Petition contains signatures of more than enough employees at charter school to trigger secret-ballot election to oust teacher union imposed through unreliable “card check” drive

San Diego, CA (January 8, 2020) – A group of employees at Gompers Preparatory Academy (GPA), a charter school in the Chollas View neighborhood, have signed a petition for a vote to remove the San Diego Education Association (SDEA) union from monopoly bargaining power at the school. GPA teacher Dr. Kristie Chiscano, who obtained free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, just submitted the decertification petition at the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB).

Contention has surrounded the SDEA’s presence at GPA, as the union installed itself in January 2019 after conducting a controversial “card check” drive, bypassing the more reliable method of a secret-ballot election whether to certify a union as the monopoly representative of all educators in the school. GPA transitioned from being a regular public school to a charter preparatory academy in 2005 as the result of a campaign by parents, teachers, and administrators who believed that school district and union bureaucracies were not serving the students’ interests, especially by failing to combat the issues of gang violence and teacher attrition at the school.

Since the school’s unionization without a secret ballot vote in January 2019, no monopoly bargaining contract has been approved. GPA parents and educators have accused SDEA agents of sowing division at the school, including by supporting anti-charter school legislation, making unnecessary and disparaging comments to school leadership during bargaining sessions, and plotting to prevent the California NAACP from giving the school’s director, Vincent Riveroll, an award for helping minority students succeed.

Dr. Chiscano, who teaches chemistry to 10th and 11th grade students, began circulating the decertification petition in October 2019. She soon obtained the signatures of well over the number of her fellow educators necessary to trigger a PERB-supervised secret-ballot vote to remove the union. Their petition was filed with the PERB immediately following the one-year anniversary of the union’s installation.

In December, union officials preemptively filed a charge at PERB seeking “that the certification year be extended.” That would block the educators’ right to remove the union from their workplace for another year despite no evidence or even an allegation that any educator violated the law. Such “blocking charges” are a tactic union lawyers frequently use to block rank-and-file employees from holding secret-ballot elections that could result in the removal of union officials from power as employees’ designated monopoly representative.

Dr. Chiscano turned to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid to challenge this attempt by union officials to stymie her and her coworkers’ right to hold a decertification vote to oust a union they believe lacks the support of a majority of the school’s educators.

“Rather than face a secret-ballot vote of the rank-and-file educators they claim to represent, SDEA union bosses are attempting to resort to legal trickery to trap teachers in a union they oppose by blocking their right to hold a decertification election,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “By using these coercive tactics to attempt to trap teachers in union ranks SDEA union officials do wrong by GPA’s namesake, AFL-CIO union founder Samuel Gompers, who himself urged devotion to ‘the principles of voluntarism’ and reminded all American workers that ‘no lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.’”

State court lawsuit: Teamsters union bosses and Genesys Regional Medical Center illegally rejected six different requests by nurse to end union dues deductions

Flint, MI (December 17, 2019) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Flint-area nurse Madrina Wells has sued the Teamsters Local 332 union, after union bosses illegally demanded she pay them union fees as a condition of keeping her job. Her employer, Genesys Regional Medical Center, is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit for seizing union fees from her paycheck at the behest of Teamsters officials. Wells’ lawsuit, filed in state court, says that both actions violate her rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law.

According to the complaint filed in Genesee County Circuit Court, Wells resigned her union membership in February 2018 and requested that Teamsters officials cease all dues deductions from her paycheck in December of the same year. Notwithstanding her request, Teamsters bosses sent her a letter in January 2019 demanding that she pay them nonmember “agency fees” after she returned from a stint on medical leave, which she had begun in December 2018.

Though a reduced amount of union dues is legally chargeable to private sector employees who abstain from formal union membership in non-Right to Work states, in Right to Work states like Michigan no public or private sector employee is required to pay any amount of union fees as a condition of employment.

When Wells resumed work in July 2019, the complaint notes, she sent Teamsters officials another notice “renewing her objection” to tendering any dues or fees whatsoever to the Teamsters hierarchy. Teamsters bosses again rebuffed her request, insisting that she was required to pay them a portion of union fees as a condition of employment.

According to the complaint, Teamsters officials subsequently demanded forced fees from Wells for July through December of 2019, all in clear violation of her rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law. Wells responded to each demand by reiterating her objection to the illegal fees, but submitted the fees demanded by Teamsters bosses under protest. On top of that, Genesys Regional Medical Center forcibly deducted the Teamsters’ so-called “agency fee” from Wells’ paycheck in August 2019, and seized the full amount of union dues from her paycheck in October.

Wells seeks a ruling from the Genesee County Circuit Court that will make Teamsters officials end all illegal dues demands and pay “damages and/or equitable restitution” to her for all the dues that they seized from her, plus interest.

Michigan has been a hotbed for litigation brought for workers with Foundation legal aid since the state enacted its Right to Work law in 2013. Recently, Foundation staff attorneys won a settlement for Port Huron-area public school employees Tammy Williams and Linda Gervais, ending dues demands made by the Michigan Education Association union (MEA) in violation of the Right to Work law. As a result of that settlement, more than a dozen teachers were freed from illegal dues demands.

“Once again Michigan union bosses have been caught shamelessly violating Michigan’s Right to Work law,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Foundation staff attorneys have litigated more than 100 cases in the Wolverine State since its Right to Work law was enacted, and will continue the fight until all Michigan workers can freely exercise their right not to fund unions with which they disagree.”

Worker has challenged union’s dues deductions in federal court as violating federal law and Wisconsin’s Right to Work law; Attorney General Kaul has refused to defend Wisconsin law

Burlington, WI (December 2, 2019) – Wisconsin-based Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) employee Martin Carter filed federal charges against United Steelworkers (USW) union bosses at his plant for refusing to respond to his membership resignation and request to cut off union dues, and for maintaining a dues deduction policy which violates federal labor law. The charges were filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

Carter submitted to USW officials his union membership resignation and request to end union dues deductions from his paycheck late last year. His new amended charge asserts that, for a year now, USW union bosses have refused to accept his resignation, and have never informed him of the time period in which they would accept the revocation of his dues checkoff authorization. The charge states that all of these actions are violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Carter’s charge also maintains that the dues checkoff authorization policy USW officials enforced itself violates the NLRA by limiting when an employee can cut off dues deductions to just a short period after the expiration of a monopoly bargaining contract, rather than at any time after a contract expires.

USW officials’ dues policy is already the subject of a lawsuit for Carter pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, also filed by Foundation staff attorneys. That lawsuit argues that the union’s dues checkoff rules not only violate federal law, but also Wisconsin’s Right to Work law, by not permitting employees to stop dues deductions at any time with a 30-day notice.

The part of Wisconsin’s Right to Work law that allows employees to stop dues deductions with 30 days’ notice is currently in jeopardy, following Wisconsin Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul’s refusal to defend it. In July, Kaul withdrew the state’s petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower federal court’s divided ruling that the provision was preempted by federal law. Carter’s lawsuit brings this issue back to federal court, potentially giving the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to weigh in on the issue.

Kaul’s capitulation belies the promise he made while he was campaigning to be the Badger State’s top lawyer in 2018 that he would defend all state laws, even those that were passed on the watch of former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican. Public records show that union affiliates were the seven largest contributors to Kaul’s campaign, pitching in over $400,000.

“If Attorney General Kaul were doing his job and defending the laws of Wisconsin, rank-and-file employees like Mr. Carter would not have to file federal charges at the NLRB to challenge illegal dues deduction schemes,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union bosses must not be allowed to block the exercise of rights guaranteed to workers under Wisconsin’s popular Right to Work law.”

NLRB GC: Settlement NLRB Region 19 approved did not order sufficient remedies for Unite Here union officials’ illegal omissions in employee rights information

Portland, OR (November 22, 2019) — With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, two foodservice workers at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, have successfully appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel in Washington, DC, their case charging Unite Here Local 8 union bosses with illegally failing to inform employees of their rights.

The two employees, Terry Denton and Alejandro Martinez Cuevas, filed federal charges last August against Unite Here for violating federal law when union officials did not disclose the reduced amount of union fees employees could pay by refraining from formal union membership and asserting their rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision. This omission, their charges state, illegally restrained workers in the exercise of their Beck rights by preventing employees from making informed decisions about whether or not to become union members.

Because Oregon lacks a Right to Work law, private sector employees who refrain from formal union membership can still be required to pay some fees to a union as a condition of employment. However, union officials must follow the requirements of the Beck decision and cannot require workers to pay dues or fees for activities unrelated to the union’s bargaining functions, such as union political activities.

In response to Denton’s and Martinez Cuevas’s charges, the Regional Director for NLRB Region 19 issued a formal complaint against Unite Here officials in August, after which union bosses attempted to settle the case. The Regional Director’s complaint came after February advice memos from the NLRB General Counsel’s office which stated that the NLRB requires union officials to keep all workers apprised of Beck fee reductions.

The settlement the Regional Director approved, however, merely required union agents to post notices announcing that they would inform all future new employees of the reduction in union fees that would result if they asserted their rights under Beck.

Attorneys for Denton and Martinez Cuevas objected to the settlement agreement, pointing out that it did not require Unite Here bosses to inform current employees of the reductions in union fee payments they would receive by asserting their Beck rights. They also contended that the settlement did not permit current employees to resign their union memberships retroactively and recover dues that had been taken from their paychecks while they were kept in the dark about their Beck rights by Unite Here bosses.

Despite the objections, the Regional Director approved the settlement. Foundation staff attorneys then filed an appeal to the NLRB General Counsel, which was sustained on November 7. The General Counsel’s decision noted that the original settlement agreement did “not provide an appropriate remedy” and ordered Region 19 to move forward with the charges.

This marks yet another victory against union boss coercion for Denton, who earlier this year obtained free Foundation legal aid and hit Unite Here officials with federal unfair labor practice charges for demanding several months’ worth of illegal dues from nonmembers, including for months when the nonmember workers had not worked or had already paid in full. Union bosses eventually backed down and began waiving fee payments for nonmembers, but only after Denton filed her charges.

“While it is certainly good news that the General Counsel has ruled in favor of Ms. Denton, Mr. Martinez Cuevas, and their coworkers, it should not require an appeal to Washington, DC, to secure the right of workers to make an informed decision about union membership,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Future abuses of Beck can’t occur under a Right to Work law, which would ensure that union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.”

Petition for rehearing en banc filed after three-judge panel ruled that union bosses may keep dues taken from public employees in violation of the First Amendment

Washington, DC (November 19, 2019) – Today, attorneys representing Mark Janus are petitioning the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals for rehearing en banc in the continuation of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 31. Janus seeks a ruling from the court requiring AFSCME union officials to return thousands of dollars in dues that they seized from his paycheck in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Janus, a former Illinois child support specialist who was never a member of AFSCME, won a landmark decision at the U.S. Supreme Court last June with free legal aid from the Liberty Justice Center and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. That ruling recognized that requiring public employees to fund union activities violates the First Amendment, and further found that the government should not collect such fees absent an employee’s “affirmative and knowing” consent. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that compulsory fees “[violate] the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.”

Janus’ case continues as he seeks the return of fees that AFSCME union bosses seized from his paycheck without his consent since March 23, 2013. Janus’ petition for rehearing en banc comes after a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit ruled earlier this month that AFSCME officials could keep the union fees from his paycheck.

The ruling in favor of AFSCME union officials is despite the Supreme Court never suggesting that Janus only requires prospective relief for affected workers. In fact, the High Court noted in Janus that union officials have been “on notice” for years that mandatory fees likely would not comply with the High Court’s heightened level of First Amendment scrutiny articulated in the 2012 Knox v. SEIU Supreme Court decision, won by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

If the petition is granted, Janus’ case will be heard before 12 judges of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable ruling in the case could have a massive impact, setting a federal precedent that would be cited in dozens of other cases seeking refunds of dues taken unlawfully by public sector union bosses. National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are currently litigating more than 30 Janus-related cases that collectively seek over $120 million in refunds, including several cases filed jointly with attorneys for the Liberty Justice Center.

“Mark Janus is simply asking the Seventh Circuit to remedy the years of unconstitutional conduct AFSCME bosses have perpetrated at his and other public sector workers’ expense,” observed National Right to Work President Mark Mix. “Union bosses’ arguments do not change the fact that unions around the country are still flush with dues money that was seized in violation of public employees’ First Amendment rights.”

“Mark Janus and other government employees like him were deprived of millions of dollars while the unions took their money,” said Patrick Hughes, president and co-founder of the Liberty Justice Center. “It is critical for the entire Seventh Circuit to consider how Mark is finally made whole after AFSCME illegally took money from him and violated his constitutional rights for years.”

“The Supreme Court agrees with me – the union was wrong to take money out of my paycheck without my permission,” said Mark Janus, plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME. “The union knew what it was doing was wrong. The union shouldn’t get to profit from behavior that the Court recognized as unconstitutional.”

OAPSE officials back down when faced with bus driver’s federal lawsuit challenging union’s “escape period” policy as violation of Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision

Cincinnati, OH (November 12, 2019) — With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Ripley Union Lewis Huntington School District bus driver Donna Fizer has just won a settlement requiring Ohio Association of Public School Employees/AFSCME Local 4 (OAPSE) union bosses to refund to her dues they seized from her paycheck in violation of her First Amendment rights.

Fizer’s victory comes after she hit OAPSE officials with a federal lawsuit contending that dues seizures they had made from her paycheck after she resigned her union membership infringed her rights under the Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. Janus, which the High Court issued in June 2018, mandates that no public employee can be required to pay union fees as a condition of employment, and that union fees can only be collected from a public employee with an “affirmative and knowing” waiver of his or her First Amendment rights.

Fizer notified school board officials in September 2018 that she was “immediately withdrawing [her union] membership” and exercising her First Amendment Janus right to cut off union dues deductions. The school district treasurer quickly complied and stopped the deductions from her paycheck, but OAPSE bosses responded by filing a grievance which alleged that Fizer could not revoke except within a tiny, union-created “escape period” that occurs only 10 days every few years. OAPSE officials demanded in the grievance that the district “make OAPSE whole for all lost dues” and continue to take dues from her wages.

Though the district initially rebuffed the union’s request and responded that “the district will honor the Supreme Court ‘Janus Decision,’” later arbitration proceedings forced by OAPSE upheld the enforcement of the narrow “escape period.” The arbitrator ordered the district to continue seizing dues from Fizer’s paycheck and to seize an additional sum to “make OAPSE whole” for the time period in which the district honored Fizer’s Janus request and stopped deductions.

Fizer fought back by filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys. The complaint argued that OAPSE’s “escape period” imposed an illegal hindrance on public employees’ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights under Janus.

Rather than face Foundation staff attorneys and the Janus precedent in federal court, union officials settled the case. OAPSE bosses have returned to Fizer all the dues they took from her paycheck since the date of her membership revocation, and have notified the district to “cease any further deduction of union dues from her paycheck.”

Foundation staff attorneys have been at the forefront of the fight to defend public employees’ rights under Janus, currently litigating over two dozen cases around the country to enforce the landmark decision. Most recently, Foundation staff attorneys won a settlement for New Mexico information technology worker David McCutcheon and his coworkers, who collectively received over $15,000 in refunds of dues seized by Communications Workers of America (CWA) bosses in violation of their Janus rights.

“Ms. Fizer’s win should serve as another reminder that public sector union bosses cannot legally limit public employees’ First Amendment rights through ‘escape periods’ and other similar schemes,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation will continue to offer free legal aid so workers can bring more lawsuits to ensure that public employees’ Janus rights are fully enforced.”

Regional NLRB officials dismissed charge against union even after NLRB General Counsel overturned dismissal in similar union intimidation case just months ago

St. Louis, MO (November 6, 2019) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, St. Louis-area paramedic Jarod Aubuchon is appealing his case against Teamsters Local 610 union bosses to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel in Washington, DC. Aubuchon’s appeal follows his case’s partial dismissal by NLRB Region 14 officials, who recently dismissed a similar union intimidation case brought by Foundation staff attorneys only to have that decision overturned by the NLRB General Counsel on appeal.

Aubuchon, who is not a member of the Teamsters, posted flyers in common areas of his workplace to inform coworkers of their rights to resign union membership and pay only the portion of union fees directly related to bargaining under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision. Because Missouri lacks a Right to Work law, private sector employees can still be fired for not paying some union fees.

Aubuchon’s charge recounts that union agents tore down his postings and demanded that the employer, Medic One, discipline him for informing his coworkers of their Beck rights. Shortly afterward, he was brought into a management office and told to stop posting the rights notices. Actions by union officials that cause an employer to discriminate against workers on such grounds are prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The NLRB General Counsel will now review Aubuchon’s case against the union. This July, the General Counsel reversed Region 14 officials’ dismissal of a similar case brought by Foundation staff attorneys for Kansas City-area hospital worker Kacy Warner.

Warner charged officials of the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) union with illegally interfering with a petition she was circulating for a vote to remove the union, including tearing down flyers she had hung in bathrooms and other common areas in her workplace informing employees of the petition. Despite an order from the NLRB General Counsel’s office over three months ago reversing Region 14’s dismissal and demanding that region officials prosecute NNOC for even more rights violations than Warner had mentioned in her original charge, Region 14 has not yet taken action in that case.

The Regional Director was also overturned by the full NLRB in Washington earlier this month for wrongfully dismissing a decertification petition submitted by Illinois-based Pinnacle Foods worker Robert Gentry. After United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials agreed to a settlement with Pinnacle Foods which was unrelated to Gentry’s petition, Region 14 dismissed Gentry’s petition at the behest of union bosses as part of approving the settlement. Following the Board’s reversal, Region 14 has finally scheduled the long-awaited decertification vote to take place on November 15.

“The NLRB is charged with enforcing workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act, yet there is a disturbing pattern of Region 14 failing to enforce the rights of rank-and-file workers when doing so advances the interests of union bosses,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It should not take an appeal to Washington, DC, for workers to have their rights fully protected against union boss abuses.”

More than a year after court recognized First Amendment protects state workers from mandatory union payments, IOUE union officials claim forced fees are legal in California

Sacramento, CA (October 31, 2019) – A Sacramento County employee has filed an unfair labor practice charge with California’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) against the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Stationary Engineers Local 39. His charge, filed with free legal aid from staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, states that union bosses demanded fees from him in violation of California labor law because they violated his First Amendment rights.

The employee, Ethan Morris, works at the Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant and is not a member of IUOE Stationary Engineers. According to his charge, in July 2019 he received a notice from an IUOE financial secretary which claimed that “employees who do not join the Union must pay a…fee” to the union as a condition of employment, and that such mandatory fees are “legal and enforceable in California” via direct deductions from nonmember employees’ paychecks.

Morris’ charge argues that the union’s fee demands are a clear violation of his First Amendment rights under the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. In Janus, a majority of the Court recognized that union dues or fees cannot be mandatory for public employees and may only be deducted from government workers’ paychecks if they have given “affirmative and knowing” waivers of their First Amendment right not to subsidize a union.

Morris’s charge maintains that IUOE Stationary Engineers bosses thus breached his rights under California’s Milias-Meyers-Brown Act (MMBA). That statute provides Golden State workers “the right to refuse to join or participate in the activities of employee organizations” and prohibits unions from “coerc[ing] or discriminat[ing] against” employees for exercising that right. Morris demands that union officials rectify the situation by stopping the illegal fee demands and posting a PERB-approved notice informing his coworkers of their right to refrain from union activities and acknowledging that compulsory fee demands violate that right.

Across the country, Foundation staff attorneys are currently litigating more than 30 cases to defend public employees’ First Amendment rights under Janus, which was successfully argued at the US Supreme Court by Foundation staff attorney William Messenger. In addition, Foundation staff attorneys have already won several cases enforcing Janus, including one for Ventura County Community College District math professor Michael McCain after American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union officials illegally attempted to restrict the time period in which he and his colleagues could exercise their Janus rights and cut off dues payments. In July, McCain won a settlement requiring AFT union bosses to stop blocking workers from exercising those rights and to provide refunds to workers who had dues seized because of the illegal policy.