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.”

NLRB asked to seek injunction in federal court to stop illegal union boss threats that workers will be fired if they refuse to immediately pay full union dues

Los Angeles, CA (September 23, 2021) – Long Beach-area Savage Services employee Nelson Medina is hitting Teamsters Local 848 union bosses with federal charges asserting that union officials have threatened to have him fired for refusing to join the union, pay full dues, and pay other fees demanded by union officials. The charges were filed at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 21 in Los Angeles with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

Medina’s charges come amidst a flurry of Foundation-backed legal action by California workers against Teamsters Local 848. Medina himself filed a Request for Review this July at the NLRB in Washington, DC, challenging a dubious mail-vote process Teamsters officials pushed to gain monopoly bargaining power at his workplace. According to Medina’s Request for Review, at least 12 of his coworkers never had their votes counted in the election due to errors by the NLRB Region and postal service, though union lawyers somehow produced tracking numbers for two ballots that were originally considered late and demanded they be included in the count. Medina argued this indicated illegal ballot harvesting by union officials.

Just last week, Local 848 bosses were also forced to depart Airgas worker Angel Herrera’s Ventura, CA, 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 petitions seeking the end of Local 848’s monopoly bargaining power.

Medina’s charges recount that he sent Teamsters officials a letter on August 15 exercising his right to reject formal union membership. His letter also demanded that union officials provide him his rights as a nonmember under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which prohibits union officials from requiring nonmembers as a condition of employment to pay anything to the union beyond fees directly related to bargaining expenses.

Because California lacks Right to Work protections, private sector workers who oppose a union’s presence in their workplace can still be required to pay union fees to keep their jobs. Right to Work protections in 27 states ensure union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

In an attempt to work around California’s lack of Right to Work, Medina and his coworkers have submitted a petition with sufficient signatures to prompt the NLRB to hold a “deauthorization vote,” after which union officials (even in a state without Right to Work) would be stripped of their forced-dues power if a simple majority of workers vote to do so.

About a month after Medina’s August letter, the charge notes, union officials informed Savage Services management by mail that if Medina and 12 fellow employees did not complete membership applications and submit full dues for the month of September, they should be terminated before September’s final week.

Medina’s charge argues that the union’s attempt to force him into full membership, full dues payment, payment of other non-legally-required fees, and the tiny window union officials gave him to comply with their demands despite not directly giving him notice are all glaring violations of his rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The charge also asks the NLRB to seek an immediate stop to union officials’ coercive actions, demanding injunctive relief for Medina and the 12 others under Section 10(j) of the NLRA. The charge cites “the imminent threat of termination” and “the pending deauthorization petition in this bargaining unit” as reasons injunctive relief must be granted.

“Teamsters Local 848 officials seem to be on a rampage throughout Southern California, brazenly violating the rights of any workers who dare to object to their one-size-fits-all bargaining power and forced-dues demands,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Even amidst vehement worker opposition, Teamsters officials have repeatedly shown a preference for compulsion over trying to persuade workers to support them voluntarily.”

“Mr. Medina has been courageous in his continuing struggle to ensure that union coercion and legal finagling don’t determine the fate of his and his coworkers’ freedom in the workplace, and we are proud to support him in his efforts,” Mix added.

Workers had filed two separate petitions since 2020 seeking to end unpopular Teamster union ‘representation’

Ventura, CA (September 17, 2021) – Following Airgas USA employee Angel Herrera and his coworkers’ yearlong effort seeking to end the union’s control at their workplace, Teamsters Local 848 officials have filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ending their monopoly bargaining power over all workers at the Airgas Glass Welding and Safety Products facility in Ventura. Herrera and his colleagues received free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in filing a petition for a vote to oust Teamsters union officials.

Airgas Ventura employees’ effort began in 2020, when they submitted a petition asking Airgas management to rescind recognition of Teamsters Local 848. Though Airgas management prepared to withdraw recognition as the majority of employees had requested, Teamsters officials filed unfair labor practice charges against Airgas soon after in an attempt to retain power over the employees at the facility despite the employees’ overwhelming opposition to the union.

What followed was months of litigation at the NLRB, the federal agency charged with enforcing most private sector labor law. Ultimately the NLRB forced Airgas to recognize the Teamsters union and the union’s “representation” was imposed back on the employees.

Herrera and his coworkers tried again to get Teamsters union chiefs out of their workplace this summer by filing a “decertification petition” with the NLRB. Herrera’s petition, filed on August 30, contained signatures from enough of his coworkers to trigger an NLRB-supervised “decertification election,” a secret-ballot election after which union officials lose monopoly bargaining power if a majority of workers vote to remove them.

Before a decertification election was scheduled, however, Teamsters officials instead disclaimed interest in maintaining control over the workplace on September 13, in an apparent attempt to spare themselves the embarrassment of an overwhelming vote by workers to reject the union’s so-called “representation.”

This is just the latest in a series of successful worker efforts to oust unwanted union officials aided by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. Earlier this summer, maintenance worker Tim Mangia and his coworkers at Chicago’s Rush University filed a decertification petition with free Foundation legal aid and voted out another Teamsters affiliate, Local 743, from their workplace by a more than 70-30 margin.

Relatedly, just last month in Las Vegas, Foundation staff attorneys filed an amicus brief for a Red Rock Casino worker contesting a federal judge’s order that casino management submit to bargaining talks with Culinary Union officials, despite a majority of Red Rock workers voting against unionization.

The Foundation has also fought to break down union boss-created legal barriers to unseating unwanted union officials. Early last year, following detailed formal comments submitted by Foundation attorneys, the NLRB finalized rules eviscerating union bosses’ ability to stop a decertification effort with “blocking charges,” i.e., accusations made against an employer that are often unverified and have no connection to workers’ desire to kick out undesired union officials.

“We at the Foundation are proud to have helped Mr. Herrera and his colleagues in the exercise of their workplace rights, but no American workers should have to file multiple petitions and endure protracted litigation just so they can exercise this basic right of free association,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This is more important than ever given the Biden Administration’s focus on further empowering union officials at the expense of rank-and-file workers’ individual rights.”

“Foundation staff attorneys will not waiver in their defense of workers’ right to dispense with unwanted union so-called ‘representation,’ regardless of which way the political winds blow,” Mix added.

Every year the National Right to Work Foundation uses Labor Day to remind Americans that celebrating workers must include respecting their individual rights by opposing the injustices of forced unionism. This year, National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix’s opinion pieces calling out union coercion and extolling the vital freedoms and opportunity secured by Right to Work reached the public through dozens of outlets. Here are some of the highlights:

On Right to Work’s Freedom and Prosperity

“With help from the same National Right to Work Foundation attorney who argued and won the Janus case, [Chicago teachers Ifeoma Nkemdi and Joanne Troesch] appealed to the Supreme Court. Sixteen states and 4 separate legal foundations filed amicus briefs supporting the educators’ petition, which the Supreme Court is set to take up in October.

“The educators are riding the momentum from a historic decade of wins against compulsory unionism. Since 2012, five states – Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Kentucky – passed Right to Work protections, ensuring union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.”

-Mark Mix in The Washington Times, 9/6/2021

“And so, a year after the COVID-19-induced economic slump hit its lowest point in April 2020, Right to Work states led the way in getting jobs back on track. In Right to Work states, the number of manufacturing payroll employees had rebounded 10.1 percent just one year after its 2020 lows, a bump 63 percent greater than what forced-unionism states experienced, according to Labor Department statistics from July.”

-Mark Mix in Fox Business, 9/6/2021

“Sluggish job growth in forced-unionism states was not limited to just the pandemic recovery. A National Institute for Labor Relations Research analysis points out that, from 2020 back to 2010, employment in states lacking Right to Work protections increased by only 2.4%, paling in comparison to Right to Work states’ 11.0% jump in the same decade.

“It’s no surprise, then, that Right to Work states passed the milestone just last year of now playing host to the majority of employed people in the United States, according to the Department of Labor’s Household Survey.”

-Mark Mix in the Boston Herald, 9/6/2021

On Union Boss Attempts to Expand their Coercive Powers over Rank-and-File Workers

“It’s no wonder polls consistently show that more than 80% of Americans support the right-to-work principle that no worker should be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Union members, too, overwhelmingly agree.

“When union membership and financial support are voluntary, union officials are held accountable by workers who can cut off support if these officials aren’t meeting their needs.

“Instead of rising to the challenge and seeking workers’ voluntary support, union bosses continually resort to attacking the right to work.”

-Mark Mix in the Washington Examiner, 9/3/2021

“Union officials attempt to justify their use of coercion by claiming that forced association and forced dues are good for workers, but even Vice President Kamala Harris has admitted that’s not true. As California’s Attorney General she filed a Supreme Court brief acknowledging that ‘unions do have substantial latitude to advance bargaining positions that … run counter to the economic interests of some employees.’”

-Mark Mix in Newsmax, 8/31/2021

“Why do teachers’ unions across the country have the power to dictate the terms of school districts’ reopening, while the tax dollars of parents—nearly 80 percent of whom supported in-person instruction—continue to flow towards those districts?

“The answer is that, in nearly every state, the heads of public-sector unions have at least some power to force teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees into one-size-fits-all contracts that make public services more responsive to the interests of union bosses than to those of the public…

“In the devastating wake of COVID-19 and the misguided policies that came with it, now is a better time than ever to take a close look at how public-sector unions became the entrenched special interest group they are today. Ending union officials’ monopoly bargaining privileges would strike at the root of the problem while protecting the freedom of association of teachers and other public employees who do not feel that these unions represent them.”

-Mark Mix in Newsweek, 9/3/2021

On Union Corruption

“If Pantoja’s account correctly depicts the facts, the culture of union corruption must be deeply ingrained in the IAM. If even a union vice president can’t attempt to combat embezzlement and lies by a fellow union officer without facing a vicious campaign of retaliation, imagine what would happen to a rank-and-file worker who tried to do the same…

“Unfortunately, under current federal policies, many if not most IAM-‘represented’ workers in all 50 states, including the 27 Right to Work states, may currently be forced to bankroll a union, or be fired, as a consequence of the federally-imposed railroad/airline-industry loophole in state bans on forced union dues and fees.”

-Mark Mix in Newsmax, 9/10/2021

“Workers in Michigan are now free to decide for themselves whether union officials deserve their support. Meanwhile, [Bob] King’s UAW has been engulfed in a massive corruption scandal including the misuse of workers’ dues money…

“Had King and other union bosses had their way, workers in Michigan would be forced to not only fund union officials’ opulent lifestyles, but also their salaries and the legal bills associated with the scandal. In states without right-to-work protections, workers in UAW shops continue to bear those costs.”

-Mark Mix in The Detroit News, 9/6/2021

Law protects employees’ First Amendment rights; Kanawha Circuit judge blocked law at union lawyers’ behest

Charleston, WV (September 9, 2021) – Staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a charitable nonprofit dedicated to protecting workers’ legal rights from compulsory unionism, have just filed an amicus brief defending the legality of a state law that protects the First Amendment right of West Virginia public employees to refrain from funding a union. The brief comes during a legal battle by union bosses against the law, in which a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge issued a preliminary injunction at the behest of union lawyers stopping the bill from going into effect.

Foundation staff attorneys urge the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to undo the injunction, arguing that West Virginia’s Paycheck Protection Act is not only valid, but essential to protect West Virginia public sector workers’ rights under the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. In Janus, the justices ruled that forcing public sector workers to subsidize union activities as a condition of keeping their jobs violates the First Amendment. The Court also held that no union dues or fees can be taken from a public worker’s wages without a knowing and intelligent waiver of that employee’s First Amendment right not to pay, and that such a waiver “cannot be presumed.”

The justices reasoned in Janus that, because all public sector union activities involve lobbying the government, forcing public sector workers to pay any money to a union amounts to forced political speech forbidden by the First Amendment.

“The Act prevents the government from unwittingly violating their employees’ First Amendment rights by seizing union dues from them without their voluntary, affirmative consent and knowing, intelligent waiver of those rights, as required under Janus,” the brief reads. “The State’s protection of its employees’ First Amendment rights does not violate the constitutional rights of Respondents West Virginia AFL-CIO, et. al. (‘the Unions’), because the Unions have no constitutional entitlement to employees’ money or to the employer’s administration of union dues deduction schemes.”

Because West Virginia has a legitimate interest in protecting its employees’ First Amendment rights, and because union officials’ lawsuit against the Paycheck Protection Act has no chance of success on the merits, Foundation attorneys argue, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals should overturn the preliminary injunction.

This is not the first time the Foundation has supported state policy that protects public employees’ First Amendment Janus rights. Last year, Foundation staff attorneys filed detailed comments backing a Michigan Civil Service Commission (MiCSC) policy that required public employers to obtain annual consent from their workers before taking union payments out of their wages. Officials from the United Auto Workers (UAW) and other unions abandoned a lawsuit contesting the rule in October 2020.

Foundation staff attorneys also filed 10 legal briefs defending West Virginia’s Right to Work law, which was the target of a legal attack by union officials from 2016 until last year. Among the Foundation’s filings were amicus briefs for Reginald Gibbs, who worked as a lead slot machine technician with the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, WV, and Donna Harper, who worked as a laundry aide and nursing assistant at the Genesis HealthCare Tygart Center in Fairmont, WV. Both workers opposed paying money to the union bosses in power at their workplaces.

“West Virginia union bosses’ aggressive opposition to this commonsense law shows that they care more about finding ways to keep employee money flowing into their pockets than they do about respecting the First Amendment rights of those they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This law just ensures that public employees maintain full control over whether their money is going to support a union.”

“By opposing this simple protection, West Virginia union bosses are doubling down on coercion instead of focusing on ways to win over the voluntary support of public servants,” Mix added.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the National Right to Work Committee, issued the following statement on the occasion of Labor Day 2021:

“On this Labor Day, workers’ freedoms are at a crossroads. Though union officials and their allies in government use this day to claim to speak for America’s workers, they are simultaneously hard at work trying to undermine the individual liberty of those same American workers.

“The last decade saw record advances for workers’ right to free association, with five new states enacting Right to Work protections which defend a worker from being fired merely for refusal to pay dues to a labor union he or she does not support. Twenty-seven states now protect this basic, fundamental freedom, and, as of last year, a majority of America’s working men and women now work in Right to Work states. That’s on top of the National Right to Work Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court victory, which recognized the First Amendment right of every public worker to choose for him or herself whether or not to fund a labor union.

“Unfortunately, rather than embrace voluntarism and worker choice, union officials have instead doubled down on coercion. Their top priority in Congress, the so-called “PRO-Act,” would add tens of millions of workers to union bosses’ “pay up or be fired” ranks by wiping out all state Right to Work laws by federal fiat. Meanwhile, despite the Janus ruling, government union bosses have continued to undermine and outright ignore the First Amendment right of public employees to cease all funding of the political activities of all government unions. This has resulted in dozens of Janus enforcement lawsuits nationwide, including two Foundation cases currently pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Yet Big Labor’s push for more power to impose their so-called “representation” and mandatory dues payments on workers remains at odds with an overwhelming majority of Americans. Polls show Americans still overwhelmingly oppose forced unionism – consistently finding that around 80% of Americans agree with the Right to Work principle that union membership and dues payment should be voluntary, not coerced.

“On this Labor Day, as hardworking rank-and-file workers continue to grapple with economic uncertainty and lingering COVID disruptions, it is more important now than ever that we reject Big Labor’s schemes to expand forced unionism over more workers, and instead respect the individual freedom to decide whether or not a union deserves their support.”

Cameraman already won charge against NABET officials for seizing money illegally, now full board in DC cites union lawyers for misconduct

Portland, OR (August 27, 2021) – Portland-area ABC cameraman Jeremy Brown has just prevailed decisively in his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) case against the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) union. He first charged the union in July 2019 with demanding and seizing illegal dues from him, and for ignoring his multiple attempts to exercise his right to refrain from union membership and not pay for union political activities. Following his original charge, he submitted another charge asserting NABET lawyers had sent him threatening and over-the-top demand letters.

Brown received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF). A unanimous NLRB decision has now vindicated every charge he made against the union, and refers NABET’s lawyers for disciplinary sanctions on account of unprofessional conduct.

An NLRB Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ruled in December 2020 that NABET union officials had illegally snubbed Brown’s attempts to stop paying for union politics among other activities and had seized dues from him in excess of the amount they could compel nonmembers to pay by law. Brown had invoked his rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which mandates that in states like Oregon lacking Right to Work protections nonmember workers can’t be forced to pay dues for anything beyond certain union core activities. Brown’s charges detailed that union officials had failed to inform him that requests to reduce dues as per Beck had to be directed to the union’s national headquarters.

However, the ALJ let NABET off the hook for the union lawyers’ intimidating evidence preservation letters sent during the litigation, despite the fact that they illegally threatened to seek “damages” from Brown if he didn’t comply with their demands, and absurdly ordered that he hold onto things like pedometer and GPS data.

Brown’s Foundation provided attorneys urged the NLRB to prosecute the NABET lawyers for the outrageous demands. Peter Robb, the NLRB General Counsel at the time, also filed a brief supporting Brown’s attempt to put the issue before the full Board. This effort met resistance when Peter Ohr, whom President Biden in January 2021 installed as NLRB Acting General Counsel after a hasty and premature ouster of Robb, sought to withdraw the brief that Robb had filed. Foundation attorneys opposed Ohr’s motion, arguing that he had no legal authority to rescind Robb’s brief.

Despite Ohr’s opposition, the NLRB took up Brown’s case challenging the NABET lawyers’ evidence preservation letters. In a decision this week, three current Board members, including the Biden-appointed Chairman, agreed that “the threatened aggressive pursuit of sanctions and penalties” in the letters “viewed in conjunction with the breadth of the information covered by the letters, sends the message that the Respondent is willing to go to extreme—and perhaps harassing—lengths to penalize the Charging Party, placing the letters outside the bounds of legitimate efforts to ensure evidence preservation.”

In addition to demanding that NABET officials stop failing to respond to workers’ Beck requests and that they return the dues seized from Brown in excess of the limit established by Beck, the NLRB also orders the union and its agents to cease sending “charging-party employees evidence preservation letters that reasonably tend to restrain or coerce them in the exercise of their right to avail themselves of the Board’s processes.”

Moreover, the Board in its decision found that the record in the case suggests that NABET’s lawyers “have not conformed their conduct to the standards of ethical and professional conduct required of practitioners appearing before the Agency,” i.e., by “repeatedly misidentifying NRTWLDF in [their] filings with the Board.” The Board decision therefore referred the union counsels’ conduct “to the attention of the Investigating Officer for investigation and such disciplinary action as may be appropriate.”

“NABET officials and lawyers subjected Jeremy Brown to layers upon layers of union malfeasance and intimidation just because he exercised his right to remain a nonmember and didn’t want to pay for union bosses’ political expenditures,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “He courageously stood up for his rights for well over two years, and we at the National Right to Work Foundation were proud to support him in a case where his rights have now been fully vindicated.”

Mix continued: “The fact that NABET officials and lawyers’ behavior elicited condemnation from even Biden-selected Chairman Lauren McFerran demonstrates how radical former NLRB Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr’s throwing of obstacles in Brown’s case was.”

Foundation attorneys argue IAM scheme violates Supreme Court’s Janus standard by seizing political dues from nonmembers without their consent

Washington, DC (August 17, 2021) – Yesterday, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys filed the final brief supporting Texas United Airlines employee Arthur Baisley’s petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. He is urging the Court to hear his federal class-action civil rights case contesting a dues arrangement imposed by International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials. The scheme forces him and his coworkers by default to subsidize union political activities in violation of the First Amendment and Railway Labor Act (RLA).

The policy that Baisley is challenging requires employees who choose not to join the union to opt out of funding the union’s political and ideological activities during a brief annual “window period,” or else have money exacted from their wages for those purposes against their will. Baisley’s Foundation-provided attorneys argue that this violates employee rights under both the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, and the RLA.

The RLA governs labor relations in the rail and airline industries, and protects the right of employees to “join, organize, or assist in organizing” a union of their choice, as well as the right to abstain from all union activities. In Janus, the High Court ruled it violates the First Amendment to force a public-sector employee to pay union fees as a condition of keeping his or her job, citing the fact that all union dues for public employees are inherently political because government union speech is directed towards the government. As part of its ruling, the High Court affirmed that union dues could only be deducted from a public employee’s paycheck with an affirmative waiver of that employee’s right not to pay.

Foundation staff attorneys argue that under both Janus and another Foundation-won Supreme Court decision, Knox v. SEIU, no employee can be charged for union political or ideological expenditures without first giving their affirmative and knowing consent. This is because language from a 1961 case that union lawyers use to prop up “opt out” schemes, like the one foisted by IAM union officials on Baisley and his coworkers, was not only dicta, but was also found flawed by the Supreme Court in Knox.

Foundation attorneys also reiterate in the latest brief that the government is involved in enforcing the RLA and thus First Amendment scrutiny should apply to the IAM bosses’ scheme, stating, “The Court should grant review to make clear that the First Amendment and federal law protect employees regulated under the Railway Labor Act from opt-out regimes—regimes which ‘create[ ] a risk that the fees paid by nonmembers will be used to further political and ideological ends with which they do not agree.’”

Baisley is not a member of the IAM but is still forced to pay some union fees despite being based in the Right to Work state of Texas. The RLA preempts state Right to Work protections which make union membership and all union financial support strictly voluntary. However, under longstanding law, even without Right to Work protections nonmembers cannot, as a condition of keeping their jobs, be required to pay fees for anything beyond the union’s expenses directly related to monopoly bargaining.

Baisley’s petition detailed the convoluted union boss-created process that workers must navigate just to prevent money from being taken from their paychecks in violation of their First Amendment rights. In Baisley’s situation, even though he sent a letter to IAM agents in November 2018 objecting to funding all union political activities, union officials only accepted his objection for 2019, and told Baisley he had to renew his objection to full dues and fees the next year or else be charged full union dues.

Baisley’s lawsuit seeks to strike down the opt-out requirement not only as it is applied to him, but also for his coworkers whose rights are similarly restricted by the IAM’s opt-out policy. Union officials would then be required to get nonmember workers to give affirmative consent to paying for union boss activities beyond the bargaining-related expenses they can legally be required to subsidize under the RLA.

The final brief in Baisley’s case comes as other Foundation-backed lawsuits for employees defending their First Amendment Janus rights seek writs of certiorari from the Supreme Court. This includes cases brought for Chicago and New Jersey public educators which challenge “window periods” that severely limit when they and their fellow educators can exercise their First Amendment right to stop dues deductions for union bosses, sometimes to periods as short as ten days per year. In a California federal court, Foundation staff attorneys are also aiding a University of California Irvine lab assistant in fighting an anti-Janus state law that gives union bosses full control over whether employers can stop sending an employee’s money to the union after that employee exercises his or her Janus rights.

Baisley’s case is expected to be conferenced by the Justices on September 27, after which the Court will announce whether it will be heard.

“Baisley is simply seeking to stop the presumption that he wants his hard-earned money to go to union political ventures that he does not want to prop up. IAM officials’ ‘opt-out’ scheme is quite clearly meant to frustrate employees’ attempts to exercise that basic right and to keep pumping their money into those political activities,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Judging by other pending Foundation litigation, it seems that union officials across the country are not willing to respect this right for either public or private sector workers.”

“Employee support of union political expenditures should come only voluntarily, not through underhanded, complex arrangements designed to trick nonmember workers into funding political activities they oppose,” Mix added.