Union officials tried to mask forced fees outlawed by Janus Supreme Court decision as “agreement administration fees”

Cincinnati, OH (April 30, 2021) – City of Hamilton employee Timothy Crane has successfully defended his First Amendment right to refrain from funding the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 20 hierarchy in his workplace.

Crane, who is not a union member, filed a lawsuit in December 2020 with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys that challenged so-called “agreement administration fees” that IUOE officials forced him to pay as a condition of keeping his job. Legal documents now confirm that IUOE bosses have backed down from enforcing the deceptive dues scheme and have also refunded to Crane all dues that they seized from him under it.

Crane’s lawsuit maintained that the “agreement administration fee” requirement violated his rights under the Foundation-argued 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. In Janus, the High Court ruled that no public worker can be coerced into paying union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. The Court also held that union dues or fees can only be deducted from a public employee’s paycheck if that employee clearly and affirmatively waives his or her constitutional right not to pay. Justice Alito wrote for the Court majority that “such a waiver cannot be presumed” by union or state officials.

According to Crane’s lawsuit, he sent letters to IUOE union officials in both August and September of last year attempting to exercise his First Amendment Janus right to end dues deductions from his paycheck. After sending these two letters, he discovered that an “agreement administration fee” was being taken from his pay by the City at the behest of IUOE union bosses.

The complaint contended that that this fee was just a so-called “agency fee” – a forced union payment charged to employees who refrain from formal union membership that was definitively outlawed by the Janus v. AFSCME decision – masquerading under a different name.

With this victory, Crane’s suit is now the fifth resolved favorably by Foundation staff attorneys for Buckeye State employees who have sought to defend their First Amendment Janus rights from union boss wrongdoing. This includes the July 2020 settlement in the Allen v. AFSCME case, in which nearly 30,000 Ohio public employees were freed from an “escape period” scheme imposed by Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA) union chiefs, which limited to just a handful of days every few years the time in which a public employee could exercise his or her Janus rights.

“Once again, a Foundation-backed Ohio public employee has prevailed over a duplicitous attempt by union officials to keep worker money flowing illegally into their pockets while trampling workers’ First Amendment rights,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Any Ohio public workers who are subjected to similar arrangements, or are coerced or intimidated by union bosses in any other way into funding a union agenda against their will should contact the Foundation for free assistance in defending their First Amendment Janus rights.”

Notice given after workers submitted majority-backed petition urging employer to drop union, details right to rebuff likely illegal union strike demands

Philadelphia, PA (April 29, 2021) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys have issued a special legal notice to drivers, packers, warehouse staff, and other employees at J. Ambrogi Food Distribution (JAF) in West Deptford, New Jersey, affected by an impending strike that may be ordered by Teamsters Local 929 union officials.

The legal notice informs rank-and-file JAF workers of their rights to refuse to abandon their jobs and keep working to support their families despite the union-ordered strike. The notice discusses why workers across the country frequently turn to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid in such situations.

The notice comes after JAF management filed a federal lawsuit against the Teamsters Local 929 union. The lawsuit maintains that the threatened strike order is illegal because the current contract brokered between JAF and union officials prohibits such “work stoppages.” Reports indicate that Teamsters officials have already engaged in aggressive tactics to prevent workers from doing their jobs, including blocking facility entrances and physically preventing individual drivers from unloading cargo, according to that lawsuit.

“This situation raises serious concerns for employees who believe there is much to lose from a union boss-ordered strike,” the notice reads. “Employees have the legal right to rebuff union officials’ strike demands, but it is important for them to be fully informed before they do so.”

The full notice is available at https://www.nrtw.org/ambrogi-legal-notice/.

The strike threat also follows JAF management’s announcement in February that it would withdraw recognition of the Teamsters union in one bargaining unit, after rank-and-file employees submitted a majority-supported petition asking the company do so once the current monopoly bargaining contract expires. A Foundation-won 2019 decision before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) called Johnson Controls permits the process by which employees can petition their employer to end recognition of an unpopular union after the expiration of a contract.

The legal notice outlines the process that JAF employees should follow if they want to exercise their right to return to work during the strike and avoid punishment by union bosses, complete with sample union membership resignation letters.

Further, the notice encourages employees to seek free legal aid from the Foundation if they experience union resistance as they attempt to exercise any of these rights.

“Rather than accept that a majority of employees want nothing to do with their so-called ‘representation,’ Teamsters union bosses are attempting to bully workers into complying with the union’s self-serving strike,” commented National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “With reports of union agents using dishonest and intimidating tactics to coerce workers into abandoning their jobs, rank-and-file JAF employees should immediately contact the Foundation for free legal aid in defending their rights against this coercive Teamsters boss campaign.”

Employee asserts that NJ law’s tiny “escape period” to stop dues deductions violates rights under Janus Supreme Court decision

Trenton, NJ (April 28, 2021) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Heather Anderson, an employee of the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, is suing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 33 union and the State of New Jersey for illegally restricting her and her coworkers’ First Amendment right to stop union dues deductions from their paychecks.

The class-action civil rights lawsuit was filed today in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and challenges a New Jersey law that forbids workers from ending financial support for the union except during a tiny 10-day “escape period” once per year. Anderson’s suit says the state-enforced restriction, which union officials endorsed in their contract with the state, violates her and her coworkers’ rights under the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision.

In Janus, the High Court ruled that no public employee can be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. The Court also held that union dues or fees can only be deducted from a public employee’s paycheck if that employee clearly and affirmatively waives their right not to pay. Justice Alito wrote for the Court majority that “such a waiver cannot be presumed” by union or state officials.

Anderson is challenging New Jersey’s so-called “Workplace Democracy Act” (WDEA), which mandates 10-day “escape periods.” The WDEA was passed only months before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Janus, seemingly in a preemptive attempt by union-allied legislators to limit any rights the Court recognized in Janus to cut off union financial support.

According to her lawsuit, Anderson exercised her Janus rights in February of this year when she informed IBEW union bosses that she wished to terminate dues payments. New Jersey officials rebuffed her request, claiming it could only be accepted if she submitted it within an “escape period” that would not begin until August, and that the state would continue to seize dues from her paycheck until that time. The “escape period” was not mentioned in any dues checkoff authorization card she signed, according to her lawsuit.

Anderson’s lawsuit asks the federal District Court to declare the WDEA’s “escape period” scheme unconstitutional, and seeks refunds of all dues seized from her paycheck in violation of Janus after she invoked her rights.

Across the country, Foundation staff attorneys are currently representing public servants in more than a dozen cases where union officials have tried to confine their First Amendment Janus rights to an “escape period,” and have favorably settled 8 such cases. The pending cases include that of New Jersey public school teachers Susan Fischer and Jeanette Speck, who were trapped in a similar arrangement by New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) union officials.

“The ruling in the Janus decision was crystal clear: public servants have a First Amendment right to refuse to associate with union bosses whose so-called ‘representation’ they oppose,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It is blatantly unconstitutional that the WDEA prevents public workers from exercising their constitutional right for more than 97 percent of the year.”

Oscar Cruz Sosa moves to intervene in union case charging employer with refusing to help them surveil and harass him

Washington, DC (April 8, 2021) – Delaware Mountaire Farms poultry worker Oscar Cruz Sosa, who is spearheading a worker effort to vote United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union bosses out of the Mountaire Farms plant in Selbyville, DE, is now seeking to intervene in UFCW union officials’ case against Mountaire Farms management for refusing to hand over to them his private employee information.

Cruz Sosa filed a Motion to Intervene at Region 5 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Baltimore today with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. Foundation staff attorneys are also assisting Cruz Sosa and his coworkers in defending their right to oust UFCW officials from their workplace.

The new motion comes after Cruz Sosa himself filed federal charges last month against UFCW brass for illegally retaliating against him and attempting unlawful surveillance of his activities, by demanding from Mountaire Farms records of his activities in and around the plant.

Cruz Sosa’s charge incorporated information from a complaint NLRB Region 5 issued in the UFCW bosses’ case against the employer, which revealed that Mountaire Farms officials had rebuffed intrusive union requests for “[c]opies of the daily hours of work and the time and attendance records for employee Oscar Cruz Sosa between August 1, 2019 and March 15, 2020,” and “the daily admission log…for all access points to the Selbyville plant identifying by name” anyone who has accessed the plant since March 2020.

As Mr. Cruz Sosa’s filing points out, many “Board and federal court cases support [his] intervention to protect his rights to campaign for decertification without being spied upon.”

Meanwhile, Cruz Sosa and his coworkers are still waiting for the NLRB in Washington to rule in their decertification election case. In that case, the workers are defending their already-cast ballots from UFCW lawyers’ attempts to have those ballots destroyed. UFCW lawyers claim that a non-statutory NLRB policy called the “contract bar” should have blocked Cruz Sosa’s petition, even though it was signed by hundreds of his colleagues requesting the election. The non-statutory “contract bar” policy entrenches unions for up to three years after management and union officials broker a contract.

NLRB Region 5 ruled that the decertification vote should proceed because of an invalid forced dues clause in the contract, and UFCW lawyers quickly demanded review of that ruling by the full NLRB. The NLRB agreed to review the case, but also agreed with Foundation staff attorneys’ arguments that the entire “contract bar” policy should be re-evaluated, as it arbitrarily blocks workers’ right to remove unpopular union bosses for as long as three years.

Cruz Sosa and his coworkers are also fighting in another unfair labor practice case to get back dues collected under the illegal forced dues clause that blocked the contract bar and threw a wrench in UFCW bosses’ initial attempt to stop the vote. Just weeks ago, Cruz Sosa objected to a settlement proffered in that case by NLRB Region 5. According to his objections, that proposal “[sought] to ferret out for relief what is likely to be a minuscule handful of employees” even though all of his coworkers were harmed by the clause, which unlawfully compelled employees to pay dues immediately upon hiring or be fired. Federal law mandates a 30-day grace period on such demands. Cruz Sosa’s charge demands unit-wide dues refunds for all employees.

“UFCW union bosses’ campaign to thwart Mountaire Farms employees’ right to vote them out of their workplace is pernicious and far-reaching, and even includes the current attempt to twist the employer’s arm for personal information so they can unlawfully surveil an employee in retaliation for assisting his coworkers in exercising their rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Mr. Cruz Sosa’s attempt to intervene in this case should serve as a reminder of his strong motivation to fight back, and highlights the lengths to which union officials will go to maintain their one-size-fits-all ‘representation’ against the will of the very workers they claim to represent.”

Employee asserted right under Beck Supreme Court decision to opt-out of paying for union politics

Hawaii (April 6, 2021) – By filing federal charges against the UNITE HERE Local 5 union, Hawaii Kaiser Permanente employee Nina Chiu has successfully defended her rights under the CWA v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision. She received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in filing her charges.

Beck was won by Foundation staff attorneys in 1988. The Court held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) mandates that union officials cannot force private sector workers who decline formal union membership to pay union fees as a condition of keeping a job for anything unrelated to the union’s bargaining functions. This includes the union’s political expenditures. The Beck precedent also requires union bosses to provide nonmember employees with an independent audit of the union’s breakdown of expenditures, their process for determining the reduced union fee amount, and information on how to challenge the union’s determination.

Chiu, though she is not a union member, can still be forced to pay this reduced amount of union fees as a condition of employment because Hawaii lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees. Under Right to Work, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

According to Chiu’s charge against the UNITE HERE Local 5 union, even after she submitted two letters exercising her Beck rights, she had “not received a financial breakdown and [was] still being charged the equivalent of full dues.” Consequently, her charge argued, the UNITE HERE Local 5 union breached Chiu’s rights under the NLRA, which guarantees all workers the right to “refrain from any or all” union activities.

NLRB documents now show that UNITE HERE officials have backed down and reduced Chiu’s dues payments “consistent with Union’s determined dues chargeable rates” and mailed her “the Union’s Auditor’s Report, Union’s Statement of Expenses, and procedure for challenging the Union’s dues chargeability determination.”

Chiu’s victory comes as Foundation staff attorneys assist many other workers subjected to Beck rights violations by union officials. Most recently, Foundation attorneys aided Queens, NY-based UPS employee Kamil Fraczek in filing a federal charge against Teamsters Local 804 officials, who had unlawfully demanded that he become a union member and authorize full dues deductions from his paycheck or be fired.

“While we are pleased that Ms. Chiu has successfully defended her rights under Beck to abstain from paying for union politics, employees should not have to file federal charges to get union bosses to respect their rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “That Ms. Chiu and other employees across the islands can be forced to pay anything to union bosses they have actively chosen to dissociate from again demonstrates why Aloha State legislators need to pass a Right to Work law, so union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.”

Burdensome “strawman” process made workers create fake union in order to have National Mediation Board schedule vote to remove incumbent union

Washington, DC (April 2, 2021) – The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this week issued a decision rejecting a lawsuit by AFL-CIO union lawyers to overturn a National Mediation Board (NMB) rule change, which allows workers in the airline and railroad industries to petition directly for elections to remove unwanted union “representation.” The rule, which was finalized by the NMB in 2019, replaced a confusing and needlessly complex NMB process in which workers had to create and solicit support for a fake “straw man” union just to vote out the incumbent union officials.

In March 2020, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys filed a legal brief on behalf of Allegiant Airlines flight attendant Steven Stoecker defending the rule change from the AFL-CIO’s lawsuit. The brief was also filed for the Foundation itself, which has provided free legal representation to numerous workers under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which the NMB is charged with enforcing.

Stoecker, whose employment is governed by the RLA, attempted from 2014 to 2016 to remove the Transport Workers Union (TWU) from its monopoly bargaining status in his workplace, but those attempts ultimately failed when he lost his “straw man” election.

“The National Mediation Board’s Final Rule simplifies the union selection or rejection process under the Railway Labor Act and erases nonstatutory barriers that hinder employees’ efforts to freely choose or reject a representative,” read Stoecker’s brief. “In response, the Plaintiffs, a group of labor unions that benefit from the complexities of the straw man decertification process, challenge the Final Rule and the Board’s statutory authority to establish it.”

Before the NMB issued the final rule in 2019, workers like Stoecker had to sign authorization cards designating an employee to be the “strawman” even though that employee had no intention of representing the unit. In the election that followed, the ballot options included the name of the union workers wished to decertify, the name of the straw man applicant, e.g., “John Smith,” the option for a write-in candidate and, confusingly, the option for “no union.”

Under the old guidelines, workers who voted for either the straw man or “no union” in hopes to oust union officials would unknowingly be splitting the vote opposed to unionization, as votes counted for these options were not tallied together but separately. The NMB’s new rule allows workers to vote out union representatives directly, without the cumbersome procedural hurdles.

The District Court’s ruling rejects a union argument that the RLA forbids workers from directly petitioning for a decertification vote, pointing out that the RLA “does not require employees or their representative to pretend to seek certification in order to vindicate their statutorily protected right of complete independence in the workplace,” and also that the Supreme Court “held long ago that workers covered by the Act have ‘the right to determine…whether they shall have’” a union in the workplace at all.

“The District Court was correct in striking down this union boss lawsuit, which blatantly sought to reimpose a convoluted process by which union chiefs could remain in power in a workplace even when there was clear evidence a majority of workers wanted them gone,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, more needs to be done to ensure the freedom of America’s railroad and airline workers.”

“For example, currently the RLA prevents workers from being protected by state Right to Work laws, which ensure union financial support is strictly voluntary,” added Mix. “That’s why, ultimately, a National Right to Work law is needed to protect railway and airline employees from being forced to pay a union boss or else be fired.”

Educators submitted amicus brief in similar case before SCOTUS challenging “escape period” which curtails right to refrain from dues

Chicago, IL (March 25, 2021) – Two Chicago Public Schools (CPS) educators are appealing to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals their class-action civil rights lawsuit charging the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) with illegal dues seizures.

The suit challenges a union policy that blocks teachers from exercising their First Amendment right to stop payments to the union outside of the month of August.

The lawsuit seeks refunds of all dues seized from dissenting teachers by the Chicago Board of Education under the policy. The Board enforces the arrangement at the behest of the CTU union and is also named as a defendant.

The educators, Jones College Prep Tech Coordinator Joanne Troesch and Newberry Math and Science Academy second-grade teacher Ifeoma Nkemdi, are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. The lawsuit contends that the dues scheme perpetrated by CTU officials violates the First Amendment protections laid out in the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The appeal comes shortly after Troesch, Nkemdi, and other public employees submitted an amicus brief in Belgau v. Inslee, which is currently pending on a petition for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court. That class-action suit involves a group of Washington State employees, led by Melissa Belgau, who are fighting similar policies imposed by Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) union officials and the State of Washington.

In Janus, which was argued by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney William Messenger, the High Court struck down mandatory union fees as a violation of the First Amendment rights of government employees. The Court ruled that taking any dues without a government worker’s affirmative consent violates the First Amendment, and further made it clear that these rights cannot be restricted absent a clear and knowing waiver. Messenger is on Troesch and Nkemdi’s legal team.

Troesch and Nkemdi’s lawsuit explains that they “did not know they had a constitutional right not to financially support” the union hierarchy until the fall of 2019. The pair independently discovered their First Amendment Janus rights while they were researching how to exercise their right to continue working during a strike that CTU bosses ordered in October 2019, the lawsuit notes. They sent letters the same month to CTU officials to exercise their Janus right to resign union membership and cut off all dues deductions.

Both educators received no response until November of that year, when CTU officials confirmed receipt of the letters but said that they would continue to seize dues from the teachers’ paychecks “until September 1, 2020.” CTU bosses relied on the fact that Troesch and Nkemdi had not submitted their letters within a union boss-created “escape period,” which limits when teachers can exercise their First Amendment right to end dues deductions.

Troesch and Nkemdi contend that CTU officials’ attempt to curb employees’ right to stop dues deductions with an “escape period” and the Board’s continued dues seizures both violate the First Amendment. Their lawsuit seeks to make the CTU union and the Board of Education stop enforcing the “escape period,” and notify all bargaining unit employees that they can end the deduction of union dues at any time and “retroactively exercise that right.”

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed Troesch and Nkemdi’s lawsuit on February 25, 2021. The court ruled that CTU officials didn’t violate Janus by forbidding the two educators from exercising their First Amendment right to cut off union dues except for one month a year. This prompted Foundation attorneys to appeal the case to the Seventh Circuit for the educators.

Foundation staff attorneys in December 2020 filed a similar lawsuit for University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System employee Johnathan Shepard, who is challenging an “escape period” foisted on him and his coworkers by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 bosses. Across the country, Foundation staff attorneys represent public servants in at least 14 cases where union officials have tried to confine their First Amendment Janus rights to an “escape period.”

“Each day that the courts refuse to uphold the clear logic of Janus is another day that union bosses are allowed to hold onto the hard-earned money of dissenting public servants in clear violation of their First Amendment rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation is proud to stand with Ms. Troesch and Ms. Nkemdi, and will continue to defend all educators who simply want to serve their students and community without being forced to subsidize union activities.”

Settlement denies relief to most employees, another example of decreased scrutiny on union bosses’ violations since Biden installed NLRB Acting GC Peter Ohr

Washington, DC (March 24, 2021) – Selbyville, DE-based Mountaire Farms employee Oscar Cruz Sosa has objected to a settlement proposed by National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5 officials in his case charging United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union bosses with imposing an illegal dues provision on him and his coworkers.

With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, Cruz Sosa’s objections argue that the settlement proffered by NLRB Region 5 “provides inadequate remedies to the unit employees,” on all of whom UFCW officials enforced a contract clause which unlawfully requires all workers to pay dues immediately upon hiring or be fired.

Federal law stipulates that new hires be given 30 days before any mandatory dues requirements are imposed on them. Because Delaware lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, Cruz Sosa and his colleagues can be required to pay some reduced union fees as a condition of keeping their jobs after the 30-day period.

NLRB Region 5 proposed the settlement while NLRB Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr has directly or indirectly sought to curtail several other Foundation cases for independent-minded workers seeking to free themselves from illegal forced dues or other coercive union boss practices. Many of Ohr’s actions attempt to reverse work that had been done by his predecessor, Senate-confirmed General Counsel Peter Robb, to defend workers’ individual rights.

Just last week, Foundation attorneys opposed Ohr’s move to return West Virginia Kroger employee Shelby Krocker’s case, which is fully briefed before the NLRB in D.C., to NLRB Region 6 in Pittsburgh, where an insufficient settlement would be foisted on her and her coworkers. Krocker is challenging dues checkoff cards distributed by UFCW bosses which falsely claim that they “MUST BE SIGNED,” violating federal law’s requirement that authorizations of direct dues deductions from workers’ paychecks must be strictly voluntary. Robb had sustained Krocker’s charges after NLRB Region 6 initially dismissed them.

In the Mountaire Farms situation, Ohr in February withdrew a Robb-filed brief defending Cruz Sosa and his coworkers’ right to vote UFCW Local 27 bosses out of their workplace. UFCW lawyers claim that a non-statutory NLRB policy called the “contract bar” should have blocked Cruz Sosa’s otherwise valid petition signed by his colleagues requesting a “decertification election.” The “contract bar” entrenches unions for up to three years after management and union officials broker a contract.

Although NLRB Region 5 ruled that the vote should proceed because of the contract’s invalid forced dues clause, UFCW lawyers demanded review by the full NLRB, and now seek to have the NLRB destroy the ballots workers have already cast in the election. The NLRB decided to review the case, but announced that the entire “contract bar” policy would be brought under scrutiny. This case is still pending before the full NLRB.

Cruz Sosa’s current filing contends that NLRB Region 5’s proposed settlement on the issue of the illegal dues clause “seeks to ferret out for relief what is likely to be a minuscule handful of employees” instead of giving all employees under UFCW Local 27’s control at Mountaire “the right to claim their dues money back to the start of” the contract and ensuring the clause is never enforced again. This is requested because, based on NLRB Region 5’s own ruling, the forced dues clause is “facially invalid” and “all employees have been adversely impacted” by it.

Cruz Sosa’s attorneys also argue that the settlement, which would be conditional on the NLRB’s finding in the pending decertification case that the UFCW’s forced dues clause is invalid, forecloses the possibility of the relief requested for all employees even if the Board affirms the Region’s ruling that the clause is invalid. “This one-way ratchet is patently unfair to the 800 employees in this unit and completely one-sided,” Foundation attorneys assert.

This dispute highlights the NLRB General Counsel’s Office and Regional Directors’ shift to reinforcing the coercive privileges of union bosses since President Biden installed Peter Ohr as NLRB Acting General Counsel. Ohr was put in after Biden took the unprecedented and legally dubious step of firing Robb, Ohr’s predecessor, nearly eleven months before the end of his Senate-confirmed term.

“This is an obvious attempt by so-called ‘Acting’ NLRB General Counsel Peter Ohr to ensure President Biden’s union boss cronies don’t have to face the music when they violate workers’ individual rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Cruz Sosa and his coworkers were all harmed by this plainly unlawful dues clause, and a proper remedy must include relief for all of them.”

“NLRB Region 5’s hasty proposed settlement – deliberately crafted before the full NLRB has ruled on UFCW bosses’ illegal conduct in Cruz Sosa’s workplace, must be rejected,” Mix added.

Worker’s attorneys argue Biden-installed Peter Ohr has no authority to force inadequate settlement in blatant attempt to shield union from NLRB ruling

Washington, DC (March 17, 2021) – West Virginia-based Kroger employee Shelby Krocker has filed an opposition to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr’s attempt to shut down her case, which charges the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 union with maintaining illegal dues checkoffs and taking dues money pursuant to those checkoffs.

The opposition was filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. It was submitted in response to Ohr’s joint motion with the union to remand the case to NLRB Region 6 in Pittsburgh to impose a settlement designed to shield the union from being forced to provide a full remedy.

Foundation attorneys argue that Ohr’s maneuver is forbidden by NLRB rules and that Ohr is attempting to undermine the Board’s authority. They also argue that Ohr lacks authority because President Biden installed Ohr after firing his predecessor, Peter Robb, without any legal basis.

Krocker initially charged the union with illegally demanding employees sign dues checkoff authorization forms for the deduction of union dues from employee paychecks. The checkoff form union officials used blatantly misleads workers about their rights by prominently stating it “MUST BE SIGNED” in large print.

Krocker’s charge also maintains that union officials unlawfully rebuffed her request to cut off union dues. Because West Virginia has Right to Work protections for its workers, Krocker can’t be legally forced to fund union boss activities as a condition of keeping her job.

NLRB Region 6 initially dismissed Krocker’s charge, but Foundation attorneys successfully appealed this dismissal to former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, who sustained the charge and ordered NLRB Region 6 to issue a complaint prosecuting UFCW Local 400 for the violations. Robb found that UFCW Local 400 officials had violated the law in even more ways than Krocker originally asserted, including failing to tell employees that they could end dues deductions at the expiration of a contract.

After an NLRB Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) declined to rule that UFCW Local 400 officials violated the law with their “MUST BE SIGNED” demands and other unlawful provisions, Krocker’s Foundation staff attorneys appealed the case to the NLRB. Her appeal was supported by NLRB General Counsel Robb and has been fully briefed before the Board since September.

Krocker’s opposition contends that Ohr’s latest motion and the inadequate settlement are “bare political attempts to strip the Board of its ability to hear the important issues raised in this case,” and that “the proposed agreement does not fully remedy the unfair labor practices alleged in the Complaint and as shown by the stipulated factual record.” Foundation staff attorneys also point out that it is too late for Ohr and UFCW union officials to seek an informal settlement because the case is already before the NLRB.

More broadly, Foundation attorneys argue for Krocker that Ohr himself lacks authority to file motions in this case because President Biden ousted Peter Robb when he still had several months left on his term as NLRB General Counsel. Since the establishment of the office of NLRB General Counsel in 1947, no sitting General Counsel has ever been terminated by a president before the end of their Senate-confirmed four-year term, even when the White House changed hands. For example, Obama’s pick for General Counsel, former union lawyer Richard Griffin, remained the General Counsel for most of Trump’s first year (until his term expired on 10/31/17).

Allowing Ohr to exercise authority in this case, Foundation attorneys argue, “will do irreparable damage to the Board’s status as an independent quasi-judicial agency responsible for the neutral and even-handed resolution of unfair labor practice and representation cases.”

“Almost every day, so-called ‘Acting’ NLRB General Counsel Peter Ohr demonstrates he has no problem with turning the NLRB into the Biden Administration’s tool for stifling the rights of independent-minded workers who dare to stand up to Biden’s union boss allies,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ms. Krocker’s case is one of a growing number in which Foundation-backed workers whose rights were violated by union bosses are challenging Ohr’s authority.”

New brief contends Biden-appointed Acting NLRB General Counsel Peter Ohr lacks authority to kill case already under consideration by full Board

Washington, DC (March 4, 2021) – Corpus Christi, TX-based nurse Marissa Zamora has just filed an opposition brief defending her case charging National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) union bosses in her workplace with concealing a “neutrality agreement” struck in secret between union officials and HCA Holdings management that covers her hospital. The brief was filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

Zamora’s case has progressed to the full NLRB in Washington, DC, after an NLRB Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dismissed a complaint that then-NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb had issued prosecuting the NNOC for hiding the agreement. Though Zamora and Robb had both filed exceptions urging the full Board to reverse the ALJ’s decision, NLRB Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr filed a motion on February 23, 2021, seeking unilaterally to send the complaint back to the NLRB Fort Worth regional office to be dismissed.

Zamora’s brief challenges Ohr’s attempt to kill the case on the grounds that it is already before the full Board, and she “is a full party with a right to have her pending exceptions decided by the Board.” Letting Ohr shut her out at this stage would “infringe on the Board’s exclusive power to adjudicate violations of” federal labor law, the brief asserts.

Further, the brief contends that Ohr lacks the legal authority to even ask the NLRB to end the case because Ohr’s predecessor, Robb, was unlawfully removed by President Biden almost a full year before his term was scheduled to end. “The General Counsel of the Board does not serve at the pleasure of the President,” the brief argues, also asserting that allowing “the President to fire the General Counsel at will would do irreparable damage to the NLRB’s function as an independent agency.”

Robb’s firing was unprecedented. Since the office of NLRB General Counsel was established in 1947, no sitting General Counsel of the NLRB has ever been fired by a president before the end of their Senate-confirmed four-year term, even when the White House changed hands. For example, Obama’s pick for General Counsel, former union lawyer Richard Griffin, remained the General Counsel for most of the first year after Trump’s election (until his term expired on 10/31/17).

“Neutrality agreements” are deals between union officials and employers, usually without the knowledge of employees in a workplace. They frequently contain provisions that require employers to silence opposition to unionization, hand over workers’ personal information for coercive “card check” drives that bypass the protections of a secret ballot election, provide union organizers with preferential access to the workplace, and even ensure employers will oppose later efforts to decertify, or remove, the union.

In Zamora’s case, she began circulating fliers and other materials in June 2018 to educate her coworkers on how they could obtain a vote to decertify the union. A brief supporting her exceptions recounts that union agents “repeatedly ripp[ed] down her fliers” and that HCA officials referenced a secret agreement with the union when they denied “her access to post material on protected bulletin boards, where her material would be shielded from vandalism.”

Zamora subsequently asked both NNOC and HCA officials to show her any “neutrality agreement” that might have triggered those efforts to block her and her coworkers’ rights. All her requests were denied, despite statements by HCA agents to her that indicated a “neutrality agreement” existed.

“By moving to have Ms. Zamora’s case tossed out, so-called ‘Acting General Counsel’ Peter Ohr is laying bare President Biden’s purely ideological motive behind removing Peter Robb: to allow his union boss cronies to escape legal scrutiny when they violate the rights of workers who refuse to toe the union line,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. Ohr has acted to squelch several cases of nationwide import brought by Foundation staff attorneys for workers.

“The fact is, even if Ohr were not installed in this position in utter defiance of law and precedent, this issue is already before the full Board whose members would be fully justified in ruling on the case purely on the exceptions Ms. Zamora filed to the ALJ’s decision,” Mix added.