28 Mar 2025

Third AT&T-BellSouth Worker Hits CWA Union With Federal Charges, Challenges Thousands in Illegal Strike Fines

Posted in News Releases

Newest charge challenges union boss $5,300 strike fine demand, while other workers challenge CWA union officials’ restrictive dues collection tactics

Miami, FL (March 28, 2025) – Henry Gonzalez, an employee of AT&T-BellSouth in Miami, has just hit the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union in his workplace with federal charges – the third worker to do so in just a month. Gonzalez’s charges, which were filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, describe how CWA union officials are wrongfully targeting him with thousands of dollars in disciplinary fines for not participating in a strike.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law and investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practices. Under federal labor law, union officials can mete out internal strike discipline only on employees who are formal members of the union. A worker who ends his union membership before exercising his right to continue working during a strike action cannot be punished by the union hierarchy. Gonzalez maintains that he resigned his union membership, yet union bosses still slammed him afterward with illegal fines in excess of $5,000.

In addition to preventing union bosses from imposing discipline on workers who have abstained from union membership, federal labor law and U.S. Supreme Court decisions like NLRB v. General Motors protect workers’ right to freely maintain or end union membership.

Freedom to resign union membership is also protected at the state level in Florida by the state’s Right to Work protections, which forbid union officials from forcing private sector workers to join or pay union dues or fees just to keep their jobs. This is in contrast to forced-unionism states, in which union bosses can require all employees in a workplace, even those who are not union members or who are otherwise opposed to the union, to financially support some union activities.

Within the past month, Miami-based AT&T-BellSouth employees Sofia Hernaiz and Amanda Marc have also filed unfair labor practice charges against the CWA union. Hernaiz and Marc, who have also opted out of union membership, both maintain that union officials are enforcing confusing “window periods” that restrict to just a few days per year when workers can revoke their consent to union dues deductions. Marc’s charge maintains that window periods violate federal labor law because they force unwilling workers to subsidize unwanted unions. Hernaiz’s charge also reports unlawful post-strike discipline similar to Gonzales’.

“Principled, independent-minded workers at AT&T-BellSouth are increasingly deciding that they will not take CWA union officials’ arbitrary restrictions and coercive ‘discipline’ sitting down,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Big Labor union bosses and their cronies on the NLRB have for decades been trying to contort federal labor law to favor their own power and influence over workers’ freedom, especially during the Biden Administration. Foundation-backed workers in Florida and across the nation are fighting to reverse this trend.”

21 Mar 2025

WV Homecare Worker Asks Federal Labor Board to Stop Gambit by SEIU and Employer to Destroy Ballots in Vote to Remove Union

Posted in News Releases

Employee attacks NLRB policy that union and employer used to “agree” to throw out ballots already cast and block future votes to remove union

Welch, WV (March 21, 2025) – An employee of senior homecare nonprofit McDowell County Commission on Aging has requested the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., overturn a regional NLRB official’s ruling that tossed his and his coworkers’ ballots in a union decertification vote because his employer and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials agreed in a settlement to stifle the worker-led union removal effort.

The worker, John Reeves, submitted his Request for Review with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. In addition to asking the NLRB to order regional labor board officials to process Reeves’ petition for a union removal vote at his workplace, the Request for Review attacks regional NLRB officials’ application of the so-called “settlement bar” to his petition. The “settlement bar” is a non-statutory NLRB policy that lets union bosses and employers unilaterally block an employee-requested union decertification vote after finalizing a settlement.

Specifically, the Request for Review points out that the issues being settled by the union and employer – union-alleged accusations of employer wrongdoing that were never proven by the Board or admitted to by the employer in the settlement – provide absolutely no support for the idea that Reeves and his coworkers’ vote should be invalidated. The Request for Review states:

“[T]he Board has held that employer unfair labor practices can justify the dismissal of a decertification petition only if: (1) the Board holds the employer actually committed the unfair labor practices or (2) the employer admits in a settlement that it committed the unfair labor practices…Neither scenario exists here.”

Employer and SEIU Union Bosses Colluded to Eliminate Workers’ Shot at Voting Out Union

Reeves’ effort to remove the SEIU union began in June 2024, when he filed a petition asking the NLRB to administer a union decertification election at the McDowell County Commission on Aging. The petition had enough employee signatures under NLRB rules to trigger such a vote.

Commission management and union officials agreed to terms of a union decertification election and Reeves and his coworkers voted on July 9, 2024. However, regional NLRB officials announced the morning that the election took place that Reeves and his coworkers’ ballots would be impounded because of pending unfair labor practice allegations SEIU union officials had against Commission management

After continued delays from NLRB officials that prevented the ballots from being counted, Reeves sought to intervene in the union’s unfair labor practice case. Reeves wanted to demonstrate that there was no connection between the union’s accusations of employer wrongdoing and his and his colleagues’ desire to vote the union out, and thus no reason existed for regional NLRB officials to continue blocking a vote count. But the regional NLRB denied him this request.

In January 2025 – six months after Reeves and his colleagues had voted – Commission officials and SEIU union bosses entered into an agreement to settle the union’s unfair labor practice charges. Even though the regional NLRB never proved that the employer’s alleged malfeasance had any effect on the decertification effort and the Commission never admitted to such malfeasance in the settlement, the regional NLRB approved a unilateral decision by the employer and union to dismiss the decertification petition and “not entertain a new decertification for a…period of four months.”

“[The regional NLRB] dismissed Reeves’ decertification petition because the Employer settled an unfair labor practice case, even though the settlement contained no ‘admissions clause,’ and therefore the Union’s allegations were unproven and speculative,” Reeves’ Request for Review reads.

“Mr. Reeves and his coworkers, who voted months ago on whether to remove SEIU union officials from their workplace, deserve to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The NLRB’s ‘settlement bar’ policy is simply another way for self-interested union bosses to game the system and maintain control over dissenting workers, and it’s especially egregious when complicit employers and NLRB officials use it to turn speculative and unproven allegations of wrongdoing into a barrier between workers and their individual rights.”

“Workers have a statutory right under federal law to hold decertification votes, and employers and union officials should not be permitted to collusively ‘settle’ disputes by stripping workers of their right to vote to remove a union that most of them oppose,” added Mix.

17 Mar 2025

Second AT&T BellSouth Worker Hits CWA Union With Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Worker Money

Posted in News Releases

Employee challenges coercive union tactic of restricting when workers can cut off union financial support

Miami, FL (March 17, 2025) – Amanda Marc, an employee of AT&T BellSouth Communications, has filed federal charges against the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and its local affiliates, maintaining that CWA union officials are imposing illegal restrictions on her and her coworkers’ right to opt out of union dues payments. Marc filed her charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practices and administering votes to install or remove unions in workplaces. Marc’s charges challenge the CWA union’s use of “window period” restrictions to limit to just ten days per year the time in which workers can demand that dues deductions cease from their paychecks. Window periods are widely used by union officials as a way to keep money flowing from dissenting workers towards the union’s agenda, and Marc’s charges seek a ruling that this practice is unlawful under federal labor law.

Marc’s charges contend that while federal labor law permits dues deduction authorization documents to be irrevocable for one year after employees initially sign them, any further window periods or other restrictions on workers’ legally-protected right to cut off dues after that period has elapsed violate the National Labor Relations Act:

“It is unlawful to have any window period for revocations after the first year of the payroll deduction authorization form. [Federal labor law] does not contain any reference to ‘window periods’…The unions have no statutory license to create tricky and arbitrary ‘window periods’ to force unwilling employees to keep paying dues.”

Because Marc and her colleagues work in the Right to Work state of Florida, CWA union bosses are forbidden from forcing workers to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs, though CWA union officials are ostensibly trying to cabin the exercise of this freedom with their window period scheme. In states that lack Right to Work protections, in contrast, union officials can force employees to pay fees to the union or be terminated, meaning even perfect compliance with a union boss’s arbitrary window period restriction would not completely free a worker from union payments.

AT&T Worker Joins Colleague in Revealing Blatantly Illegal CWA Dues Deduction Practices

Marc’s charges state that she and many of her coworkers resigned their union memberships in August 2024, which was around when CWA union officials ordered AT&T BellSouth workers out on a strike. Despite Marc’s requests to end union membership and stop financial support for the union, the charges read, CWA agents never responded to either demand, and never even informed Marc of the window period dates in which they would consider her requests valid.

In addition to challenging the use of window periods as a whole, Marc’s charges point out several other unlawful aspects of CWA bosses’ union dues collection scheme, including a requirement that dues revocation requests be made “by individual letters sent by certified mail only.” CWA union bosses also failed to inform employees that, by law, they have an opportunity to opt out of union dues deductions on the anniversary date of when they signed the dues checkoff and aren’t just restricted to the arbitrary window period imposed by the union.

Marc’s filing comes just days after Foundation attorneys submitted federal charges against CWA union bosses on behalf of another AT&T BellSouth worker, Sofia Hernaiz. Hernaiz declares in her charges that CWA union officials tried to subject her to internal discipline for not participating in the August 2024 strike, even though she had resigned her union membership beforehand and by law can’t be subject to such proceedings. Similar to Marc, Hernaiz also details that CWA union officials did not acknowledge her attempt to cut off dues deductions to the union, nor informed her of what the union’s window period restrictions were.

“Ms. Marc, in standing up for her and her coworkers’ freedom to stop subsidizing unwanted CWA union officials, is also mounting an unprecedented challenge to the ‘window period’ gambit. This scheme has been manipulated by union officials across the country to yank financial support out of unwilling workers for far too long,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Forthcoming NLRB Trump appointees should use cases like this to rule that such practices that serve only to enrich union boss hierarchies are unlawful.

“It is time to reorient the Board’s mission toward defending the individual right of every American worker to associate or dissociate with a union as he or she pleases,” added Mix. “For too long, NLRB officials have rigged federal law to enhance union boss power at the expense of the rights and freedoms of the very workers the Act purports to protect.”

12 Mar 2025

Las Vegas Convention Center Worker Slams Culinary Union and Sodexo with Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Dues From Wages

Posted in News Releases

Employee maintains that both union and employer ignored requests to refrain from union membership and dues payments

Las Vegas, NV (March 12, 2025) – Rebecca Swank, an employee of foodservice provider Sodexo who works primarily at the Las Vegas Convention Center, has hit Culinary Workers Union Local 226 (a Unite Here affiliate) and her employer with federal charges for seizing full union dues from her paycheck despite her objections to both union membership and dues payments.

Swank filed her charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Swank’s charges also state that Sodexo officials forced her to get a job referral from the Culinary Union’s hiring hall in person immediately upon being hired.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, a duty which includes investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practice cases. Under federal labor law and Supreme Court precedents like NLRB v. General Motors, all private sector workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership, though union officials sometimes try to coerce union membership anyway, including by subjecting employees to intimidation during hiring hall encounters. Federal law also requires union officials to receive written authorization from a worker before deducting union dues payments directly from their paycheck.

Further, because Nevada has Right to Work protections for its workers, Culinary Union officials can’t legally force Swank or her coworkers to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In states that lack such protections, in contrast, union officials can require workers to pay at least some union dues just to keep their jobs, though must still seek the written authorization of workers before collecting those forced fees by direct deduction.

“Culinary Union officials have been very abrasive in our workplace and have been ineffective in standing up for our interests,” commented Swank. “But now they’re doing something full-on illegal by stopping me from exercising my right under Nevada’s Right to Work law to stop financially supporting them. That’s wrong, and I hope the NLRB gets to the bottom of this.”

Challenge to Illegal Dues Seizures Follows Other Employee Cases Against Culinary Union

According to Swank’s charges against the union, she “submitted two written letters to the Union in which she resigned her union membership and revoked any dues check-off authorization she may have signed.” However, the charges state, union officials did not honor her membership resignation (if she had ever become a union member in the first place), and also refused to provide any documentation she may have signed in the past authorizing dues deductions.

“Finally, the Union has accepted dues deducted from [Swank’s] paycheck without her written authorization and despite her written demand that it cease to do so and to refund her,” Swank’s charges against the union conclude. Swank also filed a charge against Sodexo management for its role in keeping dues flowing from her paycheck to the union.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have a long history of helping workers at Las Vegas casinos and other venues oppose coercive Culinary Union legal maneuvers, including in 2021 when Foundation attorneys defended Red Rock Casino workers’ majority vote against Culinary Union control from a district court judge’s order imposing the union on the workers anyway. Foundation attorneys also defended Red Rock Casino slot machine technician Jereme Barrios and his coworkers from a similar situation 2022, when a regional NLRB official blocked him and his fellow technicians from exercising their right to vote themselves out of a Culinary Union work unit. The regional NLRB official cited specious reasons for why the vote couldn’t occur, including allegations of employer malfeasance that didn’t even relate to Barrios and his colleagues.

“Culinary Union bosses have a track record of ignoring and trampling basic employee rights, simply to gain more power over the workers that they claim to ‘represent.’ Unfortunately, it’s unsurprising that independent-minded workers seek to exercise their Right to Work freedom to stop all financial support for this union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Culinary Union officials’ refusal to respect the exercise of basic rights is clearly at odds with both state and federal law, and our attorneys will defend Ms. Swank’s freedom of choice.”

11 Mar 2025

NY Starbucks Baristas File Amicus Brief Opposing Reinstatement of Biden-Appointed NLRB Member Removed by President Trump

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Starbucks employees have pending federal lawsuit challenging NLRB structure as unconstitutional, argue they could be harmed if member’s removal is blocked

Washington, DC (March 11, 2025) – The National Right to Work Foundation has just filed an amicus brief at the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals for two upstate New York Starbucks baristas in a federal case that could determine the constitutionality of the structure of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The case, Wilcox v. Trump, concerns whether President Trump properly exercised his executive authority when he removed the Biden-appointed former chair of the NLRB, Gwynne Wilcox. Trump Administration lawyers argue, as baristas Ariana Cortes and Logan Karam have in their own pending lawsuit at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, the federal law authorizing the NLRB) violates the Constitution because it prevents the president from removing board members.

Cortes and Karam now join the Administration’s legal team in asking the D.C. Circuit Court to stay a lower court’s ruling that Wilcox be reinstated. Their brief notes that they, and others, could be directly harmed if Wilcox participates in an NLRB decision without being properly accountable to the President.

Cortes and Karam work at two separate Starbucks locations in the Buffalo, NY area. They both submitted petitions on behalf of their coworkers in 2023 with sufficient support to prompt the NLRB to hold votes to “decertify,” or remove, the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union from each of their stores. However, NLRB officials indefinitely delayed those union decertification elections on the basis of unproven charges leveled at the Starbucks Corporation by SBWU union officials. This led Cortes and Karam to file their own federal lawsuit – the first in the nation challenging the agency’s structure as unconstitutional as a whole.

The same issue regarding the NLRB’s constitutionality was fast-tracked in federal courts following President Trump’s firing of Biden-appointed NLRB Board Member Gwynne Wilcox, which she challenged as a violation of the NLRA’s board member removal protections. Trump Administration lawyers countered with arguments parallel to those in Cortes and Karam’s lawsuit, contending that NLRB members’ removal protections permit them to exercise substantial executive authority while being immune to presidential removal for the duration of their terms, something forbidden by U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Seila Law v. CFPB and Collins v. Yellen.

NLRB’s Hyper-Partisan Nature and Unique Powers Make Removal Protections Inappropriate

Cortes and Karam’s brief focuses on how the Board’s powers to enforce federal labor law, lack of technical expertise, and the partisan nature of its membership place it outside the Supreme Court’s concept of a federal agency where removal protections might be appropriate. It also argues that reinstating Wilcox would cause chaos because it would let her participate in deciding cases before the NLRB while her continued presence on the Board is still the subject of litigation.

“Cortes and Karam have a vital interest in the outcome of this case, and not only because it concerns the constitutionality of [NLRB member removal protections],” the amicus brief says. “Cortes and Karam do not want an individual the President properly removed from the Board because of her unsound rulings—Gwynne Wilcox—to decide their pending NLRB cases.”

“Ms. Cortes and Mr. Karam’s amicus brief points out what many workers who have litigated cases before the NLRB have learned the hard way – that the NLRB is a hyper-partisan agency often beholden to the interests of union bosses, yet masquerades as an impartial arbiter of workers’ rights,” commented National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “While the issue of the NLRB’s constitutionality is likely to ultimately end up before the Supreme Court, Ms. Cortes and Mr. Karam speak for many independent-minded workers around the country by urging the D.C. Circuit Court to bar Gwynne Wilcox from participating in Board decisions until this is fully sorted out.”

6 Mar 2025

Long Island Health Employee Challenges Federal Labor Board Policy After Board Blocks Her and Coworkers from Voting Out SEIU Union

Posted in News Releases

NLRB Regional Office used technicality to cancel election that workers requested and was previously agreed to by union and company

Long Island, NY (March 6, 2025) – Laura Gallo, a senior patient representative at Sun River Health, is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to overturn a regional NLRB official’s decision blocking her and her coworkers from having a vote to remove officials of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East union from their workplace. Gallo is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Gallo submitted a petition in August 2024 seeking an election to decertify the union. She followed instructions from NLRB agents in ensuring she submitted enough signatures from her coworkers to trigger the vote. However, after the NLRB accepted her petition and the company, union, and Gallo herself had come to an agreement on the election logistics, NLRB Region 29’s Director abruptly announced she was dismissing Gallo’s petition.

This decision – which may have been prompted by backchannel communications between the union and NLRB that Gallo was not party to – was not fully explained until February 13, 2025. In an order, the Regional Director claimed that the union was actually immune to employee-requested decertification attempts because of a non-statutory NLRB policy known as the “contract bar,” which only gives workers a small window to submit decertification petitions while a union contract is in place. The Regional Director issued this order despite the fact that Gallo did file her petition within the contract bar window. However, the order explained that because Gallo had submitted one tranche of signatures in support of her petition just days after this window expired, her petition would be dismissed under the NLRB’s Excel II precedent.

Gallo is now arguing in a Request for Review that the NLRB in Washington, D.C., should overturn this decision and let her and her coworkers’ requested vote go forward. Among other contentions, Gallo’s Request for Review maintains that the NLRB should throw out the Excel II precedent, which prevents decertification petitions from being processed (even when filed on time) when the signatures in support of the petition are not received within the contract bar’s window period.

Long Island Healthcare Worker Painstakingly Gathered Employee Support for Union Ouster Vote Across Large Work Unit – But NLRB Blocked Effort on Technicality

The Request for Review emphasizes that Gallo started the decertification process pro se (without a lawyer) and had to collect signatures from a large work unit which spanned hundreds of workers from Sun River facilities across Long Island. This, the Request for Review explains, “illustrates why the Board’s harsh, one size fits all, rule in Excel II discriminates against petitioners new to NLRB processes who otherwise act diligently and promptly comply with guidance from Board agents.” Gallo points out in her filing that even the Board agents she was working with to file her petition may have been unaware of this restriction.

“Petitioners, and particularly pro se petitioners, should receive the benefit of the doubt when confronted with large and unwieldy bargaining units when it is difficult to estimate the total number of unit members and collect sufficient valid signatures,” the Request for Review argues.

“Contract Bar” Lets Union Officials Insulate Themselves From Workers’ Free Choice

Foundation staff attorneys have aided many workers over the years that union officials have trapped in union ranks using the contract bar gambit. In March 2024, Foundation attorneys helped nurses from multiple locations of Palo Alto (CA) Medical Foundation escape from unwanted International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) union officials who tried to argue that a contract bar should have canceled the nurses’ effort. In late 2021, hundreds of poultry workers at Mountaire Farms in Delaware were finally able to vote themselves free from United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials after the union had kept them trapped for almost two years pursuant to a contract bar. Foundation attorneys provided them substantial legal aid at the outset of their effort.

“Ms. Gallo’s case pulls back the curtain to show how stacked NLRB policies are against individual workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Using a filing time technicality to snatch away the only opportunity hundreds of Sun River employees will have in years to exercise their right to vote on whether 1199SEIU union officials deserve to remain in control over them is outrageous by itself. But the root of these arbitrary time restrictions is the ‘contract bar’ – a policy which lets union bosses and employers unilaterally enforce contracts that block workers from voting the union out. It’s hard to think of a clearer example of a standard that prioritizes union bosses’ power over workers’ choice.

“President Trump’s new appointees to the NLRB must look to the stories of workers like Ms. Gallo as glaring evidence of why the ‘contract bar’ and similar restrictions need to be removed,” Mix added.

28 Feb 2025

National Right to Work Foundation Issues Legal Notice to 10 Roads Express Drivers Subject to Teamsters Strike

Posted in News Releases

Notice reminds workers of major USPS contractor of right to resign union membership and go back to work; comes after company and union butt heads over nationwide bargaining

Washington, DC (February 28, 2025) – Today, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation issued a special legal notice for 10 Roads Express drivers subject to Teamsters union bosses’ recent strike order against the company. News reports indicate that the order affects hundreds of drivers across the country, and that 10 Roads Express is one of the largest private contractors for the U.S. Postal Service.

The legal notice informs these workers of rights, albeit limited, that union officials often do not want them to know. First and foremost, drivers have the right to resign their union memberships and keep working to support their families.

Importantly, the notice gives workers who want to exercise their right to work information on how to avoid fines and punishment that could be imposed by union officials.

“The situation raises serious concerns for employees who believe there is much to lose from a union-ordered strike,” the legal notice reads. “That is why workers frequently contact the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to learn how they can avoid fines and other union discipline for continuing to report to work.”

The Foundation’s special legal notice highlights workers’ right to resign union membership and their right to revoke their union dues check-offs, with links to sample letters that can be sent to exercise both rights. The notice also gives workers information on how to begin a petition for a “decertification election,” in which employees request a workplace election to remove the union.

The National Right to Work Foundation is the nation’s premier organization exclusively dedicated to providing free legal assistance to employee victims of forced unionism abuse. The full notice can be found at: https://www.nrtw.org/10roadsexpress/.

The Foundation has provided legal aid several times recently to truck drivers, warehouse workers, and other employees who oppose Teamsters union officials’ agendas. At the end of 2024, hundreds of Foundation-backed workers across Northern Ohio voted in favor of removing Teamsters union officials from power at their workplaces. That followed efforts to similarly boot out Teamsters bosses from trucking employees in Georgia, California, Virginia, and New Jersey.

Strike May Be Lead-Up to Creation of National, Inescapable Bargaining Unit Where Workers Can’t Vote Away Teamsters Control

“Teamsters union officials’ propaganda surrounding this strike hides the fact that many workers may simply want to continue working to support themselves and their families, something that they have an absolute right to do no matter what Teamsters bosses may say,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Teamsters officials are also unlikely to acknowledge the fact that they are demanding that 10 Roads Express management bargain with them on a national level and not in individual workplaces, which may very well be a lead-up to the Teamsters thrusting 10 Roads Express drivers into a huge national unit designed to lock workers into Teamsters ranks in perpetuity.

“Such a gambit would also stop 10 Roads Express drivers in a single workplace from asking the federal labor board to hold a vote amongst their colleagues to remove the Teamsters from that one facility, as the work unit would encompass hundreds if not thousands of drivers from across the country who have likely never met each other,” added Mix. “Workers who are interested in continuing to do their jobs and avoid such legal maneuvering by Teamsters bosses in the future should read the Foundation’s legal notice and quickly seek Foundation legal aid if they encounter any obstacles to exercising their rights.”

27 Feb 2025

AT&T BellSouth Worker Slams CWA Local 3122 With Federal Charges for Imposing Illegal Discipline, Dues Demands

Posted in News Releases

Post-strike, union tried to subject worker to internal union punishment despite her ending her formal union membership before the union-ordered strike

Miami, FL (February 27, 2025) – An employee of AT&T BellSouth Telecommunications has hit the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and its affiliates with federal charges maintaining that union officials are targeting her with internal union discipline for not participating in a strike – despite the fact that she resigned her union membership beforehand.

The worker, Sofia Hernaiz, filed the unfair labor practice charge at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law and investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practices.

Hernaiz’s charge follows a strike ordered by CWA union bosses against AT&T BellSouth, which occurred August 2024. Under federal labor law, union officials can mete out internal strike discipline only on employees who are formal members of the union. A worker, like Hernaiz, who ends her union membership before exercising her right to continue working during a strike action cannot be punished by the union hierarchy.

Hernaiz also states in her charge that, in the process of revoking her membership, she additionally sent communications revoking her union dues “checkoff” authorization, which is a form that permits union bosses to deduct union dues directly from an employee’s paycheck. Despite NLRB precedent requiring the union to do so, Hernaiz’s charges say that CWA union bosses did not provide Hernaiz her dues checkoff, and also did not tell her the time intervals in which she could submit her revocation in order to make it effective. Such a scheme, often known as a “window period” or “escape period” scheme, is frequently used by union bosses to continue taking dues money from the wages of workers who have already expressed their opposition to the union.

Because of Florida’s popular Right to Work law, no worker subject to the NLRB can be forced to pay union dues or fees just to keep his or her job. This is in contrast to forced-unionism states, in which union bosses can require all employees in a workplace, even those opposed to the union, to financially support union activities or else be fired.

However, in both Right to Work and forced-unionism states, union bosses still have the power to impose their one-size-fits-all “representation” over every employee in a workplace, even over employees that voted against or otherwise oppose the union. Even in Right to Work states where legally dues payment must be voluntary, union officials frequently use dues authorization cards to attempt to trap workers in union payments.

Foundation Attorneys Helped Hundreds of AT&T Mobility Workers Escape CWA Control Last Year

Last year, Foundation attorneys helped hundreds of AT&T Mobility workers in California, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas remove CWA union officials who had subjected them to aggressive “card check” unionization campaigns. Under card check, union officials deny workers their right to vote in secret on the union and can instead pressure workers face-to-face into signing union authorization cards which are later counted as “votes.” After AT&T Mobility workers in those states had submitted valid petitions requesting union removal votes, CWA union officials abandoned each work unit before the votes could take place – likely anticipating defeats.

“CWA union officials continue to impose unpopular agendas on the workers they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ms. Hernaiz just wants to exercise her rights under Florida’s Right to Work law to end her union membership and stop financial support to the union because she opposes the union’s agenda. But CWA union officials are trying to concoct ways to punish her for not going along with the union’s strike order and keep her money flowing into union coffers against her will.

“Instead of relying on voluntary worker support to carry out their aims, CWA union officials went for illegal coercion, and our attorneys will defend Ms. Hernaiz’s rights,” Mix added.

21 Feb 2025

Eaton Employee Forces IAM Union Bosses to Abandon Illegal Termination & Fine Threats

Posted in News Releases

Worker’s legal team still pressing labor board to prosecute union officials for threatening workers who opposed union membership

St. Louis, MO (February 21, 2025) – Robert Jacobs, an employee of power management firm Eaton Corporation at its Troy, Illinois, facility, has forced International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials to back off their threats to fire him unless he paid hundreds in illegal fees they imposed on him after he exercised his right to end his union membership.

Jacobs filed federal charges in January challenging the union’s so-called “reinstatement fee” threats at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He received free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

In states like Illinois and Missouri that lack Right to Work protections for their private sector workers, union officials have the privilege to enforce contracts that require every employee in a unionized workplace to pay at least a portion of full union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. However, as per the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), private sector workers have an absolute right to abstain from formal union membership, a right that was affirmed by landmark Supreme Court decisions such as General Motors v. NLRB.

Federal law further spells out that neither employers nor union officials can compel private sector workers to participate in union activities, which includes imposing retaliatory fees or fines tied to membership. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and financial support are fully voluntary and the choice of each individual employee.

Jacobs and many other Eaton employees resigned their IAM union memberships after a strike order in October 2024 which many workers disagreed with. His federal charge reported that, after the strike, IAM union officials hit him and others who had ended membership with threats of termination if they “fail[ed] to pay a $306 ‘reinstatement fee’ by January 2025.”

Faced with federal charges and an NLRB investigation, IAM union officials quickly sent him a letter taking back the threat, claiming that the whole situation was actually due to an error made by Eaton’s Human Resources department in monthly union fee collections.

Federal Labor Board Urged to Investigate Union’s Post-Strike Threats

Despite the quick reversal, Jacobs’ Foundation-provided attorneys have asked the NLRB to continue the investigation against IAM officials, as demanding membership “reinstatement fees” from workers on pain of termination is an illegal practice that goes beyond simply sending workers an invoice for what union officials believe they owe in monthly fees. By formally prosecuting the IAM for these clear-cut violations of federal labor law, the NLRB could also require IAM officials to notify all workers of their legal rights, including the fact that they have the right to resign their formal union membership and that nonmembers cannot be required to pay any reinstatement fees.

“IAM bosses knew this wasn’t right, and that’s why they’re now scrambling to explain themselves,” commented Jacobs. “While my coworkers and I are unfortunately required by Illinois law to pay some union fees, there’s nothing in the law that lets union bosses threaten us like this over membership, and I think the NLRB should hold union bosses accountable for the sake of our whole workplace.”

Foundation attorneys have recently assisted other employees nationwide in challenging IAM union bosses’ influence, including last August in Dover, Ohio, and Petaluma, California, where employees at two different Ford dealerships successfully voted out IAM Local 1363 and IAM Local 1596 union officials, respectively. Foundation attorneys also successfully attacked an illegal dues scheme imposed by IAM union officials on Boeing engineer Don Zueger, which incorrectly calculated the amount of money he could be required to pay to the union as a condition of employment.

“We’re encouraged that Mr. Jacobs’ legal action has caused IAM bosses to back off a clearly illegal threat they imposed on him. But IAM union officials thought it was appropriate to threaten workers who exercised their limited workplace rights with either huge fines or outright termination. That is a disturbing revelation, and taking such action is more than enough to trigger a formal NLRB complaint against the IAM,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “As cases like this show, American workers need security for their freedom to affiliate or disaffiliate with unions as they choose, which is why workers deserve Right to Work protections to make all union affiliation and financial support completely voluntary.”

5 Feb 2025

20 Wonderful Nurseries Farmworkers Seek to Join Federal Challenge to Biased Pro-Union Boss California Agricultural Labor Law

Posted in News Releases

Filing: UFW union-backed law sweeps workers into union via coercive ‘card check’ scheme and imposes forced dues in violation of First Amendment

Bakersfield, CA (February 5, 2025) – A group of 20 employees of food and drink company Wonderful Nurseries’ Wasco, CA, facility have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that will force them under the control of United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials, to whom they have strenuously objected. The employees, who last year were subject to an aggressive “card check” unionization campaign from the UFW, are receiving free legal aid in their effort to defend their rights from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

The federal lawsuit the workers seek to join was filed by Wonderful Nurseries against the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), and challenges the ALRB’s “mandatory mediation and conciliation” (MMC) process, which follows the ALRB’s highly-suspect certification of the UFW as the monopoly bargaining representative of the workers. The workers were denied intervention in Wonderful Nurseries’ state court lawsuit challenging the card check certification last July, one week before the court enjoined further proceedings based upon the certification. That lawsuit contends that UFW union agents claimed majority support by submitting to the ALRB union authorization cards that they had fraudulently obtained from workers.

As part of their motion to intervene in this new federal suit, the workers have also filed a proposed intervenors’ complaint detailing even more rights violations by the ALRB. The employees’ filing points out that the Wonderful Nurseries workers must be allowed to vindicate their own rights, which are inherently impacted by the lawsuit.

California labor law mandates that the ALRB should immediately certify a union as monopoly bargaining agent if it submits union cards from a majority of workers, even if there are objections as to how the cards were collected. “Card check” denies workers their right to vote in secret on whether they want a union, and instead allows union officials to demand union authorization cards directly from workers. Past Foundation-backed legal action by Wonderful Nurseries employees at the ALRB detailed the threats and discriminatory behavior that union agents used to obtain the cards.

The Wonderful Nurseries employees’ complaint and motion to intervene, filed by Foundation staff attorneys, joins Wonderful Nurseries’ challenge to the “mandatory mediation and conciliation” provisions of California labor law. Those provisions would force UFW officials and Wonderful Nurseries management to finalize a union contract that will almost certainly subject the workers to UFW union boss control for three years and payment of forced union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs.

“[T]he Employees seek this Court’s immediate intervention to protect their fundamental liberty interests, especially their freedom of association between and amongst themselves, and with their employer, and their rights to be free from State-compelled monopoly representation by a labor organization not legitimately chosen by a majority of employees, and from State-mandated payment of union dues or fees,” the complaint reads.

Radical CA Labor Law Violates First Amendment Janus Decision by Imposing Government-Mandated Forced-Dues Contracts on Workers

The complaint points out that state imposition of such a contract on the Wonderful Nurseries farmworkers would harm their First Amendment rights, as spelled out in the landmark Foundation-won Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. “[Janus] barred state-mandated and –enforced forced-unionism schemes,” reads the complaint.

In the 2018 Janus decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government-enforced union contracts that required state employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs are a violation of First Amendment free association principles. In this case, Foundation attorneys argue, the State of California would be compelling Wonderful Nurseries and the UFW union to impose a similar contract over farmworkers – one which would require them to subsidize the union or be fired. For that reason, the state government would be violating the First Amendment in the same way as happened in Janus, Foundation attorneys contend.

Employees: UFW Union Created Atmosphere of Intimidation, Discrimination During Union Campaign

Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez, who are part of the current effort, sought to intervene in this case before the ALRB, following the agency’s certification of the UFW’s dubious claims of majority support. In unfair labor practice charges before the ALRB, Chavez and Gutierrez described multiple fabrications – and even discriminatory behavior – that UFW union bosses used to get employees to sign authorization cards, including “representing that certain COVID-19-related public benefits available to farmworkers required signatures on union membership cards…that union membership cards were not, in fact, union membership cards to be used in any UFW organizing efforts…presenting to strictly Spanish-speaking discriminatees union membership cards only in English…[and] presenting to illiterate discriminatees union membership cards and misrepresenting their content and/or significance.”

“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented after filing charges. “Instead of just letting us vote in secret on whether we want a union, they went around lying and threatening to get cards and now are cracking down on anyone who speaks out against the union.”

“Wonderful Nurseries workers, who are desperately trying to defend their freedom from an unwanted UFW union, are finding themselves fighting not only UFW lawyers, but also the full weight of California’s top-down, draconian labor policy,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “By granting union bosses the authority to sweep workers under their control with suspect ‘card check’ campaigns, then having the government impose a forced-dues contract over the objection of both workers and businesses, California legislators have created an environment where workers’ individual rights are being crushed to promote raw, unchecked union boss power.”