Philadelphia Starbucks Workers File Petition Demanding Vote to Remove SBWU Union
Union already voted out by Good Karma Café workers, now union bosses may face second rejection by Philly employees in just months
Philadelphia, PA (November 9, 2023) – An employee of Starbucks at 600 S. 9th St. in Philadelphia filed a petition with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 4, asking the federal agency to hold a vote at his workplace to remove (or “decertify”) the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union. The employee, Michael Simonelli, is now receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in defending his petition.
Simonelli’s petition contains signatures from a majority of employees at his workplace, more than enough to trigger a vote under NLRB rules. Because Pennsylvania lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, SBWU union bosses can compel Simonelli and his coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials in a unionized workplace are empowered by federal law to impose a union contract on all employees in a work unit, including those who oppose the union. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of that power.
SBWU May Face Second Rejection in Philly as Worker Attempts to Oust Unions Increase Nationwide
Simonelli and his colleagues join Starbucks workers and other coffee employees across the country in banding together to vote out SBWU union officials. This year, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; two Buffalo, NY locations; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; Greenville, SC; and Oklahoma City, OK, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in filing or defending decertification petitions at the NLRB. In Philadelphia, workers at Good Karma Café, an independent coffee shop in Philadelphia, successfully voted out the SBWU union in September with Foundation help.
This growing wave of decertification attempts is occurring after SBWU union agents engaged in a multi-year, aggressive unionization campaign against Starbucks employees. As part of the campaign, SBWU spent over $2 million to target the coffee chain with paid union agents – including “salts” who obtained jobs at Starbucks locations with the covert mission of installing union power. After achieving this goal, many “salts” abandoned the stores.
Many workers targeted by this campaign are demanding decertification votes roughly one year after an SBWU union was installed at their store, which is the earliest possible opportunity afforded by federal law to do so.
Outside of Starbucks, union decertification efforts are becoming much more common. Currently, the NLRB’s data shows two consecutive years of increased decertification efforts, with a nearly 30% increase in decertification petitions last year versus 2021.
SBWU Union Officials Doubling-Down on Legal Strategy to Squash Worker Votes
However, union officials have many ways to manipulate federal labor law to prevent workers from voting them out, including by filing unrelated or unverified charges against management. Currently, SBWU union officials are attempting to block Starbucks workers nationwide from exercising their right to decertify the union by filing unproven charges.
“SBWU union officials spent big to expand their monopoly bargaining power over Starbucks. Now that they’re witnessing workers resist the union’s agenda and so-called ‘representation,’ they’re manipulating every legal privilege they have to try to stay in power,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “In doing so, of course, they’re turning the workers they claim to speak for into prisoners of the union, and trampling their free choice rights.”
“SBWU union bosses may fear that Mr. Simonelli and his coworkers will force them to relive the same kind of rejection they faced at Good Karma Café locations just across Philadelphia, but we at the Foundation will continue to defend his and his coworkers’ rights until their voices are heard at the ballot box,” Mix added.
Piscataway L’Oreal Employee Says RWDSU Union Boss Threats and Misinformation Undermined Vote to Oust Union
Worker’s objections to election assert that union bosses threatened employees critical of union and sowed racial division; new election sought
Piscataway, NJ (November 6, 2023) – Ana Maria Hoyos Lopez, an employee of L’Oreal USA Products, is asking for a rerun election based on charges that Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU-UFCW) Local 262 officials interfered in a vote she and her coworkers requested to remove the union. In election objections filed with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 22 in Newark, Hoyos Lopez maintains that union officials threatened workers who voiced objections to union officials’ performance, misrepresented facts about the employer’s healthcare plans, used racially-charged tactics, and perpetrated other coercive conduct in the weeks leading up to the election.
Hoyos Lopez is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. In September, also with Foundation aid, she filed a petition which contained enough signatures from her coworkers to prompt the NLRB to hold a vote to remove the union (a “decertification election”) at her workplace. The vote took place at L’Oreal USA’s Piscataway facility through October 19 and October 20.
Objections Assert RWDSU Union Officials Yelled at, Chased Employees Who Expressed Concerns with Union, Made Racial Appeals
Hoyos Lopez’s objections focus on a September 22 meeting that union bosses held to push workers to vote for the union. According to the filing, during the meeting, Hoyos Lopez and some other employees brought up problems with the union’s performance, including lack of communication between the employees and union officials, and the poor quality of the union contract. In response, “[t]he pro-decertification employees were yelled down, the president of the Union shouted expletives at them in a threatening and coercive manner, and union officials demanded that they leave the meeting.”
During the same meeting, the objections state, Hoyos Lopez attempted to film the threatening actions of union officials, but a union official accosted her further and “proceeded to chase after Petitioner despite the fact that she had already left the pavilion” at the public park the meeting was occurring at.
“Outside the pavilion [a union official] demanded that Petitioner leave the park entirely, and threatened to call the cops on her if they did not comply,” the objections state. During the same meeting, union officials also asked Hoyos Lopez to withdraw her petition or asked other employees to request she do so.
Hoyos Lopez also asserts in the objections that, in the weeks leading up to the election, union officials “misrepresented the difference in health insurance policies offered by the Union compared to those offered by the Employer,” interfered with the laboratory conditions of the election by speaking to employees as they were in line to vote, and sent text messages that “intrusively asked employees on which day they would be voting.”
The final objection states that RWDSU-UFCW bosses engaged in racial tactics to swing the vote in favor of the union. Union officials told employees that white managers in the U.S. are racist and don’t want to promote Hispanics, and that employees “should vote for the Union to defend their rights.”
“This appeal to racial and ethnic prejudice is coercive and despicable, and is grounds to set aside the election,” the objections conclude.
As RWDSU Union Bosses Shut Down Employee Vote, Biden NLRB Seeks Less Worker Freedom
Hoyos Lopez’s objections will now be investigated and a rerun election will occur if the NLRB determines union officials’ actions were objectionable and interfered with employees’ free choice in the election.
“If RWDSU union officials truly believed they would win an election among L’Oreal employees, they would not engage in such acts of coercion, including threatening the employees they claim to ‘represent,’ misrepresenting facts prior to the vote, and shamelessly sowing division,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “We will continue to fight for Ms. Hoyos Lopez and her coworkers to get a fair opportunity to freely choose whether RWDSU bosses should remain in their workplace.”
“Unfortunately, instead of beefing up protections on worker-requested elections, the Biden NLRB is seeking big policy changes that will make it easier for union officials to gain power without a vote,” added Mix.
Max Finkelstein Workers Across East Coast Force RWDSU Union to Abandon 500+ Employee Unit
Work unit spans several states; union bosses disclaimed interest after Winchester, VA-based worker submitted enough employee signatures for ouster vote
Winchester, VA (October 30, 2023) – Employees of tire wholesaler Max Finkelstein from Virginia to Maine have successfully freed themselves from the control of Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) officials. The worker victory comes after Winchester, VA-based Max Finkelstein truck driver Christopher Dorney submitted a petition on behalf of his coworkers asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a vote to remove the union. Dorney received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law and administering elections to install or remove unions. By NLRB rules, Dorney’s petition contained enough signatures from his colleagues across several states to prompt a union decertification vote.
Because the work unit spans multiple states, the RWDSU union exercised varying amounts of power over Dorney and his coworkers. In states that lack Right to Work protections, such as Maine, New York, and Maryland, RWDSU union officials could enforce agreements with Max Finkelstein management that required workers to pay union dues simply to keep their jobs. In Right to Work states like Virginia, in contrast, union dues payment and union membership are strictly voluntary. However, federal law gives union officials in all states the power to impose their “representation” over every worker in a unionized workplace, even those who are not union members or oppose the union’s agenda.
However, late last week RWDSU officials announced they were departing the work unit, possibly to avoid an embarrassing rejection by workers at the ballot box.
“We warehouse workers and drivers at Max Finkelstein may be from many different facilities in many different states, but we are in agreement about one thing: RWDSU union officials don’t represent our interests,” commented Dorney. “It’s our right under federal law to challenge RWDSU’s forced representation power.”
RWDSU Faces Another Setback as Employees Increasingly Oppose Unions
The RWDSU union has recently tried several high-profile unionization campaigns at Amazon warehouses across the country, most notably at the large Bessemer, AL, facility, where employees voted against the union by substantial margins in both 2021 and 2022. Gallup polling shows that 58 percent of nonunion workers are “not interested at all” in joining a union.
Workers currently under union control are also increasingly seeking to obtain votes to free themselves, often with Foundation aid. Currently, the NLRB’s data shows a unionized private sector worker is far more likely to be involved in a decertification effort than their nonunion counterpart is to be involved in a unionization campaign. NLRB statistics also show a 20% increase in decertification petitions last year versus 2021.
Biden Labor Board Seeks to Stifle Workers’ Right to Vote Out Unwanted Unions
Dorney and his coworkers’ effort comes as the Biden NLRB in Washington, D.C., is attempting to make it more difficult for workers to exercise their right to remove unwanted unions, while giving union officials more tools to gain power in a workplace without even a vote. The NLRB is expected to soon issue a final rule overturning the Election Protection Rule, a Foundation-backed 2020 reform which made commonsense improvements to the decertification process.
The Biden NLRB’s proposed rule, among other things, will give union bosses the power to use “blocking charges,” or unproven allegations of employer misconduct, to prevent workers from voting to decertify a union. The rule will also strip workers of the ability to file for a secret ballot election after a union installs itself via “card check,” a coercive process that bypasses the NLRB’s standard election process and instead permits union bosses to collect cards from workers (often through strong-arm tactics) that are later counted as “votes” for the union.
“Mr. Dorney and his coworkers’ effort to kick out the RWDSU union, which spanned several states, at least 15 facilities, and hundreds of workers, is yet another example that workers often want to escape union officials’ one-size-fits-all agenda. It’s also a demonstration that workers will go to great lengths in order to exercise this right,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “But the Biden NLRB, bent on empowering the President’s union boss political allies, plans to grant unions even more power to defeat workers’ will.”
Seattle Mariners Retail Employee Challenges Seattle NLRB Officials’ Refusal to Certify Overwhelming Vote Against Union
By not certifying vote of over 80+ percent against UFCW, NLRB Region 19 officials permit union to dodge legal consequences of losing vote
Seattle, WA (October 20, 2023) – Following an overwhelming workplace vote to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials, Seattle Mariners MLB retail employee Tami Kecherson filed a Request for Review defending the election result at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC. The Request for Review comes after NLRB Region 19 officials in Seattle refused to certify the 50-9 vote result, and instead permitted UFCW union officials to “disclaim” interest in the bargaining unit and avoid restrictions on regaining control over the employees that normally apply to unions that lose elections.
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are providing free legal aid to Kecherson in her effort to defend the election victory. The Request for Review recounts that, after the worker-requested union decertification vote finally took place, UFCW union officials filed “blocking charges” against Mariners management in an attempt to delay the certification of the vote. “Blocking charges” contain unverified and often groundless allegations of employer interference in a union election.
NLRB Region 19’s investigation of UFCW officials’ “blocking charges” delayed the certification of the employees’ vote for months, the Request for Review notes, but in September UFCW bosses withdrew their apparently frivolous blocking charges and instead filed paperwork announcing they were “voluntarily” leaving the facility.
When Foundation attorneys contacted NLRB Region 19 to determine when the vote certification would occur now that the meritless charges were withdrawn, NLRB officials instead declared that certification would not occur, presumably because the union had just disclaimed interest and walked away. Further, NLRB officials effectively stated that the UFCW union would be allowed to skirt the statutory one-year restriction on regaining control in the workplace that applies to unions that lose elections, and would only be barred from the workplace for a much shorter period.
“This is akin to an employee fired for insubordination yelling ‘you can’t fire me, I quit,’ but only much worse,” the Request for Review argues. “That is so because Region 19 is arbitrarily allowing Local 3000 to get away with a rather grotesque form of gamesmanship…This cannot be allowed to occur under the [National Labor Relations Act] and the Board’s rules.”
Union Legal Maneuvering Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Diminish Worker Vote
Foundation-backed reforms that the NLRB adopted in 2020 (also known as the “Election Protection Rule”) permitted the Seattle Mariners employees to challenge UFCW officials’ ascent to power, which the union accomplished via “card check” – a scheme that bypasses the NLRB secret-ballot election process. The Election Protection Rule permitted the employees to petition for a secret ballot decertification election and vote the union out after the card check occurred. However, the Biden NLRB has already announced a proposal to repeal the “Election Protection Rule” and make card check organizing drives much harder for employees to contest.
In light of that, the one-year period of freedom from union control that the NLRB denied the Seattle Mariners workers is absolutely vital. Without it, UFCW officials could move to foist the union back on the employees through card check in less than a year, and, if the Election Protection Rule has been wiped out by then, the workers may be unable to challenge the card check with a secret ballot vote.
“The game UFCW union officials are playing with Seattle Mariners employees’ rights is sinister, but obvious: Game the system to avoid the full consequences of losing an election among the workers they claimed to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It doesn’t help that the Biden NLRB is simultaneously pursuing policies that make it nigh impossible for employees to free themselves of the control of union officials who attempt such manipulation.”
“Refusing to certify an overwhelming worker vote against a union due simply to union legal maneuvering is disrespecting workers’ free choice rights, plain and simple,” Mix added.
Federal Charge: East Bay-Area Construction Materials Worker Illegally Fired for Refusing to Join Union
NLRB investigating IUOE union bosses for retaliatory termination and seizing dues from employee’s paycheck in violation of longstanding law
Pleasanton, CA (October 17, 2023) – Alexandra Le, an employee of Pleasanton-based materials testing company Construction Testing Services (CTS), has hit International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) officials and CTS with federal charges. The charges state IUOE bosses illegally demanded she join the union as a condition of keeping her job and instigated her firing by CTS when she refused to join. Additionally, Le’s charges maintain that company and union officials violated the law by deducting union dues directly from her paycheck without her permission.
Le, a firestop inspector, filed the charges at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 32 in Oakland, CA, with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. She notes in her charges that IUOE officials not only failed to inform her of her right to abstain from union membership, but also never notified her of her right to pay a reduced amount of union dues as a nonmember.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, Le and her coworkers can be forced to pay some dues to the union as a condition of keeping their jobs, even if they’ve abstained from formal union membership. However, as per the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, even in non-Right to Work states union officials can’t force nonmember employees to pay for union expenses beyond what the union claims goes to bargaining, such as union politics. Other Supreme Court precedents and federal labor laws protect workers’ right to refrain from formal union membership and require union bosses to seek workers’ express consent before deducting dues directly from their paychecks.
In Right to Work states, union membership and all union financial support are fully voluntary.
“It’s outrageous that IUOE union officials believe they can get me fired simply because I don’t agree with their organization and don’t want to support or affiliate with them,” Le said. “IUOE union officials have been far more concerned with consolidating power in the workplace and collecting dues than caring about me and my coworkers, and I hope the NLRB will hold them responsible for their illegal actions.”
Worker Demands NLRB Step in to Reverse Union-Instigated Firing, Illegal Demands
Le’s charge against the IUOE union states that, after she refused to affiliate with the union, IUOE bosses “caused Charging Party to be removed from the work schedule by her Employer as of October 2nd.” The NLRB v. General Motors Corp. U.S. Supreme Court decision protects the right of workers to refuse formal union membership, even in a non-Right to Work state.
As a remedy, the charge asks the NLRB Regional Director in Oakland to “invoke its authority under Section 10(j)” of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which empowers the Board to seek an injunction from a federal court to stop IUOE and CTS management from committing the unfair labor practices.
“Le’s charges show that IUOE union officials, in their apparent greed for forced dues, have ignored numerous longstanding legal protections for workers opposed to union affiliation,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While the union’s anti-worker actions would be wildly unlawful in any state in the country, they reveal the importance of state Right to Work protections: No worker should be forced to give any amount of their hard-earned paycheck to union officials who threaten and misinform the employees they claim to ‘represent,’ or simply haven’t earned workers’ support.”
Oklahoma City Starbucks Employees Latest to Demand Vote to Remove SBWU Union from Workplace
One year after highly publicized unionization efforts, workers from coffee shops in at least seven different states move to remove SBWU
Oklahoma City, OK (October 10, 2023) – An employee of a Starbucks store in the Nichols Hills neighborhood of Oklahoma City has submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking the federal agency to hold a vote among her colleagues to remove the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union from the workplace. The employee, Amy Smith, is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Smith’s petition contains signatures from enough of her coworkers to prompt a union decertification election under the NLRB’s rules. While Oklahoma is a Right to Work state, meaning SBWU bosses cannot compel Smith or her coworkers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of staying employed, SBWU is still empowered by federal law to impose a union contract on all employees of the coffee shop, including those who oppose the union. A successful decertification vote would strip union officials of that power.
Oklahoma City Starbucks Workers Join Burgeoning Worker Movement Against SBWU
Smith and her coworkers’ effort is the latest in a chain of SBWU decertification pushes across the country. Since May, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; Buffalo, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; and Greenville, SC, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in pursuing their decertification petitions at the NLRB. Last month, workers at Good Karma Café, an independent coffee shop in Philadelphia, successfully voted out the SBWU union with Foundation help.
The flurry of decertification attempts is occurring roughly one year after SBWU union agents engaged in an aggressive unionization campaign against Starbucks employees. Federal labor law forbids workers from decertifying a union for a year after its installation, meaning many workers are seizing on the earliest possible opportunity to rid themselves of the SBWU union’s “representation.”
Outside of Starbucks, union decertification efforts are becoming much more common. Currently, the NLRB’s data shows two consecutive years of increased decertification efforts, with a nearly 30% increase in decertification petitions last year versus 2021.
However, union officials have many ways to manipulate federal labor law to prevent workers from voting them out, including by filing unrelated or unverified charges against management. Foundation attorneys are assisting workers who have been targeted with such tactics by union officials.
“SBWU union officials are leveraging their legal privileges and the deep pockets of their affiliate, the Service Employees International Union, to try to install union control over as many Starbucks employees as they can as quickly as they can,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “But as Starbucks and other coffee employees across the country continue to try to flee the union’s power, it’s becoming clearer that the SBWU’s campaign is rooted more in generating political buzz and expanding union power than actually standing up for workers’ interests.”
“Such union behavior is precisely why workers’ right to vote to remove unwanted union officials is so vital, and Foundation attorneys will continue to fight alongside Ms. Smith and numerous other coffee employees across the country to defend this right,” Mix added.
Full Foundation Action July/August 2023 Newsletter Now Online
All articles from the July/August issue of Foundation Action are now on the website.
In this issue:
- Foundation Fights For Starbucks Workers Seeking to Oust Union
- Foundation Slams NLRB, ILA Union Officials in Brief to Fourth Circuit Court
- Former CT State Trooper Wins Over $250,000 in Political Discrimination Suit
- Don’t Believe the ‘Union Boom’ Hype: Workers Want Out as Biden Seeks to Keep Them In
- Foundation-Backed Workers Notch Victories Over Dues-Hungry UAW Bosses
- Foundation Defends Michigan Workers with Forced Dues Looming
- Invest in the Long-Term Battle for Worker Freedom
Recent articles can be found here. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of this page.
Foundation Defends Michigan Workers with Forced Dues Looming
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2023 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
With Right to Work repeal law passed, workers seek to escape mandatory payments
Michigan legislators’ unpopular decision to repeal the state’s Right to Work law helped prompt Mary Soltysiak and her coworkers’ move to vote out the IAM union.
LANSING, MI – Despite poll after poll showing 70 percent of Michiganders wanted Michigan’s decade-old Right to Work law left in place, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and union cronies in the Michigan Legislature voted to strip Wolverine State workers of their right to refrain from funding unwanted union bosses in March. In response, the Foundation sprang into action, issuing a Special Legal Notice to Michigan workers advising them of their legal options as the state transitions to a forced-dues regime. The notice reminded workers that, despite what union bosses may claim, the state’s Right to Work law remains in effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends later this year — and also what they can do in advance of forced dues being legal again. Unsurprisingly, given Right to Work’s popularity even among union households, Michigan workers are stepping up and taking action to defend their rights against coercive unionism.
Michigan Workers Battle Forced-Dues Schemes Ahead of Repeal
For example, Foundation attorneys are currently assisting Grand Rapids-area Kroger employee Roger Cornett’s challenge to an illegal dues scheme perpetrated by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials. Cornett hit UFCW bosses with federal charges this May, accusing them of ignoring a letter in which he exercised his right to cut off dues deductions from his paycheck. Cornett’s charges also maintained that UFCW bosses sought to seize money from him using a form that blatantly violates existing federal law. Cornett’s charge says the form is illegal because of its “dual purpose” nature, meaning just one signature confusingly locks a worker into both membership and dues deductions. Federal law requires any authorization for union dues deductions to be voluntary and separate from a union membership application. UFCW bosses’ contempt for longstanding federal protections in Cornett’s case likely indicates how aggressively union officials will pursue forced dues under a non-Right to Work regime. The Foundation’s legal notice also counsels workers that they can avoid forced-dues arrangements entirely by petitioning the NLRB to hold “decertification elections” at their workplaces, in which workers can vote unpopular unions out.
Legal Notice Counsels Workers of Right to Vote Out Unwanted Unions
Mary Soltysiak, who opposes forced dues, heard news of the upcoming repeal and filed a petition to decertify the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District Lodge 60/Local Lodge 475 union with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys. Soltysiak and her colleagues work at Terryberry, a manufacturing firm in Grand Rapids, MI.
Soltysiak stated that she and some of her colleagues “contacted [a Foundation attorney] and filled out paperwork to get out of paying union dues around the year 2018 because of the Right to Work . . . law.”
“The union has done nothing but hurt my paycheck and my vacation hours,” Soltysiak added.
Soltysiak and her coworkers achieved victory this May, when the NLRB certified their majority vote ousting the IAM union. Hopefully, their success portends the future success of the growing number of workers in Michigan and across the country looking to decertify the unions in their workplaces.
Foundation Also Defending Public Sector Right to Work Protections
As noted in the Foundation’s legal notice, the Michigan Right to Work repeal does not affect public sector Michigan employees. Under the Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, no public worker in America can be forced to subsidize a union as a condition of employment. But, as the repeal is looming, Michigan public sector union officials are nonetheless seeking to undermine public employees’ freedom to refrain from union support through so-called “fee-for-grievance” schemes.
This April, the Foundation submitted a brief in the Michigan Supreme Court case Technical, Professional and Officeworkers Association of Michigan (TPOAM) v. Renner, in which TPOAM officials are trying to enforce a “fee-for-grievance” policy against Saginaw County employee Daniel Renner. Under it, union bosses strip nonmember public employees of any power to file grievances themselves, and instead mandate that they pay fees sometimes exceeding yearly union dues to use the union’s grievance system.
Michigan legislators’ unpopular decision to repeal the state’s Right to Work law helped prompt Mary Soltysiak and her coworkers’ move to vote out the IAM union.
In the brief, Foundation staff attorneys refute the union’s claims for this newfound power, stating that “fee-for-grievance” schemes were never authorized by the Michigan Legislature and are inconsistent with federal law.
Foundation Attorneys Will Defend Worker Freedom in Michigan
“Michigan union officials and their allies in the state legislature have contempt for workers’ individual rights that knows no bounds,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “That was made clear by the repeal of the popular Right to Work law, and the attempt to undermine Right to Work protections for public sector employees which are safeguarded by the First Amendment under the Foundation’s Janus U.S. Supreme Court victory.”
“Michigan workers have a long road ahead to restore their rights against union coercion, but Foundation attorneys are fighting alongside these workers, and will continue to fight until no Michigan worker can be forced to pay union bosses they disapprove of just to keep a job,” Messenger added.
