The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2018 edition.

Kathleen Flanagan’s settlement rescued her coworkers from a collusive scheme between her employers and union officials, in which employees were illegally told they must become union members and pay union membership dues.

LONG ISLAND, NY – After her employer made a deal with union officials behind closed doors, Kathleen Flanagan came to the National Right to Work Foundation to halt the scheme and free her coworkers.

The backroom deal between Northwell Health and 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East (SEIU 1199) officials forced Flanagan, a physical therapist assistant, and her colleagues into union ranks without a vote. Unwilling to accept being coerced into unionization, she filed unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free Foundation legal assistance.

In May, Northwell Health and 1199 SEIU officials were forced to give up their under-the-
table agreement, a triumph for Flanagan and her coworkers who had previously rejected SEIU unionization attempts.

SEIU 1199 union officials already had monopoly bargaining power over some workers at Northwell Health’s facilities. However, workers in other classifications, including Flanagan’s physical therapy and occupational therapy department at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, had rebuffed union organizers.

In November 2017 a Northwell Health representative informed Flanagan’s department that SEIU 1199 had “acquired them legally.” The department, as well as other departments at Northwell’s two facilities, was “accreted” into the union’s monopoly bargaining unit and forced to accept the union’s unwanted “representation.”

At a mandatory union meeting, a union official unlawfully told the workers they were required to join the union, and therefore pay full union dues, by January 1, 2018. If Flanagan had remained an employee, she would have been required to accept union representation, pay union fees, and accept a reduction in benefits.

Faced with a reduction in benefits due to a union she and her coworkers never wanted, Flanagan chose to retire instead.

Flanagan’s former coworkers were still being forced by union bosses to accept
representation” they didn’t want. To challenge the so-called “accretion” as unlawful, Flanagan went to Foundation staff attorneys, who helped her file charges with the NLRB.

Northwell and SEIU 1199 eventually settled the charges, rather than face further litigation for violating workers’ legal rights. Under the settlements, Northwell ceased
recognition of SEIU 1199 as the monopoly bargaining representative of the illegally
accreted hospital workers, and SEIU 1199 was forced to relinquish monopoly bargaining
privileges over those employees.

“The so-called accretion doctrine, which is not mandated by the National Labor Relations Act, empowers union bureaucrats to coerce workers into unions without a vote, frequently
after the targeted workers reject union organizing attempts,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse. “However, the collusion
between the company and union brass in this case was so egregious and flagrantly illegal that the NLRB had no choice but to take action.”

The illegally accreted workers are now freed from unwanted union representation and will be reimbursed for union fees they were forced to pay. Furthermore, notices will be posted at both of Northwell Health’s facilities and emailed out to affected employees to inform them of their rights.

“Thanks to Kathleen Flanagan, this ugly power-grab by SEIU officials was successfully halted and reversed,” continued LaJeunesse. “To protect other workers across the country from being forced into unwanted unions, the Trump NLRB should overturn this outrageous
accretion doctrine.”

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2018 edition.

Union bosses still flout Michigan’s Right to Work Law, which passed in 2012 after voters rejected United Autoworkers (UAW) union chief Bob King’s ballot measure to make forced union dues mandatory under the Michigan State Constitution.

LANSING, MI – In March, the Michigan Supreme Court denied an appeal by Michigan Education Association (MEA) union lawyers of a lower court ruling that affirmed Michigan employees’ right to leave a union at the time of their choosing. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys provided free legal assistance to several public school employees in the case.

Since Michigan’s Right to Work Law took effect in 2013, Foundation staff attorneys have actively challenged union officials’ schemes to stonewall independent-minded workers attempting to exercise their lawful rights. To date, over 40 cases have been brought by Foundation attorneys to enforce Michigan employees’ Right to Work protections.

“As our enforcement activities in Michigan demonstrate, without vigorous enforcement, state Right to Work laws will be hollowed out by scofflaw union bosses,” said Ray LaJeunesse, Vice President and Legal Director of the Foundation.

Battle Creek Public Schools employee Alphia Snyder resigned her union membership in April 2013, after the pre-existing monopoly bargaining agreement expired and she became fully covered by Michigan’s public sector Right to Work law. However, MEA union officials insisted that she could only leave the union during an annual 30 day “window period” in August. Throughout the fall of 2013, Snyder received several demands for forced dues from MEA bosses.

Mark Norgan, a Standish-Sterling Community Schools employee, resigned his union membership in October 2013. Because he was still under a monopoly bargaining contract until June 30, 2015, he asked to pay only the part of dues he was forced to pay as a condition of employment as was his right under the Foundation-won Supreme Court case Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson. MEA union officials told him that he could only leave the union during the annual 30 day window period.

In November 2013, Grand Blanc Community Schools employee Mary Carr resigned her union membership as soon as she became fully covered by Michigan’s Right to Work Law. However, MEA officials informed Carr that her resignation could not be effective until the following August. Union officials then sent multiple demands for forced dues, and eventually threatened Carr that if she did not pay the forced dues, they would dispatch debt collectors.

With free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, the three public school employees filed unfair labor practice charges with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) against the MEA in the spring of 2014. In September 2014, an administrative law judge struck down the “window period” scheme, and the full commission agreed in February 2016. The commission also held that a union’s threats to use a debt collector to collect dues after resignation would be illegal in the future.

MEA appealed MERC’s ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which in May 2017 affirmed the right of Michigan teachers and public employees to leave a union and stop paying union dues at any time. Finally, this March, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected MEA’s appeal of that ruling.

“Right to Work laws simply protect an employee’s right to decide for him or herself whether to join and financially support a union, and now Michigan’s courts have made it clear that freedom of choice cannot be limited to one month a year,” said LaJeunesse. “Hopefully Michigan unions now will focus on gaining the voluntary support of workers instead of attempting to trap them in unions with schemes like arbritrary window periods.”

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2018 edition.

Sherry and David Pirlott filed charges against union officials on November 8, 1989 — the day before the Berlin Wall began to be demolished — but enforcing their rights would take longer than tearing down one of the most visible symbols of the Cold War.

GREEN BAY, WI – The day before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Sherry and David Pirlott filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the Teamsters Local 75 union hierarchy for keeping them in the dark about their rights and how union officials were spending their forced union dues

Following nearly three decades of litigation between National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys and union lawyers at both the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Pirlotts’ rights were finally vindicated.

Before the legal battle began, Sherry Pirlott was a Teamsters local 75 union steward at the Schreiber Foods cheese company

“It was very clear from the beginning that the other union stewards did things for the betterment of the union, not for the betterment of the workers,” she later recounted. “I just did what I thought was right, and the other stewards didn’t like that one bit.”

After union goons threatened her with bodily harm for refusing to toe the line, Sherry decided to stop financially supporting the union hierarchy. Teamsters Local 75 union officials then sued her in small-claims court to force her to pay for union activities. Unable to find a local attorney in Green Bay willing to take on union lawyers, she was forced to defend herself. The judge refused to hear her arguments and quickly awarded judgment to the Teamsters.

That’s when Sherry discovered the National Right to Work Foundation’s free legal aid program — and learned about her rights under a United States Supreme Court decision Foundation staff attorneys had just won.

In the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1988 that workers have the right to refrain from joining a union and subsidizing union activities unrelated to monopoly bargaining and contract administration, such as politics and member-only events.

Teamsters Local 75 union officials never informed the Pirlotts or their coworkers of their rights under Beck. Once they learned of these rights, Sherry and David Pirlott, also an employee at Schreiber Foods, resigned from formal union membership and objected to paying for nonchargeable union expenses. Providing only sketchy financial disclosure of the union’s expenses, Teamster union officials told the Pirlotts that only 1.1 percent of the union’s expenditures were for non-bargaining activities.

On November 8, 1989, with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, the Pirlotts filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB. Nearly two years later, the NLRB General Counsel found merit to the charges and issued a complaint against the union for failing to inform workers of their Beck rights, providing inadequate financial disclosure, and charging objecting workers for expenditures incurred beyond their own bargaining unit.

In 1992, an administrative law judge issued a mixed ruling, and both the Pirlotts and the union appealed to the full NLRB. That’s when the outrageous delays began.

After more than six years of inaction by Bill Clinton’s NLRB, Foundation staff attorneys filed a rare mandamus petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to order the Board to issue a decision. Under mounting pressure form this legal action, the Clinton Labor Board finally acted on the case in September 1999. However, they simply sent the case back to an administrative law judge to determine whether the union could force the Pirlotts to pay for union organizing at other workplaces.

In the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent Ellis v. Railway Clerks, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such expenses are not chargeable to non-members under the Railway Labor Act. Unfortunately, even though in Beck the Court ruled that the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act are “statutory equivalents,” the judge in December 2001 ruled that Teamster union bosses could charge the Pirlotts to subsidize union organizing campaigns anywhere in the private sector.

The Pirlotts again appealed to the full NLRB. With no decision for four and a half years, Foundation staff attorneys filed a second mandamus petition and successfully convinced the D.C. Circuit to order the NLRB to respond in 2006. Unable to meet the November 30 deadline, the NLRB asked the D.C. Circuit for more time. When the NLRB finally issued a decision two months later, it failed to hold all union organizing expenditures nonchargeable under Ellis and Beck. Moreover, the Board overlooked the inadequacy of the union’s financial disclosure, so the Pirlotts appealed the decision to the D.C. Circuit.

On April 18, 2008, the D.C. Circuit issued its ruling. It declined to address the argument that objecting non-members can never be charged for organizing activities and remanded the case back to the NLRB to consider the adequacy of the union’s financial disclosure. The NLRB then sat on the case for the next seven years with little action.

The NLRB in March 2017 finally held that the Teamsters Local 75 union officials provided insufficient financial disclosure. Following this victory for the Pirlotts, settlement negotiations dragged on for nearly another year. Eventually, after Wisconsin’s Right to Work Law became operative at Schreiber Foods in January 2018, the union agreed to reimburse the Pirlotts with interest and post notices informing workers of their rights under Beck. Further, because of Wisconsin’s Right to Work Law, David Pirlott, who still works at Schreiber Foods, is finally free from any payments to the union bosses that fought to violate his rights for decades.

“With the help of NLRB bureaucrats, Teamster union bosses fought tooth and nail for nearly three decades to try to keep every last cent of the Pirlotts’ forced fees,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Pirlotts’ lengthy legal battle to enforce their rights despite the NLRB’s repeated delays demonstrates that Right to Work laws are the only way to truly protect independent-minded workers.”

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2018 edition.

Illinois state employee Brian Trygg seeks to intervene in a union official’s case to expand union boss power to discriminate against workers who exercise their Janus rights.

CHICAGO, IL – An Illinois civil servant has filed a motion to intervene in a union official’s
lawsuit seeking to circumvent the Janus ruling.

Brian Trygg is no stranger to union officials’ legal tactics. Trygg, an engineer at the Illinois Department of Transportation, spent seven long years in court fighting for his right to honor his religious conviction to remain unassociated with a union.

Trygg was an original plaintiff with Mark Janus in Janus v. AFSCME, but was removed from the case because he had secured religious accommodation as relief from forced union fees. Now, Trygg again seeks to hold union officials accountable in court for their misdeeds against non-members.

In anticipation of Janus, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) lawyers filed a lawsuit seeking to expand union officials’ ability to use their government-granted monopoly bargaining powers to discriminate against workers who exercise their right to refrain from union membership and not pay union dues or fees.

Trygg came to Foundation staff attorneys for free legal assistance in filing his motion to intervene to protect his rights and the rights of all public employees under the Janus ruling.

The IUOE official’s lawsuit attempts to take advantage of IUOE’s legislative privilege to force its “representation” on all employees, even union non-members, in their bargaining unit while claiming it should also be free of longstanding legal doctrine prohibiting union officials from using their monopoly representation to discriminate against non-members and not represent non-members in union-controlled grievances.

Trygg seeks to intervene to urge dismissal of the IUOE case, or alternatively, to file an amicus curiae brief to support the state defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Acting on his beliefs, Trygg has exercised his right to refrain from union membership. If IUOE’s suit is successful, Trygg would continue to be unable to negotiate with his employer due to the union’s monopoly bargaining status, yet union officials would have the power to discriminate against him and ignore the legal doctrine known as “duty of fair representation.”

Trygg argues that Defendant Attorney General Lisa Madigan has failed to protect his interests, with legal representation “inadequate and bordering on malpractice.” Madigan also has opposed and criticized the Janus ruling and has taken action to limit its application to Illinois public employees.

IUOE officials appear to be calling for the overturn of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Steele precedent, a 1944 case that challenged union officials’ attempt to use their monopoly bargaining privileges to discriminate against black workers. The decision suggested that monopoly bargaining would be unconstitutional absent a legal limitation on union officials using their power to discriminate against the workers they choose to “represent.”

Trygg’s filings argue that, even if the union’s claims were valid, the solution would be eliminating union monopoly bargaining powers over non-members, not giving union officials wider berth to discriminate against those who exercise their First Amendment rights protected by the Janus decision.

“The root of Big Labor’s coercion has always been its government-granted power to impose its so-called ‘representation’ on workers who don’t want it and never asked for it,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ultimately, if union bosses find their obligation not to discriminate against non-members under their ‘representation’ so burdensome, they can simply relinquish their government-granted monopoly bargaining powers over nonmembers like Brian Trygg.”

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2018 edition.

Georgina Canche and her fellow workers at Scoma’s, a CA restaurant, finally ousted unwanted union officials from their workplace after years of legal delays.

SAUSALITO, CA – Workers at Scoma’s of Sausalito, a California restaurant, held a decertification election on July 10 to remove the UNITE HERE union from their workplace, resulting in a 37-12 landslide vote against the union. The successful election was a culmination of over four years of employee efforts to remove the union’s presence at the restaurant. The restaurant employees received free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys in their efforts to exercise their rights to oust the unwanted union.

In 2013, restaurant employee Georgina Canche and a majority of her fellow coworkers successfully petitioned their employer to withdraw recognition of UNITE HERE as their monopoly bargaining representative. Although a majority of the employees signed the petition and the employer followed procedure established by longstanding labor law, the union filed a federal charge against the employer with the National Labor Relations Board to reinstate its monopoly bargaining powers, regardless of the workers’ petition.

The notoriously pro-forced unionism Obama Labor Board sided with union lawyers, and even issued a “bargaining order” to block attempts by the workers to hold a secret ballot vote to decertify and remove the union as the employee’s monopoly bargaining representative.” With the backing of the workers, Scoma’s appealed the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which unanimously overturned the “bargaining order” and remanded the case to the Labor Board so that a decertification vote could proceed.

One judge wrote separately and excoriated the Board for its blocking charge policy that delays elections.

After additional delay, the NLRB Regional Director finally conducted a secret ballot decertification election, in which the workers voted overwhelmingly to remove UNITE HERE from their workplace. Thus, five years after a majority signed their petition to kick the union out of their workplace, the workers were finally free of the union.

“After years of dilatory legal challenges by union lawyers with the help of Obama-installed bureaucrats, the workers of Scoma’s restaurant are finally able to have a say in their own workplace representation,” said Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “This case shows the legal trickery used by union bosses to hold onto their forced-dues powers, even when a clear majority of the workers the bosses claim to represent oppose their presence. This is why the Foundation’s legal aid program is so vital in clearing the legal hurdles so workers can exercise their right to vote out a union they oppose.”

All articles from the March/April 2019 issue of Foundation Action are now on the website.

In this issue:

• Lawsuits Successfully Challenge Schemes to Block Workers’ Janus Rights
• Housekeeper Challenges Labor Board Double Standard Promoting ‘Card Check’
• SCOTUS Asked to Hear Homecare Providers’ Case Seeking Return of Seized Union Fees
• Foundation Fights to Enforce Janus SCOTUS Victory and Halt Big Labor’s Coercive Tactics
• MA Supreme Court Hears Educators’ Challenge to Teacher Union’s Coercive Power
• Appeals Court Affirms Ruling That Union Bosses Violated Michigan’s Right to Work Law

To view other editions or sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail, click here.

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2019 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.

President Barack Obama’s NLRB pushed through Big Labor-friendly rules promoting coercive “card check” union organizing drives

Washington, D.C. – After UNITE HERE Local 8 union officials unionized Gladys Bryant’s workplace via a “card check” drive, the Seattle housekeeper couldn’t help but feel that her rights had been violated.

Union bosses had significant help from Bryant’s employer, Embassy Suites, to organize the employees – even a list of workers’ names and contact information. And when Bryant had sought to revoke her card asking for the union’s representation, a union organizer lied to her and her coworkers about the process, blocking Bryant from exercising her rights.

After the tainted “card check” drive resulted in UNITE HERE Local 8’s monopoly bargaining power over her and her colleagues, Bryant decided to challenge the union bosses and her employer over their coercive tactics.

She filed charges with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys. A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director dismissed her charges, but a Foundation staff attorney has filed an appeal with the NLRB General Counsel.