights by repeatedly ignoring her requests to reclaim illegally taken fees.
Union Officials Refused to Return Dues Seized in Violation of First Amendment
In Janus, which was argued and won by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, the Justices declared it a First Amendment violation to force any public sector employee to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping his or her job. The Court also ruled that public employers and unions cannot take union dues or fees from a public sector employee unless they obtain that employee’s affirmative consent.
The federal lawsuit says that Warren was not a member of the FOP union before the Janus decision in June 2018, and never signed an authorization for the deduction of union dues or fees from her wages. However, FOP union bosses collected fees and later full union dues from her wages anyway without her consent.
According to the complaint, deductions continued into December of 2020, even after Warren notified union officials that they were violating her First Amendment rights by taking the money and after she demanded that the union stop the coerced deductions and return all money taken from her paycheck since the Janus decision.
When the deductions finally ended, FOP chiefs refused to return the money they had already seized from Warren in violation of her First Amendment rights. They claimed the deductions had appeared on her check stub and thus any responsibility to stop the deductions fell on her – even though they had never obtained her permission to opt her into membership or to take cash from her paycheck in the first place.
According to the lawsuit, Warren also asked FOP bosses to produce any dues deduction authorization document they claimed she had signed. FOP officials rebuffed this request as well, presumably because no such authorization existed.
The High Court ruled in Janus that, because all monopoly bargaining activities public sector unions undertake involve lobbying the government and thus are political speech, forcing a public employee to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of keeping his or her job is forced political speech the First Amendment forbids.
Before the Janus ruling, Ohio state law and the union’s monopoly bargaining agreement with Cuyahoga County permitted the union bosses to seize union fees from nonmember workers’ paychecks (including Warren’s) as a condition of employment. FOP union officials took this amount from Warren prior to Janus. After the Janus decision, they covertly designated Warren as a union member and began taking full dues – deducting even more money from her wages than they did before the Janus decision despite the complete lack of consent.
“Although Kimberlee Warren still has a long way to go in her battle to vindicate her First Amendment Janus rights, the fact that the District Court shut down this specious union boss attempt to prematurely end the case likely shows how little ammunition they have,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “That FOP union bosses alleged they somehow didn’t break federal law despite refusing to give back dues seized in violation of Warren’s constitutional rights – and despite charging her full union dues after the Janus decision was issued – is arrestingly outrageous.”
“Foundation staff attorneys are proud to stand behind Warren as she fights for her right to refuse to subsidize a union of which she disapproves,” Mix added.
“The Buckeye Institute is pleased that Ms. Warren will have her day in court and confident that she will prevail in her efforts to recover dues that the Fraternal Order of Police — a union Ms. Warren never joined — illegally took from her paycheck,” said Robert Alt, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute.
Nurses at Massachusetts Hospital Move to Boot Union After Divisive Strike
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union bosses caught red-handed illegally demanding dues from workers
Many St. Vincent Hospital nurses reported the MNA union’s 300+ day strike was filled with bullying and division. “Do we want to keep the MNA and continue that same behavior?” asked Nurse Richard Avola on Spectrum News 1.
WORCESTER, MA – Earlier this year, hundreds of nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA, backed a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), demanding a vote to oust Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union officials from the facility. The effort followed a grueling, nearly year-long strike ordered by MNA bosses. As this issue of Foundation Action went to press, nurses were in the process of submitting ballots in the election.
Nurse Richard Avola submitted the petition to the NLRB in January. It contained enough employee signatures to trigger an NLRB-supervised decertification vote at the hospital. Soon after, he sought free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in defending the petition.
“People want change,” Avola told a Spectrum News 1 Worcester reporter in January about the push for a vote. “They want change for our patients.”
Protracted and Political Strike Rife with Intimidation, Many Nurses Report
Avola and his colleagues’ endeavor came after a 300-day strike ordered by MNA chiefs against the hospital — the longest strike in Massachusetts history. In response to inquiries from nurses impacted by the union bosses’ strike order, Foundation staff attorneys in March 2021 issued a legal notice informing St. Vincent nurses of their right to work during the strike and to cut off dues payments to the MNA hierarchy. The notice offered free legal aid to St. Vincent nurses who encountered union pushback in the exercise of their individual rights.
The union boss-ordered strike was intensely acrimonious. Union agents reportedly engaged in many harassing acts against nurses who exercised their right to continue working during the strike, including putting photographs of working nurses on strike paraphernalia and taking illicit pictures of nurses’ license plates. Despite the union-instigated campaign against rank-and-file nurses, high-profile elected officials, including U.S. Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, vocally sided against nurses who continued treating patients while exercising their right to rebuff the union strike demands.
MNA Union Agents Admitted to Illegally Demanding Union Dues During Strike
As the push for a vote to decertify MNA gained momentum, evidence emerged that union officials had demanded dues payments from nurses for periods during the strike when no contract existed between hospital management and the MNA union. Demanding dues during a contract hiatus is forbidden by longstanding federal law.
In response, St. Vincent nurse Regina Renaud hit the MNA union with Foundation-backed federal charges in January, maintaining that MNA agents had sent such illegal demands to her and other nurses. Just one day after Renaud filed her charges, MNA union officials effectively admitted their dues demands had breached federal labor law. They mailed hundreds of “error” letters to nurses dubiously claiming the illegal bills were an “oversight.” The union stated that it needed to “clean up” its records and warned that other similar demands might still go out to nurses.
While Renaud abstains from union membership, she is still forced to pay some dues to the union to keep her job because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections for private sector workers. However, this requirement does not exist in the absence of an active monopoly bargaining contract with a forced-dues clause. In Right to Work states, union membership and financial support are always strictly voluntary.
Ugly Strike and Illegal Dues Divide Nurses and Community
“It’s easy to see why Mr. Avola and so many of his coworkers want to oust MNA operatives from St. Vincent Hospital: Union bosses forced nurses to endure a gruelingly long strike that divided the hospital and the community, while those who went back to work and refused to abandon their patients faced harassment and intimidation tactics,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Ms. Renaud’s charges show that MNA officials ignored even the most basic legal protections for workers who do not wish to financially support a union.”
“Foundation attorneys will continue to fight for St. Vincent nurses’ rights, including the right to dispense with unwanted union representation, and will ensure any MNA union boss legal tactics do not stifle the nurses’ voices,” Semmens added.
West Coast Workers Press High Court to Scrutinize Anti-Janus ‘Escape Periods’
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Alaska, California, and Oregon public employees join battle defending First Amendment rights
Alaska Vocational Instructor Chris Woods (right), seen here with original Janus plaintiff Mark Janus, is fighting with Foundation aid for a Supreme Court ruling that spells out that “escape periods” violate the First Amendment.
WASHINGTON, DC – National Right to Work Foundation-backed public employees across the country continue their endeavors to win a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down limitations on the First Amendment right not to financially support union activities.
Most recently, Foundation staff attorneys in October filed two petitions asking the Court to hear several cases from rank-and-file government employees in Alaska, Oregon, and California. All of the lawsuits fight union-created schemes that violate public workers’ First Amendment rights by limiting when they can cut off financial support to unions of which they disapprove.
One petition covers four lawsuits from California and Oregon public employees against various unions, and the other petition covers the cases of Alaska Vocational Instructor Christopher Woods and of two other Alaska government workers. Both Alaska suits were filed against the Alaska State Employee Association (ASEA) union. In the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, the Justices recognized that the First Amendment protects public sector workers from being forced to pay union dues or fees. The Justices further ruled that a public worker’s affirmative waiver of that right is needed before any union payments are deducted from his or her paycheck.
Agreeing with contentions presented in oral arguments by veteran National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney William Messenger for Mark Janus, the Supreme Court reasoned that, because all public sector union activities involve dealing with government, forcing any public worker into funding union activities against his or her will counts as forced political speech forbidden by the First Amendment.
Workers Appeal Ninth Circuit Decisions Sparing Restrictive Union Schemes
Each of the cases brought before the Court now challenges a union boss-created “escape-period” scheme. “Escape periods” limit to just a few days every year the time when public servants can exercise their Janus right to end union dues deductions. Often, public workers whom union officials never informed about their Janus rights try to cut off support to an unwanted union, only to be told by union officials that, per the “escape period,” they must endure additional months or even years of union dues being siphoned from their paychecks.
Despite the High Court’s unequivocal ruling in Janus that dues can’t be taken from public workers without a freely given waiver of these rights, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals let “escape periods” survive in each of these cases.
The majority of these cases are class-action lawsuits, and thus seek to reclaim for both petitioners and their coworkers money union bosses seized from their paychecks after they resigned union membership and tried to exercise Janus rights.
AGs from Alaska and 15 Other States Aid Worker Fight Against ‘Escape Periods’
Even though the Alaska employees’ case names the State of Alaska a defendant for its role in enforcing “escape periods,” the state government’s top lawyer — Attorney General Treg Taylor — filed a brief backing the employees’ opposition to the restrictive schemes.
The State of Alaska, “although appearing as a respondent here, urges the Court to grant the petition to protect the First Amendment rights of government employees in Alaska and throughout the country,” the brief says. Taylor is also defending an Alaska executive order forbidding “escape periods,” which is currently enjoined in state court.
Additionally, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and attorneys general from 14 other states submitted an amicus brief in late November throwing the weight of their states behind the Alaska workers.
“All over the country, American public workers are making it clear that they will not stand by while union bosses and their allies in government play deceptive games with their First Amendment Janus rights, just so they can fill union coffers with more money from dissenting workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
“This message should now be overwhelmingly evident to the Supreme Court, which has an opportunity to rectify lower courts’ gross misinterpretations of Janus, and clarify that public workers’ First Amendment rights can’t be limited to arbitrary windows created by union bosses or their political allies designed to undermine workers’ rights recognized in the Janus decision.”
Worker Wins Almost $17,000 in Federal Case Against IAM Union Officials for Illegal Firing
IAM officials had Robert Basil Buick GMC illegally terminate employee when he exercised right not to join the union and pay full dues
Buffalo, NY (March 30, 2022) – Following the filing of federal charges by car dealership employee Remmington Duk against International Association of Mechanics (IAM) Lodge 447, union officials have backed down and agreed to pay Mr. Duk $16,916.
The charges, filed with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, came after Mr. Duk was fired from his job at Robert Basil Buick GMC at the behest of IAM agents who had illegally threatened to have him fired because he exercised his right not to be a union member.
Mr. Duk’s charge against the union was filed on January 31, 2022, with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes among private sector employers, unions, and individual employees. The charge stated that on October 7, 2021, an IAM official demanded Mr. Duk sign paperwork authorizing union membership, threatening that he would be fired if he declined. Mr. Duk refused to sign and Robert Basil Buick GMC then terminated him on October 12, 2021.
Because New York lacks Right to Work protections for private sector employees, unions can force individuals to pay up to 100% of union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. However, formal union membership cannot be required, nor can payment of the part of dues used for expenditures like union political activities. In contrast, in the 27 states with Right to Work protections, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.
To make Mr. Duk’s federal unfair labor practice charge go away, the IAM union will pay him $16,916, post a notice in his workplace which will stay up for 60 days informing other workers of their right not to be union members, and agree to inform future new employees of that right. The check the union will write reflects the amount of money Mr. Duk would have earned through the present time had he not been fired.
Although the NLRB has signed off on the settlement agreement between Mr. Duk and union officials, an additional charge against Robert Basil Buick GMC for its role in the illegal termination remains under investigation by the NRLB.
“Once again, Foundation staff attorneys have caught union officials red-handed violating the rights of the very workers they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Mr. Duk was brave to stand up to the union’s unlawful threats even though it meant losing his job, but his case highlights how workers’ less knowledgeable of their legal rights are susceptible to blatantly illegal tactics from power hungry union bosses.”
“The IAM union bosses’ willingness to violate longstanding law shows why all workers, including those in the Empire State, need the protection of a Right to Work law,” Mix added.
National Right to Work Foundation Defends Michigan Right to Work Law Against Union Boss Forced Fee Scheme
Brief at Michigan Supreme Court filed in union lawsuit seeking to force nonmembers to pay union fees in violation of state Right to Work law
Lansing, MI (March 25, 2022) – Today National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys filed an amicus brief in the Technical, Professional and Officeworkers Association of Michigan (TPOAM) v. Daniel Lee Renner case currently before the Michigan Supreme Court. In the case, Saginaw County employee Daniel Renner is contesting a union scheme designed to eliminate the Michigan Right to Work law’s protection against forcing employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of employment.
The Foundation’s brief argues that TPOAM bosses’ “fee-for-grievance” arrangement violates Michigan’s Right to Work law, as it weaponizes union bosses’ extraordinary power over the grievance process in order to coerce nonmember workers forced under the union’s monopoly contract into paying union fees. Because workers under union monopoly bargaining “representation” do not have the power to file meaningful grievances themselves, the brief argues, this is a blatant attempt to gut the Right to Work law and allow union bosses to force nonmembers to financially support unions.
Both the Michigan Employment Relations Committee (MERC) and the Michigan Court of Appeals have already rejected union officials’ arguments that they can refuse to file grievances for nonmembers unless nonmembers pay union fees. In Renner’s case, union officials demanded upwards of $1,000 from him.
“The legislature’s inclusion of [Right to Work] provisions shows a specific intent to outlaw compulsory grievance fee schemes like those successfully challenged here,” the Foundation’s brief says.
Union Officials Already Maintain Full Control over Grievances – Often to Detriment of Workers
Union officials for decades have had the privilege under federal and state law to control every aspect of the grievance process in a workplace where they are in power. This already often gives them the latitude to toss out or slow-walk grievances they do not think are in the union’s interest.
In fact, in Michigan, two federal lawsuits are pending in which rank-and-file employees under the monopoly control of United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials accuse the union of mishandling grievances. The cases together involve nearly 100 Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) employees challenging UAW officials’ inexplicable mishandling or withdrawal of grievances workers had filed regarding pay cuts or illicit employee transfers.
Foundation staff attorneys have aided Michigan workers in defending their Right to Work freedoms in well over 100 cases since the Wolverine State’s Right to Work law was enacted in 2012.
“Having faced defeat time and time again in the state legislature, Michigan union bosses and their political cronies are now trying to use the courts to eliminate Right to Work and reinstall their forced-dues reign in the Wolverine State,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s worth pointing out, however, that the enormous power union officials enjoy under state law to impose their ‘representation’ on all employees in a workplace, union members or not, is the only thing that let them create the scheme which sparked this conflict in the first place.”
“While employees’ right to abstain from membership or dues payment to an unwanted union should always be protected, union officials shouldn’t be able to force their control on employees who don’t want and never asked for it,” Mix added.
Ft. Campbell Worker Wins $10,000 & Apology in Lawsuit Against LIUNA Union for Illegal Discrimination
Union bosses illegally demanded union dues, lectured worker and her priest about Catholic teachings and sent ‘remedial church readings’
Clarksville, TN (March 25, 2022) – Former Blanchfield Army Community Hospital employee Dorothy Frame has won a settlement against Laborers International Union (LIUNA) officials in a federal lawsuit charging them with illegal religious discrimination. Frame filed her case with free assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Frame’s November 2021 complaint said LIUNA officials illegally discriminated against her by forcing her, in violation of her Catholic beliefs, to fund the union’s activities through mandatory union dues payments. Frame voiced her religious objections to the union’s stances, but union officials repeatedly rejected and ridiculed her requests for a religious accommodation, according to her lawsuit.
Under the settlement, as a condition of dismissing the lawsuit against LIUNA, union officials must pay Frame $10,000 in damages. The settlement also requires LIUNA officials’ attorney to send an apology letter to Frame for the union’s inappropriate conduct.
“I knew in my heart and in my soul that I was right,” Frame said about the successful conclusion of her case. “This is one of the greatest things that I’ve ever done in my life. It was hard; it was so hard.”
LIUNA Officials Illegally Snubbed Worker’s Religious Accommodation Request
Frame first requested a religious accommodation in 2019, when she sent a letter informing LIUNA officials of the conflict between her religious beliefs and the requirement that she join or pay the union.
Tennessee has a Right to Work law ensuring that private sector workers in the state cannot be compelled to pay dues as a condition of employment. But Fort Campbell, the location of Blanchfield hospital where Frame worked, is a “federal enclave” not subject to state law. Frame’s former employer, J & J Worldwide Service, maintains a union monopoly contract with LIUNA union bosses that forces employees to pay union dues or fees to keep their jobs.
Frame’s July 2019 letter also included a message from her parish priest supporting her request for a religious accommodation. Federal law prohibits unions from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion, and requires unions to provide accommodations to workers who oppose dues payment on religious grounds.
Rather than fulfill their obligation under federal law to provide her such an accommodation, Frame’s complaint reported, LIUNA officials denigrated her beliefs.
Frame’s complaint recounted that union lawyers demanded she provide a “legitimate justification” for why her conflict with the union’s activity warranted a religious accommodation. A union lawyer also claimed in a letter, according to Frame’s complaint, that “Ms. Frame’s understanding of her faith was inferior to his own understanding of her faith.” He even closed the letter by “sending Ms. Frame – and her priest – remedial church readings.”
“It crushed me, it hurt me so deeply. Not just for them to say that to me, but to tell my priest that,” Frame said of the experience. “It crushed me, and it actually made me more determined.”
Frame subsequently filed a discrimination charge against LIUNA with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in December 2019. Even after EEOC proceedings and additional letters from Frame’s attorney demonstrating the conflict between the union’s activity and her faith, Frame’s complaint explains, union officials still refused to accommodate her beliefs and refused to return money they took from her paycheck after she requested an accommodation.
Ultimately the EEOC issued Frame a “right to sue” letter leading to her federal anti-discrimination lawsuit, filed by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
“Ms. Frame believes that abortion is a grave sin,” her lawsuit detailed. “She believes joining or financially supporting the Unions would make her complicit in that sin because she believes that the Unions support and promote abortion. Thus, she believes that any money the Unions collect from her makes her complicit in sin and violates her religious beliefs.”
Foundation President: Forced Dues Privileges Create ‘Breeding Ground’ For Discrimination
“Despite being targeted with years of bullying and discrimination by LIUNA officials, Ms. Frame refused to forsake her religious beliefs and stood firm for her rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “She has now prevailed decisively against LIUNA’s illegal attempt to force her to choose between remaining true to her beliefs and staying employed.”
“While the National Right to Work Foundation is proud to stand with principled workers like Ms. Frame, Big Labor’s government-granted privilege to force rank-and-file workers to support their activities creates a breeding ground for such malfeasance and anti-worker abuse,” Mix continued. “No American worker should have to pay tribute to a union they oppose just to keep their job, whether their objections are religious or otherwise.”
