Seattle, WA (March 16, 2006) — Responding to today’s 6-3 Washington State Supreme Court ruling striking down a state law requirement that union officials obtain the prior consent of nonunion public employees before spending mandatory union dues for politics, the National Right to Work Foundation announced that its legal team is preparing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

Foundation attorneys – working jointly with Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle – originally filed the suit, Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA), for more than 4,000 Washington teachers – who are not union members but who are forced to pay dues or fees – in Thurston County Superior Court. Judge Daniel Berschauer ruled that the teachers had an implied right of action under Initiative-134 to recover the fees the WEA had used, without their authorization, for political purposes. The trial court also certified the case as a class action for the thousands of nonmember teachers.

But the long-awaited ruling today in Davenport upheld an appellate court’s decision to overturn the trial court – thereby striking down the last remaining union dues provisions in I-134, Washington’s troubled “paycheck protection” law.

But, the State Supreme Court’s ruling directly conflicts with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, noted Justice Richard B. Sanders in his three-member dissent. “The majority turns the First Amendment on its head…The suggestion that asking people to check a box once a year unduly interferes with the speech rights of those contributors borders on the frivolous…There is no indication that any state has been held to have violated union members’ rights by foreclosing mandatory collection of fees from nonmembers.”

“While there is hope that the law can be salvaged, this situation shows how so-called paycheck protection laws are ineffective in halting the practice of forcing employees to function as ATM machines for union political operatives,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The only way to ensure employees are protected is to strip Washington union officials of their legislatively granted power to seize union dues as a job condition.”

Even though the WEA admits it spends millions of dollars each year on political activities, the much-hyped paycheck protection law has ultimately offered no relief to teachers. Even if the Supreme Court had reinstated the Thurston County court’s rulings, the law would still only result in individual refunds of $10 per year, on average, under I-134. Substantially greater relief is still available to teachers under a settlement of a First Amendment lawsuit brought by Foundation attorneys in recent years. Under that settlement, nonmember teachers may annually object and reclaim more than $200 each.

Olympia, WA (March 15, 2006) – In a bold move to the assert the legal rights of thousands of Washington public employees, a group of ten Washington State employees filed a statewide class-action civil rights lawsuit in federal court this morning challenging forced union dues seizures by the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) union and several top state officials.

The employees filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

The state workers point out that since obtaining a monopoly bargaining contract over them, WFSE union officials have denied them their constitutional due process rights – and have even ordered several employees fired for refusing to pay compulsory union dues. In addition to reinstatement and damages, the suit seeks to block union officials from further threatening the jobs of other state workers who refuse to pay forced union dues.

In May 2005, WFSE union officials sent a mailing to state employees informing them they would be forced to pay compulsory union dues as a job requirement. But this notice failed to provide certain constitutionally-required safeguards of employees’ rights to ensure they are not forced to pay for more than the cost of collective bargaining. These safeguards include an audit of union expenditures and an explanation for the basis of the portions of the workers’ fees claimed to be chargeable.

WFSE union officials are also unlawfully requiring employees who wish to object to funding ideological and other non-collective bargaining activities to sign automatic payroll deduction forms. Top state officials, including Washington State Labor Relations Director Steve McClain, are named in the suit for their complicit role in carrying out the firings of dissenting state employees.

“For union officials, it’s all about the money,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “WFSE union officials’ contempt for employees’ rights and eagerness to have employees fired demonstrates they are more interested in collecting forced union dues than supposedly ‘representing’ Washington State employees.”

The state workers charge that the seizure of forced dues by WFSE union officials without due process is a violation of their constitutional rights established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foundation-won Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson decision. Hudson requires union officials to provide an independently-audited disclosure of their books and justify their expenditures before seizing any forced union dues from employees.

More resources:

» Read the Complaint against WFSE et al.
» Statement by Foundation Legal Information Director, Justin Hakes 
» Statement of Kimberly Johnson 
» Statement of Maxine Dunkelman 
» Statement of Patricia Woodward 

Olympia, WA – Wednesday morning, March 15, a group of state employees will hold a press conference to announce the filing of a statewide class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking to bar Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) union officials from violating employees’ due process rights by forcing about 40,000 state employees to pay significant forced union dues – or be fired from their jobs. Many state employees have already been fired for refusal to pay such forced dues.

In the event of heavy rain Wednesday morning, or for more information, contact Justin Hakes at (571) 243-3637.

Washington, DC (March 3, 2006) – Accepting a federal court rebuke of a controversial Clinton-era decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week ruled that BellSouth Telecommunications employees cannot be forced to wear objectionable union insignia on their work uniforms as a condition of employment. The decision marks the culmination of a five-year legal battle between a group of BellSouth employees, receiving free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, and Communications Workers of America (CWA) union officials.

In January of last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously overturned an erroneous 2001 NLRB ruling that approved the practice of forcing BellSouth employees to wear union logos on their work uniforms – or be fired from their jobs. After issuing its decision, the court took the rare step of ordering the NLRB to pay attorneys fees, because the agency’s reasoning had not been substantially justified.

Yet, in defiance of the appellate court’s ruling, CWA union officials continued to insist, despite the objections of numerous BellSouth employees, that they wear the union logo as a condition of employment. However, after the court remanded its ruling to the NLRB and instructed the agency to issue an order consistent with the court’s opinion, the NLRB has now ruled that BellSouth and CWA officials must cease and desist from requiring any employees to wear the CWA union logo. BellSouth must also post notices throughout its facilities informing workers of their right not to wear the CWA union logo on their uniforms if they so choose.

“Employees should not be forced to be walking billboards for a union that they do not support,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The CWA union hierarchy’s repeated abuse of employees’ rights in this long ordeal underscores their lack of respect for the law and for the employees they supposedly represent.”

The appellate court noted that there was no evidence that the union patch projected a positive image to customers, and that it could, in fact, signal a negative image to customers who could conclude that strikes and service interruptions were more likely to occur.

Moreover, the court explained that anyone viewing an employee wearing the union logo would reasonably assume that the employee is a formal member of the union. The court ruled that this restrained and coerced employees in the exercise of their right to refrain from formal union membership and union activities.

San Diego, CA (February 28, 2006) – The following is a statement of Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, in response to AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney’s announcement that the labor conglomerate will spend an “unprecedented” $40 million to influence the 2006 mid-term elections.

“It’s disappointing to learn that the AFL-CIO’s plan for 2006 is ‘more of the same.’ Rather than getting workers to join unions voluntarily, union officials have stepped up their assault on employees’ legal rights to say ‘no’ to unionization.

“The AFL-CIO’s top priority appears to be electing politicians who pledge support for granting union organizers sweeping new coercive privileges under federal law– namely the Kennedy-Miller bill.

“At the same time, the AFL-CIO elite is expected to announce later this week that it will divert significant additional resources into corporate campaigns and other Top Down organizing methods. These abusive tactics involve attacking companies until they agree to hand over their employees into forced unionism through the so-called “card check” method rather than utilizing the traditional, less-abusive election procedure.

“Rather than working to expand their political clout and coercive organizing, union officials should instead clean up the corruption, shun the radical political activism, and turn their energy to improving the product they’re attempting to sell to America’s hardworking men and women.”

To schedule an interview with a Right to Work spokesperson, call Justin Hakes at 703-770-3317.

Ashtabula, OH (February 24, 2006) – Facing intense employee opposition to their monopoly bargaining status, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199 officials this week abandoned all claims to represent workers at Ashtabula County Community Head Start.

Union officials informed the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) yesterday that they no longer wished to represent employees at Head Start after battling an employee revolt for more than a year. The SEIU’s abandonment of Head Start comes in response to an employee-requested decertification election – which would have been held today – to throw out the unpopular union.

With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Peggy Swartzfager filed the decertification petition, signed by over 75 percent of her coworkers, in early 2005 after SEIU officials had failed for more than a year to obtain a collective bargaining agreement with Head Start. To thwart the election, union officials scrambled to reach a final agreement and filed two unfair labor practice charges against the employer. The contract was not favored by many rank-and-file workers, particularly since it included a requirement that all employees pay union dues or be fired from their jobs.

SEIU officials filed the unfair labor practice charges against Head Start in an effort to exploit NLRB procedures to obtain an indefinite postponement of the decertification election. Notwithstanding these postponement tactics, the NLRB scheduled an election for the workers for February 24.

To avoid a public relations black eye, SEIU officials disclaimed their monopoly bargaining contract before Head Start employees voted out the unwanted union, granting approximately 40 workers freedom to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment – and earn rewards based on individual merit.

“SEIU officials tucked tail and ran knowing that Head Start workers were going to vote them out,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “About to lose thousands of dollars in compulsory union dues, union officials packed up and left before these workers handed them an embarrassing election defeat.”

Under the National Labor Relations Act, if 30 percent or more of the employees in a bargaining unit sign a decertification petition, the NLRB should conduct a secret ballot election to determine if a majority of the employees wish to decertify the union and stop it from any further monopoly bargaining activities.

Albuquerque, N.M. (February 7, 2006) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., has ruled that Teamsters union officials violated workers’ rights by retaliating against workers who chose to do their jobs during the national strike against United Parcel Service (UPS) in 1997. The ruling ensures that UPS drivers in New Mexico may resign retroactively from the union and receive significant rebates of forced union dues.

A group of eight UPS workers from New Mexico, with free help from the National Right to Work Foundation, triggered the NLRB’s prosecution of the Teamsters union after union officials brought internal union disciplinary action against employees, including the threat of fines for working during a strike and firings from their jobs for refusal to pay full union dues and duplicative “initiation fees.”

The NLRB decision in the long-languishing case determined that Teamsters Union Local 492 violated federal labor law because union officials never informed workers of their right to resign their formal union membership and withhold certain forced dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining. The NLRB also ruled that those employees who did not receive the requisite notices could not be considered voluntary members of the union and, therefore, could not be subjected to internal union discipline of any kind.

“Teamsters union officials waged an ugly and illegal campaign of retaliation against workers who decided to honor their commitments to their families and their employer by refusing to walk off the job,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This long overdue ruling vindicates the principled and courageous stand taken by these workers.”

When Teamsters officials ordered UPS workers to strike against the company, some workers discovered on their own that they had a right to resign their formal union memberships in order to continue working during the strike without facing union retaliation. The NLRB found that, not only did Teamsters officials refuse to immediately honor the workers’ resignations as the law requires, but continued illegally to collect full dues, attempted to collect duplicate “initiation fees,” and sought to fine and cause the firing of workers who had refused to walk off the job.

In its ruling, the NLRB ordered Teamsters officials to end all threats of discipline against the workers, retroactively honor the workers’ resignations from union membership, and inform other workers in the statewide bargaining unit of their right to resign their formal union membership. Any employee who exercises that right may also be retroactively reimbursed for any forced union dues seized for purposes other than collective bargaining.

The ruling also implies that similar NLRB prosecutions, such as that of the Teamsters union for workers’ rights abuses during the 2003 California statewide grocery strike, will be resolved in favor of the employees.

The actions of Teamsters union officials violated protections recognized in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck, a case argued and won by Foundation attorneys. Under Beck and related rulings, workers may resign their formal union memberships at any time, and may not be compelled to pay dues beyond the union’s proven collective bargaining costs.

Knoxville, TN (February 3, 2006) – In a significant procedural victory, the Supreme Court of Tennessee has cleared the way for a circuit court trial in a case in which a Tennessee teacher is asserting that full union members have the right to withhold union dues spent on ideological activity without losing their right to vote on the collective bargaining agreements that bind them.

With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Dewey Esquinance filed suit against the Polk County Education Association (PCEA) and Tennessee Education Association (TEA) unions, affiliates of the National Education Association (NEA), in April 2003 in the Circuit Court of Polk County. After the Court of Appeals of Tennessee agreed with arguments made by Foundation attorneys that the trial court improperly dismissed the lawsuit, the state’s highest court rejected a union petition for review – clearing the way for a full investigation and trial.

As a result, Esquinance will be able to make his case in the Tennessee Circuit Court of Polk County that teachers statewide have the constitutional right to remain full union members and withhold dues spent on union political activities with which they disagree.

Union officials currently require teachers to exercise their rights under Tennessee’s Right to Work law to resign from union membership in order to stop the use of their dues money for objectionable political activities. In doing so, however, those teachers are barred by union officials from voting on ratification of collective bargaining agreements that determine the terms of their employment, control sick bank donations, and affect access to teacher training.

“This ruling shuts down teacher union officials’ desperate, last-ditch attempt to prevent a full investigation into their practice of spending teachers’ dues on politics,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

In September 2002, Esquinance joined the PCEA union and began paying full union dues, even though he objected to the NEA union’s political agenda. When Esquinance notified union officials that he wanted to remain a full union member but only pay for union expenses related to collective bargaining, union officials informed him that his union membership was terminated and that there was no appeals process.

Like many educators, Esquinance objects to numerous aspects of the union’s agenda for religious and political reasons, including the NEA’s stances promoting abortion, gun control, and special rights for homosexuals. Every year, the NEA and its affiliates spend tens of millions of dollars in compulsory dues in support of political views and candidates that many teachers find objectionable.

Esquinance is challenging union membership dues based on the rights established by the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Under Abood and subsequent rulings, employees have a constitutional right to refuse to pay for union non-collective bargaining activities, such as politics.

Charlotte, NC (January 31, 2006) – A local autoworker today filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and Daimler-Chrysler subsidiary Freightliner LLC after she suffered retaliation for questioning a pattern of special treatment given to union officials.

The unfair labor practice charges come on the heels of a class-action federal racketeering complaint filed by employees in U.S. District Court last week seeking significant damages after Freightliner and UAW union officials had already been found to be in illegal collusion by federal labor board investigators.

Kristi Jones, a Freightliner employee at the company’s Gastonia facility, sought free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to file today’s charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after she was suspended, demoted, and stripped of her leadership position.

Union and company officials retaliated against Jones in response to an email she sent in December 2005 that simply questioned whether a new work rule applied to UAW union officials, as well as nonunion workers. The new work rule specified that workers on the facility floor must wear safety glasses with clear lenses. Jones sought a clarification of how the new rule would be enforced because of an ongoing pattern of special treatment for union officials – including the exemption of union stewards from 10-minute team “huddle meetings” and from a requirement that workers sign in when working overtime.

Jones’ charges allege that the UAW union local and national affiliates and the company are maintaining a work environment where even implicit criticism of union officials is met with harsh and unlawful disciplinary action. Aside from violating the National Labor Relations Act, such actions also run contrary to the spirit of North Carolina’s highly popular Right to Work law, on the books since 1947, which prohibits the forcing of workers to join or pay dues to a union as a job condition.

“Freightliner and UAW officials have cut an illegal sweetheart deal and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Stefan Gleason, Foundation Vice President. “This illegal intimidation, retaliation, and harassment must end.”

Jones filed her charges just days after she and four other autoworkers from three major facilities in North Carolina, including the Gastonia facility, filed a class-action federal racketeering lawsuit against the UAW union and Freightliner, also with help from the National Right to Work Foundation. That complaint outlines a secret quid pro quo arrangement between Freightliner and the UAW in which union officials agreed in advance to significant concessions at the expense of Freightliner’s workers at its non-union facilities in North Carolina in exchange for valuable company assistance in organizing those workers.

The NLRB will now investigate Jones’ charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint and prosecute the company and union.

Greensburg, IN (January 31, 2006) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, nine Printpack workers filed federal charges today against the Graphic Communications Conference (GCC) union, a Teamsters union subsidiary, for illegally collecting forced union dues.

The employees filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) on behalf of themselves and nearly 270 of their colleagues at the packaging materials plant. The NLRB’s investigators will decide whether formally to prosecute GCC union officials for unfair labor practices.

From January 2005 to June 2005, the monopoly bargaining contract between the GCC union and Printpack was temporarily not in effect. But starting December 2005, GCC union officials began to retroactively charge Printpack workers for forced union dues during the contract hiatus – even though they had no legal authority to do so for that period.

Because Indiana is not yet a Right to Work state, employees can be fired from their jobs simply for refusing to pay union dues when a collective bargaining agreement is in effect. However, according to longstanding NLRB precedent, the National Labor Relations Act prevents union officials from collecting forced dues from employees when the union has no contract with the employer.

“GCC union bosses seem more interested in collecting forced union dues money so they can play politics than representing employees at the bargaining table,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The absence of a Right to Work law in Indiana allows this kind of union corruption and abuse.”

Additionally, GCC union officials deliberately failed to inform employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and pay reduced compulsory union dues. These union actions violate employees’ rights affirmed under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision. Under Beck and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials must inform employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and allow them to reclaim forced dues spent for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activity.

Foundation attorneys also point out that GCC union officials are charging Printpack employees who file Beck objections for compulsory dues greater than their collective bargaining share, and are illegally collecting dues directly from employees’ paychecks without first providing the workers with information about union expenditures – preconditions to collecting forced union dues.