Settlement requires union officials to refund all unconstitutionally taken money

Irvine, CA (November 17, 2021) – University of California Irvine lab assistant Amber Walker has won a settlement forcing University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) union officials at her workplace to stop illegally taking dues money from her paycheck. The victory comes after Walker sought free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys and hit UPTE officials with a civil rights lawsuit, asserting they had violated her First Amendment right to abstain from financially supporting an unwanted union.

Walker’s lawsuit enforced her rights under the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. It challenged both the university’s seizure of funds from her paycheck at the union’s behest, and a university policy allowing union officials to impose a photo ID requirement limiting the right of public employees to cut off dues payments to the union. A California statute that makes public employers completely subservient to union officials on dues issues, her lawsuit argued, resulted in both due process and First Amendment violations that occurred due to UPTE officials’ photo ID requirement.

In the landmark Janus decision, the justices declared that forcing public sector workers to fund unions as a condition of employment violates the First Amendment. The justices also ruled that union dues can only be taken from a public employee with an affirmative and knowing waiver of that employee’s First Amendment right not to pay.

Walker’s lawsuit explained that she sent UPTE union bosses a letter in June 2021 exercising her right to end her union membership and all union dues deductions from her wages. Although Walker submitted this message within a short union-created “escape period” that was imposed to limit when workers can revoke dues deductions, they still rebuffed her request, telling her she needed to mail them a copy of a photo ID to effectuate her revocation. The photo ID requirement, clearly adopted to frustrate workers’ attempts to exercise their constitutional rights, is mentioned nowhere on the dues deduction card Walker had previously signed to initiate dues payments.

By the time UPTE officials had informed Walker that her request to cut off dues was rejected for lack of photo ID, the “window period” enforced by union officials had already elapsed. Had Walker not filed a lawsuit with free Foundation legal aid, UPTE officials likely would have continued siphoning money from her paycheck for another year until the arrival of the next “window period.”

Rather than face Foundation staff attorneys in court, UPTE bosses backed down and chose to settle the lawsuit. The settlement requires UPTE officials to immediately stop taking money from Walker’s paycheck and to refund any deductions they took after her initial attempt to exercise her Janus rights. They must also desist from enforcing the photo ID requirement.

The Foundation is aiding other public sector workers across the country in defending their First Amendment right to refuse union financial support. In October, Foundation staff attorneys filed two joint petitions urging the Supreme Court to take cases brought for Alaska, Oregon, and California public servants who are battling restrictive “window period” schemes union bosses manipulated to stop them from opting out of supporting unwanted union activities.

“We at the Foundation are glad to have helped Ms. Walker reclaim dues that were illegally siphoned from her wages by UPTE union bosses, but hardworking public servants like Ms. Walker should not be forced to file federal lawsuits just to exercise their basic First Amendment rights of free association,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The fact that UPTE bosses backed so quickly off defending their own suspect behavior likely indicates that they knew their schemes would not stand up to any serious constitutional scrutiny.”

RWDSU officials disclaimed interest in maintaining power at Main Street Car Wash, avoided facing worker vote in second employee attempt to remove union

Flushing, NY (November 11, 2021) – With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, employees at Main Street Car Wash (also known as Jomar Car Wash) in Flushing have successfully forced unpopular Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) union officials out of their workplace.

Main Street Car Wash employee Ervin Par spearheaded the effort. Last month he submitted a petition signed by enough of his coworkers to prompt the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct an employee vote whether to oust the union. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal private-sector labor law and for adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual workers.

This marks the second time Par has led his coworkers in attempting to boot out RWDSU bosses. Par also sought Foundation legal aid in 2018 with an earlier petition for a union decertification vote. Union officials were able to stifle that employee request by filing so-called “blocking charges” at the NLRB.

This time, however, RWDSU bosses avoided facing an employee vote that would have likely ended in defeat for the union by fleeing the car wash entirely. Union officials submitted paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing control over the facility this week, dodging an NLRB-administered decertification vote.

Par revealed in a 2018 interview for Reason magazine why he and his coworkers overwhelmingly disapproved of the union’s presence: “They just come and collect their fees, but I don’t see an economic benefit from the union…Among my colleagues, there’s a majority that doesn’t want the union.” Because New York is a state lacking Right to Work protections for its private-sector workers, Par and his coworkers were forced to pay money to RWDSU officials just to keep their jobs. In Right to Work states, all union financial support is strictly voluntary.

According to Reason, in 2018 Main Street Car Wash was one of only six car washes in New York City still under union control, a number that had been declining following other union departures due to lack of employee support.

The RWDSU is notably the same union that Bessemer, AL, Amazon employees rejected by a more than 2-to-1 margin during a highly publicized April 2021 union election. Despite their election loss, RWDSU officials are still trying to install themselves at the Bessemer facility. Also, a final NLRB decision has yet to issue on whether allegations RWDSU made against Amazon officials about the election process should erase the workers’ vote and prompt a do-over election.

Atlanta, GA-area employees of water treatment company Ecolab have also recently obtained free Foundation legal assistance in an effort to oust RWDSU officials.

“Mr. Par and his coworkers persevered for almost three years to end RWDSU union officials’ grip on power in their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Although we’re glad the employees have finally been able to exercise their right to remove RWDSU from their workplace, union officials should never have been able to manipulate the rules to stifle the decertification effort for so long.”

“Workers across the country who seek to remove unwanted RWDSU presence in their workplace should not hesitate to contact the Foundation for free legal aid in exercising their rights,” Mix added.

Officials of RWDSU are currently trying to overturn decisive April vote by Alabama Amazon workers to keep them out of Bessemer facility

Atlanta, GA (November 3, 2021) – An employee of water treatment company Ecolab’s Atlanta-area facility has just filed a petition for dozens of workers with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), requesting a vote to remove the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, Southeast Council (RWDSU) from their workplace. The employee, Irvin Arnold, submitted a “decertification petition” signed by enough of his coworkers to prompt the NLRB to administer such a vote. Arnold received free legal assistance in doing so from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal private-sector labor law and for adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual workers. Arnold and his coworkers are trying to boot officials of the RWDSU from power at the Ecolab plant. The RWDSU is notably the same union that Bessemer, AL, Amazon employees rejected by a more than 2-to-1 margin during a highly publicized April 2021 union election.

According to Arnold’s petition, the requested election will be held among the 50 Ecolab employees currently under RWDSU officials’ monopoly control, including “reliability technicians…maintenance leads, production associates, mixers, bulk bay spotter/loaders, logistics associates, production team coaches, warehouse lead workers and label control associates.”

The most recent contract between Ecolab management and RWDSU bosses expired on June 30, 2021. Because no contract currently exists between Ecolab and RWDSU, Ecolab employees may have a significantly easier time attempting to vote out the unpopular union, as union officials often manipulate non-statutory “bars” in federal labor law to prevent employee attempts to dethrone them. One such restriction, the so-called “contract bar,” immunizes union officials from employee decertification votes for up to three years after company management and union bosses ink a contract.

Arnold and his coworkers’ decertification push comes as several groups of employees across the country have prevailed in similar efforts with free Foundation legal aid. Workers at Airgas in Ventura, CA, Rush University in Chicago, IL, Desert Springs Hospital Center in Las Vegas, NV, and Bertolino Foods in Boston, MA, have all successfully voted out or forced out by other legal means unpopular union officials, just in the past few months.

Ecolab employees’ endeavor also comes as RWDSU officials continue their efforts to install themselves at the Bessemer Amazon plant, despite the overwhelming employee vote against them. A final NLRB decision has yet to issue on whether allegations RWDSU made against Amazon officials about the election process should nix the workers’ vote and prompt a do-over election.

“RWDSU union officials have shown they have a penchant for challenging the will of the very employees they claim to ‘represent.’ That poses concerns for Atlanta Ecolab employees who just seek an up-or-down vote to remove RWDSU bosses from their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Foundation staff attorneys will fight to ensure that Mr. Arnold and his coworkers can exercise this right free from any coercion by RWDSU union officials.”

Petitions from public servants challenge union boss-created “escape periods” that limit right to cut off dues deductions to just a few days each year

Washington, DC (October 25, 2021) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys today filed petitions asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear several cases from rank-and-file government employees across the country. The cases challenge union-created schemes that violate public workers’ First Amendment rights by stopping them from cutting off financial support to unions of which they disapprove.

A joint petition, which covers four cases brought by California and Oregon public servants, and another petition combining two cases brought by Alaska government employees, now join two already-pending Foundation-backed petitions in cases that attack similar arrangements in other states.

The petition for the four Oregon and California cases was filed by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in partnership with attorneys from the Freedom Foundation. The Freedom Foundation jointly represents workers in three of the four cases along with Foundation staff attorneys. The Alaska state employees’ petition was filed jointly by Foundation staff attorneys who represent Vocational Instructor Christopher Woods in his case against the Alaska State Employee Association (ASEA) union, and attorneys for the Liberty Justice Center and Alaska Policy Forum, who represent two Alaska workers in a separate case also against the ASEA.

The other pending National Right to Work Foundation cases are those of Chicago Public Schools educators Joanne Troesch and Ifeoma Nkemdi, and Monmouth County, New Jersey, educators Susan Fischer and Catherine Speck. Both the Chicago and New Jersey cases are slated to be considered during the High Court’s Friday, October 29 conference, with a decision on whether the cases will be taken up likely soon after.

The newly filed petitions seek to defend the First Amendment Janus rights of public servants following Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decisions which allow union officials to continue limiting those rights. In the 2018 Foundation-argued Janus v. AFSCME case, the High Court recognized that the First Amendment protects public sector workers from being forced to pay union dues or fees. The Justices further ruled that a public worker’s affirmative waiver of that right is needed before any union payments are deducted from his or her paycheck.

The Supreme Court reasoned that, because all public sector union activities involve redressing government, forcing any public worker into funding union activities against his or her will counts as forced political speech forbidden by the First Amendment.

Each of the cases brought before the court now challenges a union boss-created “escape period” scheme. “Escape periods” limit to just a few days every year the time in which public servants can exercise their Janus right to end union dues deductions. Often, public workers whom union officials never informed about Janus rights in the first place try to cut off support to an unwanted union, only to be told by state officials that, per the “escape period,” they must endure another year or more of union dues being siphoned from their paychecks.

The majority of these cases are class action lawsuits, and thus seek to reclaim for both petitioners and their coworkers money union bosses seized from their paychecks after they resigned union membership and tried to exercise Janus rights.

The elimination of unconstitutional “escape periods” already has the backing of 16 state attorneys general across the country. Led by Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia filed an amicus brief in July backing the Chicago educators’ case. Separately Taylor is defending an Alaska Executive Order, currently enjoined in state court, that seeks to proactively defend government workers’ Janus rights by requiring annual confirmation of each employee’s consent to make union dues payments prior to the deduction of union dues from their paychecks.

“Many of these public servants disagree with the ever-increasing left-wing union positions, such as defunding the police or teaching critical race theory in elementary schools, or did not realize they had the option never to join in the first place,” commented Freedom Foundation Chief Litigation Counsel Eric Stahlfeld. “It is unconscionable for the unions to continue taking money to promote their objectionable speech and political objectives.”

“All over the country, American public workers are making it clear that they will not stand by while union bosses and their allies in government play deceptive games with their First Amendment Janus rights, just so they can fill union coffers with more money from dissenting workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This message should now be overwhelmingly evident to the Supreme Court, which now has an opportunity to rectify lower courts’ gross misinterpretations of Janus, and clarify that public workers’ First Amendment rights can’t be limited to arbitrary windows created by union bosses or their political allies designed to undermine workers’ rights as recognized in the Janus decision.”

Workers were previously barred for one year from exercising right to vote out union due to union boss-friendly restrictions created by National Labor Relations Board

Los Angeles, CA (October 20, 2021) – Ozvaldo Gutierrez and his coworkers at XPO Logistics’ Fashion District-area facility in Los Angeles have successfully forced Teamsters Local 63 union officials out of their workplace. Following Gutierrez’s submission of a petition bearing enough employee signatures to prompt the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to administer a vote to remove the union at the facility (or “decertification vote”), Teamsters officials backed down rather than face a vote of employees and disclaimed interest in continuing their control over the workers.

Gutierrez and his coworkers received free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys in their effort to remove the unwanted union. Teamsters Local 63 bosses’ departure from XPO comes amid a spurt of Foundation-backed employee legal actions opposing coercive behavior by Teamsters officials across Southern California.

Long Beach-area Savage Services employee Nelson Medina filed federal charges just weeks ago against Teamsters Local 848, maintaining that union bosses threatened to have him fired for refusing to join the union and pay various fees demanded by union officials. Medina is also leading an employee effort opposing Local 848’s presence in his facility, asserting union officials engaged in illegal ballot harvesting to gain power in the workplace.

In Ventura last month, Teamsters Local 848 bosses were also forced to depart Airgas worker Angel Herrera’s workplace after he and his coworkers filed a petition for an NLRB-administered vote to remove the union from the workplace. Herrera’s colleagues had been involved in litigation against Local 848 officials since 2020, and filed at least two different majority-backed employee petitions seeking the end of Local 848’s monopoly bargaining power.

Gutierrez and his coworkers on August 20, 2021 filed with the NLRB their petition seeking an election to decertify Teamsters Local 63. While the petition demonstrated sufficient employee support to trigger such a vote, Teamsters officials claimed in an opposition that a March 2020 settlement meant to kick off bargaining talks between them and XPO Logistics management should have prevented any such election.

Teamsters officials were trying to manipulate the “settlement bar,” a non-statutory NLRB precedent that restrains workers’ right to vote out unpopular union officials for up to a year while an employer and union officials attempt to bargain as ordered by a settlement. Foundation attorneys representing Gutierrez argued that a year had already passed between the first bargaining session between management and union bosses and Gutierrez’s filing of the petition, and that the union was wrong in claiming that delays in bargaining talks should have extended the “settlement bar” past the one-year mark.

The Regional Director of NLRB Region 21 in Los Angeles issued a decision on October 6 ordering that Gutierrez’s requested vote go forward, declaring that “a reasonable period has elapsed and that the settlement does not bar the processing of the instant petition.” The vote was slated for October 21, but on October 18 Teamsters Local 63 officials tapped out and announced they were abandoning the facility. The NLRB revoked the union’s certification the next day.

“We are happy that Mr. Gutierrez and his coworkers are finally free from unwanted Teamsters ‘representation’ and that we were able to help him and his coworkers defend their rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, workers should not have to obtain legal aid and endure months or even years of litigation just to exercise their right to dispense with unpopular union bosses. The flurry of similar cases involving Teamsters officials around Southern California is a growing cause for concern.”

“Any employees in California or elsewhere seeking to oust unwanted Teamsters officials from their workplaces should not hesitate to contact the Foundation for free legal aid,” Mix added.

With union lawyers asking for reconsideration of NLRB decision, worker’s attorney points out conflict of interest created by GC Abruzzo’s work as CWA counsel

Washington, DC (October 13, 2021) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorney representing Portland, OR, cameraman Jeremy Brown just submitted a letter to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel (GC) Jennifer Abruzzo, demanding that she be recused from any involvement in his case. Brown’s case, which the NLRB decided in August, successfully challenged several illegal actions by National Association of Broadcast and Entertainment Technicians-Communications Workers of America (NABET-CWA) union operatives, including its attorney.

The letter points out that Abruzzo, immediately prior to her appointment by President Biden as NLRB GC, “served as CWA’s ‘special counsel for strategic initiatives’” and “acted as that union’s ‘point person on National Labor Relations Board issues at’” the CWA’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Because Brown’s case concerns CWA’s international policy forcing workers like Brown who abstain from formal union membership to write the national union if they want to exercise their right to not pay for the union’s political activities, Abruzzo’s involvement in the case would constitute a serious conflict of interest, the letter argues.

Under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, nonmember private sector workers who live in states like Oregon lacking Right to Work protections cannot be forced as a condition of employment to pay fees to a union in their workplace, except those that union officials claim subsidize core bargaining expenses. In states with Right to Work protections, all union financial support is strictly voluntary.

Brown’s requests to reduce his dues per Beck were ignored by the CWA union local, due to the CWA’s international policy of only honoring such requests if sent to the union’s DC headquarters. Brown in August won a decision from the NLRB fully vindicating his rights, with the Board ruling that CWA union officials had to stop failing to honor Brown’s Beck requests and return all money to Brown that they had already seized from his wages in violation of the Beck mandate. The NLRB also held that intimidating “evidence preservation” letters CWA’s attorney sent Brown during the litigation fell “outside the bounds of legitimate efforts to ensure evidence preservation,” by among other things demanding unrelated GPS and pedometer data.

“Although the Board has issued a clear and well-thought-out decision in this case…the Respondent Union has filed a Motion for Reconsideration,” the letter to Abruzzo reads. “However, the Board’s decision and the Motion for Reconsideration both involve the policies of your former and most recent employer, CWA International.”

“Because CWA International’s nationwide Beck objector policy is bound up with this case and the proper remedies to be issued, you should recuse yourself from any further involvement in this case,” the letter demands. The letter details another reason for Abruzzo to recuse herself: “The CWA International exercises nearly total control over its Districts and Locals…. Accordingly, your position of authority in the CWA International must be imputed to authority over local and district affiliates, justifying your recusal from CWA matters at all levels including this case.”

The letter to Abruzzo is not the only action by the Foundation to curb NLRB conflicts of interest created by recent Biden NLRB appointees’ having come from union payrolls. Just last week, Foundation President Mark Mix demanded that the NLRB Inspector General remove NLRB Members Dave Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox – who before joining the Board were lawyers for powerful Service Employees International Union affiliates – from involvement in an NLRB case in which SEIU is suing the Board and its Members individually.

“Jennifer Abruzzo, who Foundation FOIA requests show engineered President Biden’s precedent-shattering ouster of her pro-worker freedom predecessor Peter Robb, already has an ugly track record of seeking to undermine the rights of independent-minded workers opposed to union affiliation,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Given her role in setting and influencing CWA policies that are implemented at every level of that union, Abruzzo has a clear conflict of interest that disqualifies her from any participation in Mr. Brown’s case or any other cases brought by workers against CWA affiliates.”

Over 75 percent of workers asked Bertolino management to withdraw recognition of union officials as monopoly bargaining ‘representative’

Boston, MA (October 12, 2021) – Bertolino Foods employee Jenifer Sedano and her coworkers have successfully booted unwanted United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1445 union officials from monopoly bargaining power at their workplace. With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, Sedano and her coworkers submitted to Bertolino management a petition demonstrating nearly 80 percent support for removing the union. Bertolino’s attorney announced last week that based on the workers’ petition it was withdrawing recognition from UFCW Local 1445.

Sedano and her coworkers thus successfully exercised rights protected under National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) precedent, which permits employers to withdraw recognition from unions that a majority of their employees have expressed a desire to remove.

UFCW bosses attained monopoly bargaining status at the Bertolino Foods facility in September 2020. After contract talks between Bertolino management and union officials had dragged on for almost a year, Sedano and her coworkers sought out help from Foundation staff attorneys in exercising their right to remove UFCW officials. Sedano ended up gathering signatures in favor of removal from 31 of 42 bargaining unit members, and submitted this petition to Bertolino management toward the end of August.

The letter from Bertolino’s attorney to Local 1445 dated September 30 reads, “Since the Union no longer represents a majority of the bargaining unit employees, it would be unlawful for the Company to continue to recognize and/or bargain with the Union. Accordingly, effective immediately on September 30, 2021, the Company withdraws recognition of UFCW, Local 1445 as the collective bargaining representative for its employees.”

Sedano and her coworkers join several other Foundation-assisted employees who have dispatched unwanted union representation across the country. Workers at Airgas in Ventura, CA, Rush University in Chicago, IL, and Desert Springs Hospital Center in Las Vegas, NV, have all successfully voted out or forced out by other legal means unpopular union officials just in the past few months.

“Ms. Sedano and an overwhelming majority of her coworkers clearly expressed that they no longer wanted to be under the power of UFCW officials, and their decision must be respected,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Foundation attorneys are prepared to fight to protect Sedano and her coworkers’ right to free themselves from the unwanted union, even if union bosses and the NLRB attempt to re-impose union control despite the workers’ overwhelming opposition to the union’s so-called ‘representation.’”

AFSCME officials ignored worker’s two requests to stop sending her money to PAC but finally backed down & issued refunds after attorneys’ cease-and-desist letter

Harford County, MD (October 7, 2021) – A Harford County school custodian has forced AFSCME union bosses at her workplace to stop seizing money illegally from her paycheck, including cash taken for the “AFSCME PEOPLE” fund, a Political Action Committee (PAC) that under federal law can only be legally funded through voluntary contributions. The victory comes after she obtained free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, who sent a cease-and-desist letter for her to the AFSCME PAC.

Linda Puto’s efforts have also made AFSCME officials cease all union dues deductions from her wages, as the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision requires. In Janus, the Court held that forcing public sector workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs violates their First Amendment rights. The Court also ruled that no union monies can be taken from a public employee’s paycheck without a knowing and affirmative waiver of that worker’s First Amendment right not to pay.

Prior to Janus, in states like Maryland that lack Right to Work laws, union bosses could legally extract a portion of union dues even from public workers who choose to refrain from union membership. However, the High Court ruled in Janus that state arrangements permitting union officials to do so force public employees to subsidize the union’s political speech and thus violate the First Amendment.

Federal election law enforced by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) also forbids forced contributions to political committees that support or oppose candidates for federal office. Those who run PACs like AFSCME PEOPLE cannot coerce payments into the fund.

Prior to the cease-and-desist letter, Puto sent two letters to the local AFSCME affiliate to exercise her rights to resign union membership and end all union deductions from her paycheck, one in November 2020 and a second in March 2021. AFSCME union officials ignored both letters and kept illegally seizing both dues money and contributions for the AFSCME PAC.

Finally, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys mailed a cease-and-desist letter to the AFSCME PEOPLE treasurer in Washington, DC, for Puto in June. It noted that the letter responded to “AFSCME’s and AFSCME PEOPLE’s refusal to honor her First Amendment, federal law, and contractual rights to revoke her PEOPLE contribution deduction at any time.”

The letter demanded, “[t]o avoid litigation over this issue,” that AFSCME officials cease deducting money from Puto’s paycheck for the PEOPLE fund. Additionally, the letter demanded that any money seized for that fund after her original November 2020 letter be immediately paid back to her.

AFSCME and AFSCME PEOPLE officials have now backed down and stopped taking both dues and PAC contributions from Puto, and have also refunded all amounts of both that have been taken from her paycheck since her November demand.

“AFSCME officials brazenly violated Ms. Puto’s legal rights for months on end, ignoring not only her First Amendment rights under Janus, but longstanding law that all PAC contributions – which are used to fund political candidates’ campaigns – be completely voluntary,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Although we are happy that she has secured the return of her money, workers should not have to obtain legal representation just to stop funding Big Labor political activities and contributions to union-label candidates.”

Biden Appointees Prouty and Wilcox both served as top SEIU lawyers and opposed legal standards they are now charged with defending and applying

Washington, DC (October 5, 2021) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today submitted a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Inspector General (IG) and chief ethics officer, urging them to remove NLRB members David Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox from involvement in a federal case. In the case, the Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU) is suing the Board, including Prouty and Wilcox, seeking to overrule NLRB precedent regarding the “joint employer” standard.

The NLRB is a five-member federal board that enforces federal private-sector labor law and adjudicates disputes among workers, unions, and employers. The NLRB is currently being sued by the SEIU in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over a rule which clarified that a company that does not exercise direct control over employee wages and working conditions cannot be charged with unfair labor practices committed by its related entities, such as franchisees.

The letter from Foundation President Mark Mix points out that the issue of Prouty and Wilcox’s recusal in this case is of interest to the Foundation because “Foundation Staff Attorneys frequently provide free legal representation to employees involved in litigation before the National Labor Relations Board against SEIU or its affiliates,” and that the same considerations “should mandate the recusal of Member Wilcox and Member Prouty in those cases as well.”

Each year Foundation staff attorneys handle more than 100 cases brought for workers at the NLRB challenging union attempts to violate workers’ rights. SEIU affiliates are among the most often cited in those cases for violating federal law. Just since 2018 Foundation attorneys have assisted workers in 67 cases against SEIU affiliates, over half of which have taken place at the NLRB. For example, a formal complaint was just issued for Foundation-represented employee Roger White against SEIU Healthcare 1199NW at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle (Case 19-CB-258889).

The letter also asks that the NLRB IG “apply the same level of vigor in examining their conflicts as he did in matters involving former Board Member William J. Emanuel.” Although the NLRB finalized its “joint employer” standard through the rulemaking process, an earlier 2017 case decision that would have adopted the same standard was vacated because the IG ruled that Member Emanuel should have recused himself. Emanuel had worked for a law firm that the IG perceived as hostile toward the old Obama-era “joint employer” standard, which the NLRB nixed in rulemaking.

Given Wilcox and Prouty’s “recent roles as lawyers advising large locals affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (‘SEIU’),” the Foundation’s letter states, “both Member Prouty and Member Wilcox have significant conflicts of interest with respect to the Litigation and with regard to the Joint-Employer rule that SEIU challenges in the Litigation.”

The letter details Member Prouty’s history as General Counsel of SEIU Local 32BJ, a powerful SEIU affiliate. It further points out that Member Prouty “played a key role in opposing the Board’s final rule on joint employment,” personally signing comments against the rule, which is further evidence of the specific conflict of interest in the pending case. The letter points out that the fact that Prouty was General Counsel for an SEIU local and not the international union does not absolve him of a conflict of interest, as the “SEIU International and its local and affiliated unions are inextricably intertwined.”

Member Wilcox’s conflicts go even deeper, according to the Foundation’s letter. It notes that Member Wilcox was at the forefront of a union campaign that openly opposed the NLRB’s “joint employer rule,” a campaign that is “specifically named as interested in, and a core part of, the Litigation.” Additionally, the letter says, Member Wilcox “played a key role in opposing the Board’s final rule in joint employment” when she worked for SEIU-affiliated law firm Levy Ratner, which filed “lengthy comments opposing that rule” while she was a partner there.

The Biden Administration has gone above and beyond in its efforts to entrench union boss influence at the NLRB. Just minutes after being inaugurated, President Biden took the unprecedented step of firing former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, who still had 11 months left on his Senate-confirmed term and had aggressively supported cases in which workers sought to free themselves from coercive union boss-created schemes. Robb’s replacement, Biden-appointed Jennifer Abruzzo, is a former Communications Workers of America (CWA) union lawyer who Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records requests from the Foundation revealed was half of a two-person Biden NLRB transition team that engineered Robb’s first-of-its-kind ouster.

“The Biden Administration has already displayed some of the most biased and politically-motivated behavior within the NLRB since the agency’s inception, all in an attempt to unfairly rig the system to favor Biden’s union boss political allies over protecting workers’ individual rights,” commented Mix. “If Prouty and Wilcox’s obvious conflicts of interest are unaddressed in this case, the message from the Board will be loud and clear that ethics policies and recusal rules no longer apply now that pro-union boss Biden appointees are in power.”

Comments: Federal law specifically prohibits diverting financial assistance for homecare providers to third parties such as unions

Washington, DC (September 28, 2021) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting America’s working men and women from the abuses of compulsory unionism, filed comments today urging the Centers for Medicaid Services (CMS) not to rescind a 2018 Trump Administration rule that made clear that federal law prohibits union officials from skimming union dues payments from Medicaid funds intended for those who provide home-based assistance to disabled people.

Foundation attorneys argue in the comments that the Medicaid statute’s blanket prohibition on assigning payments to third parties has no exemption for assignments to unions and their PACs, and that the Trump-era rule simply ensured that Medicaid regulations conformed to longstanding law. Prior to the rule, union officials had siphoned upwards of $1 billion from Medicaid payments, an effort which had been aided by the Obama Administration’s 2014 creation of a special exemption for union officials from Medicaid regulations.

Union officials, especially at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), have long used deceptive and even unconstitutional tactics to divert taxpayer-funded Medicaid payments into union coffers. Before the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Foundation-won 2014 Harris v. Quinn decision, which found that mandatory union payments violate the First Amendment rights of homecare workers who do not wish to support union activities, homecare providers in over a dozen states were required to fund union activities. States automatically deducted fees from Medicaid payments even though such union dues diversions violated federal law regarding Medicaid funds.

Even after the Harris decision was issued, union officials continued seizing money from hundreds of thousands of providers across the country under cover of the Obama-era rule creating an exception to the prohibition against skimming Medicaid funds. Many providers attempted to stop the union dues seizures, while others were unaware they could not be required to make the payments. Some, while attempting to stop the payments, even found that union agents had forged their signatures to authorize the deductions.

“[Home and Community Based Service] Medicaid payments are supposed to pay for care for the severely disabled. Diverting these payments to third-party special interests to subsidize their political agendas, lobbying, and recruitment campaigns is as unconscionable as it is unlawful under Subsection (a)(32)’s unambiguous direct payment requirement,” the comments state. “CMS’s opposite intent in its 2021 [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] to condone this corrupt practice by inventing a new regulatory exception to the statute is inconsistent with Subsection (a)(32) and is arbitrary and capricious.”

Under the Trump-era rule, union officials may collect payments from caregivers who voluntarily support union activities, but cannot use taxpayer-funded government payment systems to deduct the dues from Medicaid payouts. Voluntary union supporters could still make payments just as millions of Americans make regular payments to private businesses or other organizations.

“The Biden Administration’s plan to reauthorize the Medicaid union dues skim is a bald attempt to allow their political allies to divert funds that federal law makes clear should be going to help those who are homebound or have significant disabilities,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Homecare providers’ own free choice should determine whether union bosses receive their support, not politically-motivated, federally-imposed special exemptions.”