SEIU officials attempted to overturn the result of an August 2021 decertification election at Research Medical Center

Kansas City, MO (February 9, 2022) – Hospital workers at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, are now free from control by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Kelly Pirman, an imaging technologist at the hospital, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a union decertification election.

In a news release following the vote Pirman said: “The SEIU has not represented us fairly, nor provided us the value they claim.” Many of Pirman’s coworkers agreed that they no longer wanted SEIU officials’ so-called representation, and Pirman collected enough of their signatures to trigger an NLRB-supervised decertification election. In June 2021, the NLRB announced that the hospital workers voted 203-171 in favor of removing the union.

Despite losing the election, SEIU officials didn’t give up their monopoly bargaining privileges over the hospital staff. Instead, they filed objections to the result with the NLRB. Though the objections concerned only the hospital’s conduct, SEIU lawyers argued the workers’ choice to remove the union should be overturned.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys submitted a position paper for Pirman, contending the union officials’ objections were not sufficient reason to overturn the election. NLRB Region 13 Director Andrea Wilkes agreed, and on February 8^th, 2022, overruled all of the union’s objections. Wilkes certified the decertification election’s results, freeing Pirman and her coworkers at Research Medical Center from SEIU control.

“Although we are pleased that the Regional Director rejected SEIU bosses’ cynical attempt to maintain power over Research Medical Center workers, it shouldn’t take months of legal proceedings to stop union bosses from overturning the results of the vote the union lost,” said National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “Unfortunately, because Missouri workers lack the protection of a Right to Work law, union officials are incentivized to fight to keep unwilling workers under their thumbs, knowing that as long as they remain in power they can force every worker to pay up or be fired.”

“No worker should be forced under a union monopoly they oppose. Missouri can begin to address that injustice by at least protecting workers against being forced to subsidize unwanted representation by passing a Right to Work law to make union financial support strictly voluntary,” added Mix.

Hundreds of nurses reportedly receive letters from union claiming clearly illegal requests for dues payments were “oversight”

Worcester, MA (February 4, 2022) – After a National Right to Work Foundation-assisted nurse at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester filed federal charges against the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union for demanding illegal retroactive dues, union officials scrambled to send letters to hundreds of St. Vincent Hospital nurses confessing “error.” The MNA thus effectively admitted to being caught red-handed demanding dues payments for periods when the nurses owed no compulsory dues, claiming that the “billing/renewal notices were recently mailed in error.”

The news comes just ahead of an employee-requested election on whether MNA union officials should stay in power at the facility. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is sending ballots via mail to St. Vincent Hospital nurses today, and expects to count the ballots on February 28. St. Vincent nurse Richard Avola submitted a petition to the NLRB in January demonstrating that hundreds of his coworkers requested such a vote to oust the MNA. The petition follows the conclusion of a 300+ day MNA-ordered strike that divided the hospital and the community and sparked multiple reports of bullying and harassment of nurses by union agents.

Regina Renaud, the St. Vincent nurse who charged the MNA with making illegal dues demands, reported in January that she had received a bill from union officials demanding that she pay dues retroactive to November 1, 2021. That includes a period during the strike when no compulsory dues contract was in effect. Her charge noted that “as a matter of law [she] and other similarly situated employees owed no dues or fees to the MNA,” because there was a strike and contract hiatus. Renaud is not a member of the MNA.

Despite MNA bosses telling media outlets that Renaud’s unfair labor practice charge has “no validity,” hundreds of St. Vincent Hospital nurses are now reporting getting letters from MNA officials rescinding all demands for dues payments for the strike period. MNA’s letters are dated January 12, one day after Renaud filed her charge with the NLRB. The MNA’s “error” letters note that while the union is scurrying to “clean up” its billing records, nurses may receive additional unlawful demands for dues payments because those bills “may slip past our filters and be mailed.”

“MNA union bosses were caught red-handed making illegal demands for retroactive dues. While they told media outlets the unfair labor practice charges were meritless, their own actions show a desperate attempt to cover up their violation of nurses’ rights under federal labor law,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Given MNA union officials’ demonstrated willingness to play fast and loose with the legal rights of those they claim to ‘represent,’ St. Vincent nurses should stay vigilant about further union misrepresentations and excessive dues demands, especially as they now consider whether to remove the union from their workplace.”

“As St. Vincent nurses make their voices heard in the decertification election, they should know they can contact the Foundation for free legal aid if union agents attempt to silence or overbill nurses opposed to unionization, or interfere with their right to vote,” Mix added.

Robert Basil Buick GMC also hit with charge for carrying out illegal union threat by firing worker just days later

Buffalo, NY (February 7, 2022) – Remmington Duk, who recently worked as a mechanic at the Robert Basil Buick GMC dealership in Orchard Park, has filed federal charges against the International Association of Mechanics (IAM) Lodge 447 union and the dealership. Duk’s charges say that IAM agents illegally threatened to have him fired in October 2021 because he exercised his right not to be a union member, and that Robert Basil officials followed through on this threat at IAM officials’ behest and terminated Duk less than a week later. Duk is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Duk’s charges were submitted on January 31 to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law and adjudicating disputes among employers, unions, and individual employees. The charges state that on October 7, 2021 an IAM official demanded Duk sign paperwork authorizing union membership and dues deductions from his paycheck, threatening that Duk would be fired if he declined. Duk did not sign, and Robert Basil Buick GMC terminated him on October 12, 2021.

The charges contend 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. However, because New York lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, even if private sector employees such as Duk abstain from union membership they can still be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In the 27 states with Right to Work protections, union membership and dues payments are strictly voluntary.

Under the Foundation-won 1988 CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, private sector employees who refuse union membership in non-Right to Work states can never be forced to subsidize the political activities of a union they don’t support. In nearby Rochester, Foundation staff attorneys just won a settlement for a General Motors worker who charged United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials with illegally seizing dues for politics from his wages even after repeated demands that they respect his Beck rights. UAW officials have now been forced to refund all monies they took from him in violation of Beck.

“Union bosses threatening people’s jobs and livelihoods is no way to gain the support of the workers they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “IAM union bosses’ willingness to violate longstanding law shows why all workers need the protection of a Right to Work law. In addition to formal union membership, financial support for a union should also be voluntary and the choice of each individual worker.”

“As AFL-CIO founder Samuel Gompers declared in one of his final speeches, voluntarism, not force, should be the bedrock for building union support,” Mix added.

Decertification election will allow rank-and-file workers to vote to free themselves from unwanted union “representation”

Frankfort, IN (February 3, 2022) – Healthcare workers at the Wesley Manor BHI retirement community in Frankfort, Indiana have filed a petition seeking the removal of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 962 union from their workplace. The workers’ decertification petition was filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 25 office in Indianapolis, IN with free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

The petition was filed by Robin Davis, an employee of Wesley Manor BHI. The request seeking to end AFSCME union officials’ monopoly bargaining powers at BHI was signed by about 50% of the workers in the bargaining unit, well over the legally required 30% needed to trigger an NLRB-conducted secret ballot vote to remove the union.

Indiana is a Right to Work state, meaning workers cannot legally be required to join or pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of keeping their jobs. However, even in Right to Work states, union officials who have obtained monopoly bargaining control in a workplace are granted the power impose one-size-fits-all union contracts on all workers, including those who opt out of union membership and would prefer to negotiate their own terms of employment.

The decertification petition was filed in advance of the expiration of the current union contract on April 30, 2022. If the workers’ vote is successful, AFSCME union officials will be stripped of their monopoly “representation” powers and will not be able to impose another union monopoly contract on the workers.

National Right to Work Foundation legal aid has recently assisted workers in numerous successful decertification efforts across the nation, including for workers in Kansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Delaware. Foundation-advocated reforms to decertification elections that were adopted by the NLRB in 2020 have curtailed union officials’ abuse of so-called “blocking charges” to delay or block workers’ from exercising their right to decertify a union on the basis of unproven allegations made against an employer, often completely unrelated to workers’ desire to free themselves of the union.

“Under federal law workers are entitled to an up or down vote whether to remove a union they oppose from their workplace, but unfortunately, either due to union legal trickery or convoluted NLRB policies exercising that right often requires legal assistance,” National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix said. “The good news for workers is they can turn to the Foundation for free legal aid to help secure their right to free themselves from unwanted so-called ‘union representation.’”

Effort follows several employee removals of Teamsters officials at other workplaces across country

Galesburg, IL (February 1, 2022) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, Zachary Pedigo and his fellow paramedics and EMTs at Galesburg Hospitals Ambulance Service are seeking to exercise their right to vote unwanted Teamsters Local 627 bosses out of power at their workplace. Pedigo submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requesting a “decertification vote.”

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees. If successful, Pedigo and his coworkers’ effort would be the latest in a string of Foundation-assisted employee elections removing Teamsters officials from power. In just the past year, Rush University maintenance workers in Chicago, Frito-Lay salesmen in Del Rio, TX, Allied Central Coast truckers in Santa Maria, CA, XPO Logistics workers in Cinnaminson, NJ, and Blish-Mize hardware distribution employees in Atchison, KS, all voted to decertify unpopular Teamsters local unions.

Additionally, Airgas employees in Ventura, CA, and XPO Logistics workers in Los Angeles, CA, were freed from Teamsters power last year after union officials departed both workplaces to preempt likely election losses.

For more than a year workers have been enjoying an easier pathway to exercising their right to remove unwanted union officials. The NLRB in Washington, DC, in July 2020 enacted new rules governing decertification elections which, drawing from comments Foundation attorneys submitted to the agency earlier that year, now forbid union bosses from indefinitely stalling worker-requested votes based on so-called “blocking charges.” Such charges are union allegations against an employer that are often unproven and unrelated to workers’ desire to oust union officials.

Because Illinois lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, such as Pedigo and his fellow paramedics and EMTs, they can be forced to pay part of full union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs even if they are not union members and oppose the union’s presence. However, because the most recent contract between Teamsters officials and Galesburg Hospitals Ambulance Service expired around a month ago, this obligation does not currently exist for Pedigo and his coworkers. They can only be legally compelled to pay dues or fees again once a new contract is in place.

Under the protection of Right to Work laws, which are on the books in 27 states, individual employees have the freedom to choose to voluntarily become union members and to financially support a union, or to abstain from both.

“Mr. Pedigo and his coworkers, who provide lifesaving first aid to the citizens of Galesburg, should not have to be subjects of Teamsters union bosses whose so-called ‘representation’ they oppose,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Thanks to Foundation-advocated reforms adopted by the NLRB in 2020, Mr. Pedigo and his fellow paramedics and EMTs should have an easier path to voting out the union. However, Foundation attorneys will ensure that their voices are heard and will battle any attempts to stifle their rights by Teamsters officials.”

Elsewhere in Illinois, Foundation staff attorneys are aiding Nick Salzmann and his fellow Village of Carpentersville part-time firefighters in attempting to decertify an unpopular Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in their workplace. Salzmann and his coworkers are battling “blocking charges” filed by SEIU bosses against Village officials to delay the firefighters’ requested decertification election. Salzmann and his coworkers are public employees and thus under the jurisdiction of the Illinois Labor Relations Board (ILRB), not the NLRB. The ILRB, which lacks protections against “blocking charges,” is giving SEIU bosses a chance to stymie Salzmann and his coworkers’ attempt to free themselves from unwanted union control.

After NLRB refused to tally 2020 election results to enforce ‘contract bar,’ subsequent vote reveals widespread opposition to union bosses

Selbyville, DE (December 20, 2021) – In June and July of 2020, employees at the Mountaire Farms poultry plant in Selbyville, Delaware held a union decertification election on whether to remove officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union from their workplace. In April of 2021, union lawyers convinced the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to destroy the hundreds of ballots employees had cast before they were ever counted. Last week, a second vote conducted by the NLRB confirmed that nearly a year and a half later, Mountaire Farms employees decisively opposed the UFCW in a 356-80 vote.

The summer 2020 vote was requested by Mountaire employee Oscar Cruz Sosa, who received free legal representation from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Cruz Sosa sent a petition signed by many of his coworkers to the NLRB requesting a vote. The election was held, but the ballots were impounded while the Board considered whether its non-statutory “contract bar” policy should invalidate the election.

The “contract bar” prevents workers from holding a decertification vote, for up to three years, while a union monopoly bargaining contract with their employer remains in effect. Foundation attorneys urged the Board to reverse the bar because it is not found in the text of the National Labor Relations Act, and serves only to protect unpopular union bosses from worker accountability.

Ultimately, the Board sided with union lawyers, upheld the “contract bar,” and threw out the ballots cast by workers at the 800-employee facility. The employees were forced to wait almost a year for the contract UFCW bosses had with their employer to expire before beginning anew the process for another election.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix issued the following statement about the election results:

Despite what we now know to be overwhelming opposition to their presence at Mountaire Farms, UFCW officials took advantage of the NLRB’s rules to block a decertification vote for over a year and a half. The vote tally only emphasizes the injustice of the NLRB’s April decision to apply the “contract bar” policy and destroy  these workers’ ballots, leaving them trapped paying compulsory union dues despite such massive opposition to union officials’ so-called “representation.”

While we’re under no illusions that the Biden NLRB, stacked with former union officials, will end this longstanding impediment to workers’ right to free themselves of an unwanted union, this saga demonstrates why the injustice that is the non-statutory “contract bar” must be ended by a future Board.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President issues statement in recognition of National School Choice Week

Washington, DC (January 27, 2022) – Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, issued the following statement in recognition of National School Choice Week 2022:

On School Choice Week 2022, the importance of protecting the right of parents to select their own children’s education is more important than ever. Over the past year, radical teacher union officials continued to wield their government-granted monopoly bargaining powers to impose controversial, top-down policies that harmed parents, kids, and independent-minded teachers.

Government school lockdowns pushed by politics-obsessed union chiefs like the American Federation of Teachers’ Randi Weingarten devastated American kids. Teacher union bosses’ coercive government-granted privileges allow union chiefs to hold the education of kids hostage to union political demands. Monopoly bargaining lets union officials push aside the interests of parents and children, but it also forces independent-minded teachers under union control they oppose.

Teachers from elementary schools all the way up through public colleges oppose union officials’ monopoly powers too, taking issue with the workplace policies or political views of the union hierarchy. In fact, a group of Jewish City University of New York professors just filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York State’s law allowing the Professional Staff Congress union to impose its so-called ‘representation’ on them – ‘representation’ they find to be very anti-Semitic.

No less an advocate of unions than Franklin Delano Roosevelt once cautioned that “All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” Roosevelt was right, and since COVID-19’s arrival there’s been more than enough evidence of the havoc teacher union boss control has wrought on kids, parents, teachers, and the public at large.

Without school choice, parents and kids would have no option but to bear this top-down control, so it makes sense that citizens are leaving union-dominated government schools in record numbers. For much the same reason, teacher union bosses oppose giving parents choices like charter schools, because those options threaten union boss monopoly control over education.

School choice, while a basic right that all parents should enjoy, shouldn’t be a last resort parents employ simply to get their kids out of unstable union-dominated schools. Teachers, as well, shouldn’t have to flee traditional public schools just so they can escape being forced to associate with a private organization espousing views or policies that they abhor.

Worker charges state UAW union bosses and GM officials ignored multiple requests from worker to stop funding union political activities

Rochester, NY (January 25, 2022) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Rochester General Motors employee Roger Clemons has successfully forced United Auto Workers (UAW) union bosses at his workplace to stop illegally funneling money from his paycheck into union politics. Clemons filed federal charges with Foundation aid in September 2021 against UAW Local 1097 and the UAW’s international hierarchy, asserting that union agents ignored his requests to opt-out of funding the union’s political agenda.

A Foundation-won settlement now forces UAW international and local officials to “make whole…Roger Clemons for all dues and fees” that were deducted from his paycheck in violation of the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision. Beck forbids union officials from forcing workers under their control to fund union politics and other union expenses unrelated to the union’s core bargaining functions.

Because New York State lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, union officials can still legally force workers to pay some union fees under threat of termination. In Right to Work states, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

Clemons stated in his September 2021 charge against UAW Local 1097 officials that UAW officials had a history of flouting his Beck rights, failing to reduce his union dues even after he ended his union membership and became a “Beck objector” in October 2019. “Only after Mr. Clemons filed an [earlier] unfair labor practice charge…did the union comply with the requirements of the law,” the charge noted, detailing that union officials finally sent him rebate checks in June and July 2020 for excess dues they took from his paycheck.

However, UAW officials continued to create obstacles for Mr. Clemons’ Beck rights. The September 2021 charge also asserted that despite Clemons’ renewing his Beck objection in October 2020, he then did not receive “a single rebate check or a reduction in the dues deducted from his wages” for almost a year. UAW and GM officials both ignored multiple attempts at correspondence from him on this issue, the charge noted.

The charge contended that these actions violated Mr. Clemons’ rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which protects individual employees’ rights to abstain “from any or all of” union activities. General Motors, Clemons’ employer, was also charged for its role in enforcing the illegal dues deductions.

The settlement now forbids UAW officials from “accept[ing] dues or fees which have been deducted from the paycheck of Roger Clemons, or any other Beck objector, which are in excess of the amount we can lawfully charge to Beck objectors.” UAW officials also are required to return dues that they seized from Clemons in excess of the reduced Beck amount.

Union officials devote enormous sums to political activity. A report from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) released in 2021 revealed that union officials’ own Department of Labor filings show around $2 billion in political spending during the 2020 cycle, primarily from dues-stocked union general treasuries. However, other estimates strongly suggest that actual union spending on political and lobbying activities topped $12 billion.

“Rank-and-file workers should know they have a right to refuse to fund union politics, especially with union political spending in 2020 having approached record numbers and midterm elections coming up,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Workers under UAW control, like Mr. Clemons, have special reason to be on guard, given the UAW’s perennial interest in politics and corruption at the very top levels of the UAW hierarchy, which has landed at least 10 former UAW honchos in jail primarily for misuse of worker funds.”

“No American worker should be forced to subsidize any union boss political advocacy and the National Right to Work Foundation is proud to assist workers seeking to exercise their right to cut off financial support for union politics they oppose,” added Mix.

Charges come after hundreds of nurses backed petition for election to oust MNA union from St. Vincent, resulting in vote scheduled for February 4

Worcester, MA (January 13, 2022) – St. Vincent Hospital nurse Regina Renaud has hit the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union at the facility with federal charges, asserting that union officials are illegally demanding nurses pay union dues for time periods when there was no contract in effect between the hospital and union. Renaud filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

Renaud’s charges come as hundreds of St. Vincent Hospital nurses have requested a vote whether to remove the MNA union from the facility. During a more than 300-day strike ordered by MNA union officials that finally concluded in early January, St. Vincent nurse Richard Avola gathered signatures from enough of his coworkers to prompt the NLRB to arrange such an election, and on January 11 an agreement was reached scheduling the election to begin on February 4. The disastrous strike clearly divided the nurses, the hospital, the community, and the patients.

Media reports indicate that union militants harassed and bullied nurses who returned to the hospital to care for patients during the protracted strike. Union partisans reportedly put photographs of working nurses on strike paraphernalia and took illicit pictures of nurses’ license plates, among other tactics. Despite credible reports of union harassment of nurses who exercised their right to work, high-profile elected officials including U.S. Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren expressed support for the union boss-ordered strike.

Renaud’s charge reports that she is not an MNA member but is still forced to pay a portion of full union dues to keep her job. In states like Massachusetts that lack Right to Work protections, even workers who refuse full union membership can be forced to pay money to union officials to stay employed. However, this requirement is suspended in the absence of a monopoly bargaining contract between an employer and union. In Right to Work states, union membership and financial support are always strictly voluntary.

Renaud’s charge notes that, during the strike, no contract was in effect between MNA and St. Vincent management and “[a]s a matter of law the Charging Party and other similarly situated employees owed no dues or fees to the MNA during that contract hiatus.” However, on January 5, 2022, MNA sent bills to Renaud and other nurses who are not union members, ordering them to pay dues for a time period that included the contract hiatus.

“Thus, MNA is demanding and attempting to collect retroactive dues for several past months in which the Charging Party and other similarly situated nurses did not owe any dues and could not legally be required to pay such dues as a condition of employment…,” the Unfair Labor Practice charge states.

“In the aftermath of the long-drawn-out MNA boss-ordered strike on St. Vincent Hospital, evidence is rapidly emerging on the coercion and retaliation that union officials inflicted on the very nurses they claim to represent,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “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.”

“St. Vincent Hospital nurses are fully justified in exercising their right to vote out MNA union officials. Any nurses who encounter union attempts to infringe on that right or who experienced other MNA malfeasance should reach out to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid,” Mix added.

CUNY professors challenge New York State law that forces them to be represented by union hierarchy that ostracizes and discriminates against them

New York, NY (January 13, 2022) – Six City University of New York (CUNY) professors have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union and others. The suit challenges the New York State law (“Taylor Law”) that PSC union officials use to force the professors under their monopoly “representation,” even though none of the professors are union members and all wish to dissociate completely from the union due to its extreme ideology and poor representation. The professors are receiving free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and The Fairness Center.

According to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, plaintiffs Avraham Goldstein, Michael Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, Jeffrey Lax, and Maria Pagano oppose PSC “based largely on its ideological and political advocacy” and their dissatisfaction with the union’s exclusive control over their working conditions. The complaint further details that “[a]ll but one of the plaintiffs are Jewish,” and several chose to dissociate from PSC because of a June 2021 union resolution that “Plaintiffs view as anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, and anti-Israel,” as well as other actions taken “in a manner that harms the Jewish plaintiffs and singles them out for opprobrium, hatred, and harassment based on their religious, ethnic, and/or moral beliefs and identity.”

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are CUNY, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, and New York Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) Chairman John Wirenius, for the state’s role in enforcing the union’s monopoly “representation.” The suit notes that “[d]espite Plaintiffs’ resignations from membership in PSC, Defendants…, acting in concert and under color of state law, force all Plaintiffs to continue to utilize PSC as their exclusive bargaining representative.”

Lawsuit: Jewish Professors and Others Compelled to Fund, Associate with Union Even After Bullying and Threats

The complaint recounts the various ways plaintiffs report being discriminated against by union and university agents. It says that Prof. Michael Goldstein “has experienced anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks from members of PSC, including what he sees as bullying, harassment, destruction of property, calls for him to be fired, organization of student attacks against him, and threats against him and his family.” Goldstein now has a guard accompany him on campus, the complaint notes.

Prof. Lax, the complaint says, already received in a separate case a letter of determination from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) “that CUNY and PSC leaders discriminated against him, retaliated against him, and subjected him to a hostile work environment on the basis of religion.” Prof. Lax “has felt marginalized and ostracized by PSC because the union has made it clear that Jews who support the Jewish homeland, the State of Israel, are not welcome,” the complaint reads.

The lawsuit asserts that the PSC union, acting under the Taylor Law, is violating the professors’ First Amendment right of free association by compelling them “to associate with PSC, and to therefore be associated with PSC’s speech and PSC positions with which Plaintiffs vehemently disagree and believe to be anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.”

The lawsuit also notes that the professors are similarly being forced to associate with CUNY employees in the PSC union “bargaining unit” who “do not share their political views and who espouse views Plaintiffs believe to be anti-Semitic or anti-Israel,” another violation of their First Amendment rights. Additionally, the plaintiffs are “forced into the same bargaining unit with CUNY instructional staff, such as part-time adjuncts, whose employment interests diverge from their own.”

The complaint contends finally that PSC union bosses are violating the First Amendment as detailed in the 2018 National Right to Work Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, in which the Justices ruled it a First Amendment violation to force public employees to fund union activities as a condition of keeping their jobs, or to take union dues from public employees’ paychecks without their individual and affirmative consent.

Although Professors Avraham Goldstein, Kass-Shraibman, and Langbert each resigned their union memberships and attempted to cut off dues, the complaint explains that “Defendants PSC and the City or DiNapoli have taken and continue to take and/or have accepted and continue to accept union dues from certain Plaintiffs’ wages as a condition of employment…” in violation of Janus.

Suit Seeks Overturn of New York State Law Forcing Union Power on Professors, Damages

The lawsuit seeks to stop the defendants from “certifying or recognizing PSC, or any other union, as Plaintiffs’ exclusive representative without their consent” and “enforcing any provisions…that require Plaintiffs to provide financial support to PSC.” It also demands that the court declare “Section 204 of the Taylor Law…unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to the extent that it requires or authorizes PSC to be Plaintiffs’ exclusive representative…”

Also sought are refunds of the “dues seized from the wages of Plaintiffs A. Goldstein, Kass-Shraibman, and Langbert” in violation of their First Amendment Janus rights and compensatory damages for “Defendants’ unlawful interference with and deprivation” of the professors’ constitutional rights.

“By forcing these professors into a union collective against their will, the state of New York mandates that they associate with union officials and other union members who take positions that are deeply offensive to these professors’ most fundamental beliefs,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Going as far back as the 1944 Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railway Co decision, the Supreme Court has recognized that union bosses misuse their government-granted monopoly bargaining powers to take offensive positions that are directly contrary to the interests of many employees who are forced under a union’s so-called ‘representation’ against their will.”

“New York State’s Taylor Law authorizes such unconscionable compulsion. It is time federal courts fully protect the rights of government employees to freely exercise their freedom to dissociate from an unwanted union, whether their objections are religious, cultural, financial, or otherwise,” added Mix.