Worker Asks Federal Appeals Court to Overturn Backroom Deal Between Union and Company Officials

Union organizers obtained workers’ personal information as part of a quid pro quo with the company to force employees under union control

Hollywood, FL (February 3, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Mardi Gras Gaming employee is taking his case against local union officials and his employer to a federal appeals court.

In 2008, Unite Here Local 355 and Mardi Gras Gaming officials entered into an agreement in which union officials agreed to spend over one hundred thousand dollars in workers’ forced union dues on a gambling ballot initiative and guaranteed not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility.

In return, Mardi Gras officials promised they would hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union operatives access to company facilities for the purpose of organizing through a coercive card check campaign, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether employees actually wanted to unionize.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mardi Gras Gaming employee Martin Mulhall filed a lawsuit against Unite Here in 2008, arguing that the company’s concessions to the union are of substantial monetary value because the company made the union organizing process easier and less expensive.

Read the entire release here.

Hollywood, FL (February 3, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Mardi Gras Gaming employee is taking his case against local union officials and his employer to a federal appeals court.

In 2008, Unite Here Local 355 and Mardi Gras Gaming officials entered into an agreement in which union officials agreed to spend over one hundred thousand dollars in workers’ forced union dues on a gambling ballot initiative and guaranteed not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility.

In return, Mardi Gras officials promised they would hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union operatives access to company facilities for the purpose of organizing through a coercive card check campaign, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether employees actually wanted to unionize.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mardi Gras Gaming employee Martin Mulhall filed a lawsuit against Unite Here in 2008, arguing that the company’s concessions to the union are of substantial monetary value because the company made the union organizing process easier and less expensive.

Federal law aimed at preventing union operatives from agreeing to undermine workers’ rights in exchange for concessions from management explicitly prohibits employers from giving “any money or other thing of value” to unions.

The suit also alleges that union bosses’ willingness to spend over a hundred thousand dollars to lobby on behalf of Mardi Gras Gaming demonstrates just how valuable the agreement is to union officials.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently upheld Mulhall’s standing to vindicate his rights in federal court. Now he asks the appellate court to judge his case on the merits and reverse a lower court’s illogical ruling that management’s concessions are not “things of value.”

“So-called ‘neutrality agreements’ between companies and unions like the one agreed upon by Unite Here operatives and Mardi Gras Gaming give union organizers license to browbeat and intimidate workers into acceding to unionization,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Workers should never be cajoled or harassed into union ranks.”

Union Bosses, School District Face Federal Suit for Illegal Forced Union Dues Scheme

School employees challenge unconstitutional union dues confiscation

Cincinnati, OH (January 21, 2011) – A group of Cincinnati Public Schools employees today filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the city school district for illegally confiscating union dues from their paychecks in violation of their constitutional rights.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, providing the employees with free legal aid, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The school district carpentry shop employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the Greater Cincinnati Building & Construction Trades Council union (GCBCTC) and its affiliates, ask the federal court to protect their Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson.

Read the entire release here.

Cincinnati, OH (January 21, 2011) – A group of Cincinnati Public Schools employees today filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the city school district for illegally confiscating union dues from their paychecks in violation of their constitutional rights.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, providing the employees with free legal aid, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The school district carpentry shop employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the Greater Cincinnati Building & Construction Trades Council union (GCBCTC) and its affiliates, ask the federal court to protect their Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson.

In Hudson, the Court, while still allowing the forced payment of certain union fees as a condition of employment, established procedural safeguards to ensure public employees are not compelled to subsidize union activities beyond what union officials can prove is spent on bargaining and contract administration. Union expenditures such as organizing and political activism cannot be legally charged to nonmember public-sector workers.

The Court also ruled union officials must provide public workers with an independently-audited financial breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures.

GCBCTC union officials are compelling the employees to pay union fees to keep their jobs while refusing to provide the financial breakdown Hudson requires.

The employees are suing to obtain refunds of the amount of forced union dues payments illegally taken from their paychecks and to halt union bosses from further union fee collections until they comply with the workers’ constitutional and civil rights to refrain from full-union-dues payments upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

“GCBCTC union bosses are using state law to take these workers’ civil and constitutional rights to the woodshed” said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation legal information director. “Ohio desperately needs a Right to Work law making union affiliation and dues payments completely voluntary to prevent these types of forced unionism abuses from occurring.”

“Only then will independent-minded employees have the solid foundation they need to take a stand for their rights.”

Worker Advocate Urges Labor Board to Affirm Right to Object to Subsidizing Union Politics in Languishing Cases

Numerous cases before NLRB lay dormant as workers suffer from union policies designed to discourage objections to paying full union dues

Washington, DC (January 13, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation is urging the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to promptly resolve four cases almost identical to one decided last year by the Board as independent-minded workers wait for a resolution.

The Foundation – the nation’s premier advocate on behalf of workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – scored a legal victory in August 2010 for workers who were subjected to a burdensome machinist union boss policy requiring employees to annually renew their objection to supporting union politics and other non-bargaining expenses or be converted back to paying full union dues.

The NLRB in Washington, DC determined that the machinist union’s annual objection requirement for workers who choose to refrain from union membership is illegal under Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent upheld in Communications Workers v. Beck (1988).Under Beck, nonmember employees in states without Right to Work laws cannot be compelled to pay for union politics, lobbying, and member-only events.

In a letter penned by Foundation Vice President & Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse to the NLRB, the Foundation asks that the Board apply their August 2010 decision to four virtually identical cases still pending before the Board.

Read the entire release here.

Washington, DC (January 13, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation is urging the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to promptly resolve four cases almost identical to one decided last year by the Board as independent-minded workers wait for a resolution.

The Foundation – the nation’s premier advocate on behalf of workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – scored a legal victory in August 2010 for workers who were subjected to a burdensome machinist union boss policy requiring employees to annually renew their objection to supporting union politics and other non-bargaining expenses or be converted back to paying full union dues.

The NLRB in Washington, DC determined that the machinist union’s annual objection requirement for workers who choose to refrain from union membership is illegal under Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent upheld in Communications Workers v. Beck (1988). Under Beck, nonmember employees in states without Right to Work laws cannot be compelled to pay for union politics, lobbying, and member-only events.

In a letter penned by Foundation Vice President & Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse to the NLRB, the Foundation asks that the Board apply their August 2010 decision to four virtually identical cases still pending before the Board.

In the pending cases individual employees, represented by Foundation staff attorneys, are challenging annual objection policies of the United Steelworker (USW), United Autoworker (UAW), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and Communications Workers of America (CWA) unions. The case involving the UAW union has been languishing in the NLRB bureaucracy for eight years.

Additionally, NLRB Regional Directors are withholding action on other similar cases awaiting the national Board’s actions.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Given that the NLRB decided the key legal issues last summer, their refusal to swiftly apply the precedent to other unions is shameful.”

“While the Board delays, independent-minded workers across the country continue to be abused by burdensome requirements and restrictions from union hierarchies they want nothing to do with.”

Last week, Right to Work attorneys filed an amicus curiae brief in American Trucking Associations v. Port of Los Angeles on behalf of two truckers who don’t want to be forced to give up their independent status and join a licensed trucking service to do business in LA. The Foundation’s brief challenges a new "concession agreement" entered into by the city that would only allow large trucking services to work out of the Port of Los Angeles, freezing out independent owner-operators. You can read the whole thing online, but here’s an excerpt from the Foundation’s brief:

If the Port’ s scheme is upheld, the victims will be individuals like amici Raymond Porras and Pilar Orellana. They are owner -operators, meaning that they own their trucks and work for themselves. As their own bosses, they enjoy the independence of setting their own schedules and operating their trucking businesses as they see fit. The Concession Agreement will force them to forfeit this independence, sell their trucks, and become employees of larger companies to continue operating at the Port.

The Port’s scheme is also widely viewed as underhanded way to force truckers into union ranks: If independent contractors are forced to seek employment at a licensed trucking service, they can also be forced to join a union and pay dues if the company they’re joining is already unionized.

As always, Foundation attorneys stand ready to help employees across the country protect their Right to Work. For more information on the Foundation’s legal aid program, click here. 

Worker Advocate Urges House Chairmen to Investigate Questionable Pro-Union Rule Change

National Mediation Board’s new rules allow airline and railway workers to be unionized without majority support

Washington, DC (January 10, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation, which provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, is urging Congress to investigate a recent rule change at the National Mediation Board (NMB) that dramatically increases the power of union officials to organize workers in the airline and railway industries. Foundation President Mark Mix submitted letters to Representatives John Kline, John Mica, and Darrell Issa on Wednesday, encouraging them to open an immediate investigation into the NMB’s new election procedures.

Last year, the Board hastily implemented new union certification procedures over the objections of NMB Chair Elizabeth Dougherty. Foundation attorneys currently represent five Delta employees who are challenging the NMB’s rule change in federal court.

The two NMB members who voted to approve the new rule, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, are former union officials with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Association of Flight Attendants (AFA). Both unions were a major part of an AFL-CIO-led coalition that prompted the NMB to discard its previous election procedures, which had remained in force for 75 years under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

Click here to read more. 

Washington, DC (January 10, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation, which provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, is urging Congress to investigate a recent rule change at the National Mediation Board (NMB) that dramatically increases the power of union officials to organize workers in the airline and railway industries. Foundation President Mark Mix submitted letters to Representatives John Kline, John Mica, and Darrell Issa on Wednesday, encouraging them to open an immediate investigation into the NMB’s new election procedures.

Last year, the Board hastily implemented new union certification procedures over the objections of NMB Chair Elizabeth Dougherty. Foundation attorneys currently represent five Delta employees who are challenging the NMB’s rule change in federal court.

The two NMB members who voted to approve the new rule, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, are former union officials with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Association of Flight Attendants (AFA). Both unions were a major part of an AFL-CIO-led coalition that prompted the NMB to discard its previous election procedures, which had remained in force for 75 years under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

Foundation attorneys state that the procedural changes “stack the deck” in favor of forced unionization. Under these new rules, the threshold for unionization is lowered to a standard that would allow a minority of workers to certify a union as the monopoly bargaining agent for all employees in a given workplace.

Foundation attorneys believe that the new rule is unconstitutional because it violates workers’ rights of freedom of association and due process. The rule change is particularly troubling because the procedure for workers to eject an unwanted union in the rail and airline industries is lengthier and more complicated than in other industries.

“A hastily-implemented rule change shepherded through by two former union officials is about to deprive thousands of workers of their right to free and fair workplace elections,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “We urge Congressmen Issa, Kline, and Mica to immediately launch an investigation into this gross violation of employee rights.”

Workers Assert Constitutionally-Protected Rights After Union Officials Demand Personal Information

Right to Work Foundation assists Sacramento healthcare providers coerced into union forced dues ranks

Sacramento, CA (December 20, 2010) – A Sutter Roseville Medical Center healthcare professional has filed federal labor charges against a local union for coercing her and her colleagues into paying forced union dues.

With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Mary Massen filed the unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board regional office in San Francisco.

Because California does not have Right to Work protections for its workers, Massen, who elects to refrain from formal union membership, is still forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment. However, because of a National Right to Work Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck, she cannot be compelled to pay the portion of union dues used for the union’s political, lobbying, and member-only activities. Union officials are also legally obligated to inform workers of these rights and to provide workers with an independently verified audit of chargeable and non-chargeable expenses.

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers – West union officials refuse to provide the Center’s nonmember employees with the disclosure Beck requires. SEIU United Healthcare union officials also require the workers to annually object, a tactic designed to force workers into paying full union dues. Foundation attorneys defeated the annual objection requirement of another union before the NLRB earlier this year.

Additionally, this union requires employees who choose not to join the union to provide their social security numbers to refrain from supporting the union officials’ non-bargaining expenses, further discouraging workers from exercising their rights.

Read the entire release here.