**Springfield, VA (August 24, 2006)** – Experts from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation will be available for comment and interviews on and around Labor Day about workers’ rights, union political activities leading up to midterm elections, union organizing, corruption, violence, and other issues relating to organized labor in America. The Foundation is a non-profit, charitable organization that provides free legal aid to victims of compulsory unionism abuse, and the only national group of this kind.

Foundation experts have been interviewed on national television and radio programs, including The O’Reilly Factor, Special Report with Brit Hume, CNBC’s Closing Bell, and on CNN. Their writings frequently appear in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, Investor’s Business Daily, and numerous other publications. They are prepared to comment on or debate any issues related to the following:

• Big Labor’s political efforts to install a majority in Congress sympathetic to expanding union special privileges during the 2006 mid-term election cycle;

• How the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board has delayed rulings on many of the most cutting-edge cases in American labor law – allowing union officials to step up their aggressive organizing tactics which often violate workers’ rights;

• Organized labor’s war on the secret ballot election process for workers choosing whether to unionize, increasing use of coercive “card check” organizing campaigns against workers, and “corporate campaigns” to embarrass and bully nonunion companies;

• How Big Labor’s political agenda is often out of step with many rank-and-file workers’ beliefs;

• The growing support for job-producing Right to Work laws that make union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary;

• Examples of workers’ rights abuse resulting from forced union dues, union violence, violations of religious freedom, and other infringements of employees’ individual rights;

• How teacher union officials have contributed to a decline in public education while blocking efforts at reform.

To schedule an interview – or for more information – call Justin Hakes at 703-770-3317 or send him an email.

**Washington, DC (August 24, 2006)** —National Right to Work Foundation attorneys took additional steps today to secure U.S. Supreme Court review of a controversial Washington State Supreme Court ruling which struck down a state law requirement that union officials obtain the prior consent of nonunion public employees before spending mandatory union dues for politics. The Foundation attorneys representing Washington teachers filed a reply brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to correct the record after union lawyers attempted to mislead the High Court so that it would not take up the case.

Specifically, the Right to Work brief takes the Washington Education Association (WEA) union to task for deliberately mischaracterizing the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling in order to make it appear justified. Specifically, the union claimed that the Washington law had attempted to ban unions from spending any money on politics, rather than simply banning the use of funds collected from non-union members without their affirmative authorization.

The teachers’ brief also responded to the union lawyers’ assertion that the campaign finance law had somehow placed unfair burdens on the union, even though union officials enjoy extraordinary legal privileges and immunities under Washington State law. As the Foundation’s brief points out, “Who, trying to obtain money from another, would consider it a burden to have to actually ask for the money?”

Foundation attorneys – working jointly with Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle – originally filed the suit, Davenport v. Washington Education Association, for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but nonetheless forced to pay union dues or fees.

But much to the dismay of nonunion Washington employees, the long-awaited ruling in Davenport by the state supreme court in mid-March struck down the last remaining union dues provisions in I-134, Washington’s troubled “paycheck protection” law, and in the process created a precedent that could be used to attack Right to Work laws across America.

Though the Foundation believes the decision is wrongheaded, the ruling brings into focus how difficult the paycheck protection regulatory approach is, and how ineffective it has been in protecting employees laboring under forced unionism. Even if the state supreme court had upheld the law, I-134 would still only result in individual refunds of $10 per year, on average. Ultimately, only the passage of a Right to Work law in Washington would ensure that union dues are not misused.

“The real solution is to attack forced unionism at its root, rather than try to regulate its ill effects,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Foundation has no choice but to help mop up the damage to the First Amendment being caused by courts responding to these ‘paycheck protection’ laws.”

The brief can be found here.

**Minneapolis, MN (August 23, 2006)** — With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a stage technician hit the International Association of Theatrical State Employees (IATSE) union Local 490 with federal charges – challenging an industry-wide forced union dues scheme.

Filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the unfair labor practice charges detail how IATSE union officials successfully threatened to have Gregory Niska and others black listed for exercising their legal right not to join the union. Federal labor law states that employees cannot be forced to join or pay dues to a union prior to 30 days of employment.

Niska and other employees in the theatre industry often take jobs that last less than 30 days, but IATSE officials have entered into contracts with production companies requiring employees to pay union dues as a job condition. The union officials’ actions violate Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the National Labor Relational Act (NLRA).

According to the NLRA, union officials cannot seize forced dues from an employee’s paycheck until after he has completed at least 30 days with the same employer. The IATSE union hierarchy, however, routinely ignores such legally-mandated grace periods and instead requires dues payment upon 30 days of work in the industry – even if no one project lasts 30 days. Upon 30 days in the industry, the union hierarchy illegally demands that theatre workers pay the union annual – as well as other various unexplained – forced dues or face blackballing from many projects.

The NLRB charge details how when Niska exercised his legal right not to pay dues to or join the union, IATSE officials placed Niska on a Do Not Hire list and notified at least one of his employers that he was “ineligible to work” at which point the employer chose not to hire Niska “in order to avoid complications.”

“With this illegal policy, IATSE union officials are extorting money out of theatre workers who are just trying to get a break,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The union hierarchy is more concerned with stuffing its coffers with forced dues than promoting the interests of the workers union officials supposedly represent.”

The NLRB will investigate to decide whether to prosecute the union to remedy the allegations set forth in Niska’s charges.

**Phoenix, AZ (August 16, 2006)** – Agreeing with arguments filed by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys and the City of Phoenix, a unanimous appellate court yesterday rejected a full-frontal union attack on Arizona’s highly popular Right to Work law, which protects employees’ right to choose whether or not to join or financially support a union.

“It is clear that the populace, through constitutional amendment and legislation, intended to forbid both management and labor from imposing, as a condition of employment, the requirement that any person participate in any form or design of union membership,” wrote the State of Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One.

The case originated in 2001 during contract negotiations between the City of Phoenix and officials of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union, AFL-CIO, Local 2384. The union hierarchy wanted to force city employees to pay mandatory union fees equivalent to nearly 80 percent of full union dues.

When Phoenix officials refused to negotiate these fees on the grounds that they violated Arizona’s Constitution and Right to Work statutes, the union filed an unsuccessful complaint at the Phoenix Employee Relations Board. After losing again in Arizona Superior Court, union lawyers filed an appeal in the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Foundation attorneys filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in 2005 supporting the City’s position that any form of forced dues violates state law. The Grand Canyon state’s highly popular Right to Work law protects all public workers and virtually all private-sector employees from being forced to join or support a union as a condition of employment. Right to Work laws also help attract new jobs to states that have these protections, and, as a result, America’s 22 Right to Work states have far outpaced compulsory unionism states in job creation and increases in the standard of living for working families.

“Union officials hate Right to Work laws because they allow workers to hold them accountable,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “They don’t want to have to persuade employees to give their voluntary support – they just want the money.”

Arizona’s Right to Work law was enacted almost 60 years ago and is so firmly a part of Arizona’s culture that it is engrained in the state constitution.

**Toledo, OH (July 31, 2006)** – For the second time in four months, United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials face federal labor board charges for violating the rights of nurses at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center. The latest charge, filed by St. Vincent nurse Amy Anderson, details union officials’ campaign of bullying and intimidation as Anderson and others sought to collect signatures from their co-workers to throw the unwanted union out of their workplace.

The nurse’s unfair labor practice charge against the UAW union and its Local 12, filed with the assistance of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, lists numerous examples of union agents’ “thuggish and unlawful activities” including surveillance of nurses, writing down license plate numbers, stalking employees, massing around employees who sought to sign the decertification petition, verbal and physical intimidation of nurses and threats against employees seeking decertification.

The alleged harassment took place at and around the medical center including in the cafeteria, parking lots and even in bathrooms.

Despite the union officials’ organized campaign of unlawful intimidation, the nurses were able to collect signatures from 30 percent of employees – the minimum necessary to trigger a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) supervised decertification election. Once the signatures are certified by the NLRB Region 8 Director in Cleveland, the Board will hold a secret ballot election through which the health care professionals can rid their workplace of the abusive union.

“UAW union officials have unleashed a shameless campaign of intimidation upon St. Vincent nurses in their lust to preserve the flow of forced union dues,” said Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason. “Given such hostility for the rights of the very rank-and-file nurses that UAW officials claim to ‘represent,’ it comes as no surprise that many nurses are leading the effort to show them the door.”

Previously, four nurses from St. Vincents filed federal charges with the Board against the UAW union and its Toledo Local 12 for violating their rights by threatening to have nurses fired, despite failing to inform the employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and the right to pay a reduced fee in lieu of full union dues. Under the Foundation-won United States Supreme Court decision Communications Workers v. Beck, union officials must inform workers of their right to remain nonmembers or resign from formal union membership and to refrain from paying for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities.

Tired of union officials’ mistreatment, a group of nurses formed “Nurses For A Union-Free St. Vincents” (www.NursesKnowTheTruth.bravehost.com) with the goal of decertifying the unwanted automotive union.

Pottstown, PA (July 21, 2006) – In response to charges brought by two local workers with free legal help from the National Right to Work Foundation, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC ordered the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Local 619C to retract threats against workers’ jobs intended to discourage them from continuing to work during a union-ordered strike against Cabot Supermetals in 2005.

Both David Cameron and Walter Reigner, chemical workers at the Cabot Supermetals factory in Boyertown, lost their jobs in November 2005 as part of a union-negotiated strike settlement between Cabot and ICWUC union officials. In the agreement, union officials explicitly demanded that Cabot management fire Cameron and Reigner, in addition to two other similarly-situated employees, for exercising their legal right to resign their formal union memberships and continue working during the strike. Cabot then handed their jobs over to less skilled and less senior workers.

The NLRB General Counsel issued a formal complaint in April, and agreed to prosecute the union for threatening to order workers fired. While the charges have awaited final resolution by the NLRB, Cabot has since rehired Reigner, but not Cameron. The General Counsel inexplicably refused to issue a complaint on the actual firings to bring the issue before the full NLRB.

In issuing its order, the NLRB cited an illegal union posting that threatened all workers at the Cabot facility stating, “If you are thinking about crossing the line remember this; if we win an unfair labor practice and you crossed the line YOU will be looking for a job for you will not be working for ‘scabot’ and maybe not for any union shop!”

“Union officials made an example of these workers to discourage others from refusing to toe the union line,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “How the NLRB General Counsel can find the threats of firings to be illegal but, at the same time, fail to address whether making good on those threats is also illegal is beyond comprehension.”

Cameron, Reigner, and their two colleagues exercised their right under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Patternmakers v. NLRB to resign from formal union membership and continue working during a strike. The workers alleged that their firings violated the National Labor Relations Act and the duty of fair representation, which are supposed to protect employees from union retaliation or coercion.

**Honolulu, HI (July 20, 2006)** – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Hilton Hawaiian Village employee faced down a top UNITE-HERE union official and defeated a union policy of coercing non-union workers to pay for activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

Grant Suzuki, an electrician at the hotel, filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in March 2005 after the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union hierarchy violated his rights by requiring him and other similarly situated nonmembers to pay into strike funds that are subject to use in strikes in industries such as health care and entertainment – including some located in Guam and Saipan. In response, the NLRB agreed to prosecute the union for violating workers’ rights and scheduled a formal hearing for Tuesday, July 18.

Defense of the union’s unlawful policy was apparently of particular interest to John Wilhelm, national head of UNITE-HERE’s hospitality division, who came all the way from New York to attend the hearing before an NLRB administrative law judge in Honolulu. In the end, however, UNITE-HERE’s lawyers inked a settlement agreement that forces the union to stop misusing Hilton Hawaiian Village employees’ forced dues, post notices in the hotel describing the workers’ legal rights, and create a separate fund from nonmembers to be used only on strikes in hotel bargaining units in Hawaii.

“This victory is an incremental yet important step toward limiting the power of union officials to shake down workers to support Big Labor’s agenda,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “But as long as Hawaii workers labor under a system of compulsory unionism, such abuses will inevitably continue.”

UNITE-HERE officials are currently in contract negotiations with Hilton Hotels Corporation and are using the strike fund to leverage the chain to agree to a so-called “neutrality agreement” covering other hotels across the country. A neutrality agreement is a contract under which an employer actively supports a union’s attempt to organize its own workforce. Employers often enter into such agreements to stop union officials’ pressure tactics such as publicity stunts, frivolous litigation, and boycotts. The National Right to Work Foundation is the vanguard opponent of neutrality agreements in the courts and at the NLRB, providing free legal aid to employees across the country who are victimized by these pacts that severely undermine worker free choice.

Because UNITE-HERE does not currently have a contract with Hilton, any hotel employee who resigns his or her formal membership now can end all unwanted union dues seizures from their paychecks.

Although the settlement was an incremental victory for employees’ rights, it does not offer broad enough relief to workers under UNITE-HERE’s coercive monopoly bargaining agreements. Suzuki, with free legal assistance from the Foundation, plans to appeal the union and NLRB-signed settlement to end the collection of all forced dues for strikes.

**Portland, OR (July 18, 2006)** – In a victory for employee free choice, a group of workers aided by the National Right to Work Foundation have forced Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49 officials to renounce their monopoly bargaining power over employees of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (a component of the national Kaiser Permanente health network) after union organizers, with the company‘s help, used coercive tactics to force unionization on the employees.

The settlement of the employees’ unfair labor practice charges states that Kaiser will immediately terminate its voluntary recognition of the union as monopoly bargaining agent. Additionally, both the union hierarchy and Kaiser must issue notices to employees alerting them of their rights – including the right to refrain from formal union membership – and informing workers that the company will not bargain with union officials unless the employees so choose through the less abusive National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) secret ballot election process.

Kaiser unlawfully granted recognition to the SEIU union in October 2005 based on the results of a “card check” scheme – where union organizers browbeat employees to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization – even though an agreement between the company and union specifically stated that recognition would only be granted after a secret-ballot election determined that a majority of workers support the union. Workers reported that union officials explicitly told them that signing the “cards” was not a vote for unionization, but instead was a request to hold a secret-ballot election and to receive more information.

After having the unwanted union forced upon her and her coworkers, Karen Mayhew, who works in the Patient Business Services Department at a local Kaiser office, contacted the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation for free legal aid. In November, Mayhew filed charges at the NLRB for herself and roughly 65 similarly situated employees with legal assistance from Foundation attorneys.

Mayhew also filed a petition for decertification of the unwanted union within days of Kaiser’s granting SEIU officials monopoly bargaining power over the 65 affected workers. Now that union officials are stripped of their tainted monopoly bargaining status as part of the settlement, that petition to throw out the unwanted union is no longer necessary.

“Union officials tried to force unionization on these workers from the top down, like it or not,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union officials’ illegal behavior shows that they do not respect the rights of the workers they sought to represent; it was all about the money and finding additional sources of forced union dues revenues.”

View the NLRB Settlement, and the required union and employer notices to employees

**Washington, DC (July 13, 2006)** – Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation, made the following statement in response to today’s protest by AFL-CIO union conglomerate professionals outside the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

“The public shouldn’t be fooled by AFL-CIO professionals shedding crocodile tears about recent National Labor Relations Board activity. They should instead be outraged that the Bush NLRB has done almost nothing to reverse substantial damage inflicted on independent employees’ rights by the labor agency during the Clinton era.

“According to a study by Jones Day attorney G. Roger King prepared for the American Bar Association, during the period of 1994-2001, the Clinton NLRB overturned 60 long-standing cases for a jaw-dropping 1181 years of combined precedent.

“These activist rulings increased union coercive privileges, entrenched incumbent unions, sharply undercut the rights of employees who disagree with a union, and diminished employer free speech.

“Yet, the Bush NLRB has been plagued by more than 5 years of paralysis and lack of productivity. As a result, the Bush NLRB has only overturned 9 precedents in the past 5 years, and several of them were insignificant procedural rulings. The Clinton NLRB turned labor law upside down, and the Bush NLRB has yet to right the ship.

“What concerns union officials the most is that the NLRB is considering several National Right to Work Foundation cases brought for workers who are desperately seeking protection from Big Labor’s increasingly ‘in your face’ organizing tactics. In these many long-pending cases, employees are pleading for the NLRB’s protection from union coercion and relief from Big Labor’s efforts to deny employees even so much as a secret-ballot vote when choosing whether to unionize.

“While workers seeking to remain union-free face public interrogations, bribery, threats, and stalkings by union operatives during these Top Down organizing drives, the Bush NLRB has dithered. If the agency fails to rule on the workers’ cases challenging these abusive tactics, employees face the further erosion of their freedom to choose whether to unionize.”

**Seattle, WA (July 13, 2006)** – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Safeway employee won a judgment this week against United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials forcing them to drop their discriminatory policy intended to deter workers from exercising their religious freedoms.

Daniel Gautschi, manager in a Safeway meat department, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in early May after UFCW Local 81 union officials set forth conditions that forced him, if he should ever have an employment grievance, to affiliate with – and pay additional money to – a union that conflicts with his religious beliefs.

Shortly after Gautschi filed his charges, the union hierarchy, governing Safeway stores in King and Kitsat counties, backtracked. Because federal law grants union officials many coercive privileges over employees, including the power to force their “representation” on workers who do not even want it, union lawyers recognized the union could not act discriminatorily toward nonunion members.

The union hierarchy therefore adopted a policy that all costs associated with grievance and arbitration processing of any employee – including religious objectors – are to be paid out of the union’s general treasury, which includes the forced union dues collected under its monopoly bargaining agreement. The settlement stipulates that union officials must refrain from further retaliation against Gautschi or any other employee who seeks to assert his or her legal rights to religious freedom.

Union officials allowed Gautschi to divert his forced union dues (paid as a condition of employment) to a charity – an accommodation previously won by Foundation attorneys – before Gautschi filed his lawsuit. However, they continued to maintain an illegal scheme intended to deter employees from exercising their right to assert religious objections in the first place. The discriminatory scheme forced only employees who assert religious objections to pay the union all costs associated with use of grievance procedures under the bargaining agreement – even though union officials tightly control the process, and employees are totally barred from filing grievances on their own.

As a devout Christian, Gautschi believes that supporting the UFCW union violates his sincerely held religious beliefs due to the union hierarchy’s support for special rights for homosexuals.

“This victory stalls UFCW union officials’ all-out offensive on employees’ right to freedom of religion in this part of Washington,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “However, employees of faith should not have to take legal action simply to force union officials to honor their fundamental rights.”

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs. To avoid the conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to attempt to accommodate the employee – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to receive the funds.