FOUNDATION ACTION: Teacher Wins Settlement after Union Violated Her Constitutional Rights
NOTE: This article is from the March-April issue of Foundation Action, our bi-monthly newsletter. You can sign up to receive a print edition of the newsletter here.
Case demonstrates why Wisconsin reforms were need to protect state workers
GREENWOOD, WI – A former Greenwood, Wisconsin, teacher has won a settlement from a local teacher union and the school district for refusing to honor her constitutional rights and for failing to follow federal disclosure requirements.
Spanish teacher Amy Anaya taught in the School District of Greenwood for a year. When Anaya was first hired by the district in August 2011, Greenwood Education Association (GEA) union officials illegally told her that she “had to” sign the union’s membership form. When GEA union officials demanded Anaya join the union, she told them that she had no desire to become a union member.
Anaya told Foundation Action that her initial reason for not wanting to join the union was its support of causes she opposed. “[The union] also defended teachers that should have been more concerned about improving themselves than moving up the pay scale and getting more benefits,” said Anaya.
Beginning on September 9, 2011, union officials began collecting full union dues, or $31.35, from each of Anaya’s paychecks anyway. In December 2011, GEA union officials again demanded that Anaya join the union, and she again informed them that she was not interested in joining.
Union officials ignore worker protections
The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that a public sector worker has a First Amendment right to refrain from formal union membership at any time. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Foundation’s Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson case that union officials who collect union fees as a condition of employment must first provide nonmember public sector workers with an independently-audited financial breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures and the opportunity to object and challenge the amount of forced union fees before an impartial decisionmaker.
And with passage of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10 public sector unionism reform in 2011, which contains a provision that gives most Wisconsin civil servants Right to Work protections, no Wisconsin teacher can be forced to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
Union officials failed to provide Anaya with her U.S. Supreme Court-mandated constitutional protections and the school district deducted full union dues from her paychecks for the entire school year. Moreover, the union brass negotiated a contract with the school district in an attempt to skirt Act 10’s provisions giving Greenwood teachers the Right to Work.
Complaint forces union officials to issue refund
With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Anaya filed complaints against the school district and the union with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission in September 2012. Union lawyers then agreed to a settlement with Anaya under which the union refunded the illegally seized dues to avoid further litigation and possible state prosecution.
“Teacher union bosses and school officials ignored state law and U.S. Supreme Court precedent to illegally coerce Amy Anaya into full dues-paying union ranks against her will,” said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. “This case teaches all of us a lesson about just how important Act 10 is in protecting Wisconsin public employees from forced unionism abuses.”
Wisconsin union bosses are still attacking Act 10 in various state and federal courts, but largely to no avail.
In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit based in Chicago adopted arguments made by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys and upheld Act 10 as constitutional. Meanwhile, Wisconsin civil servants continue to defend Act 10 in other cases pending before state and federal courts with free legal assistance from Foundation staff attorneys, including a case pending before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
“Union bosses can’t tolerate any restrictions on their power over workers,” stated Mix. “And your National Right to Work Foundation continues to assist Wisconsin civil servants who are taking a stand against compulsory unionism in their workplaces.”
FOUNDATION ACTION: Foundation Legal Director Warns Congress of NLRB’s Big Labor Bias
NOTE: This article is from the March-April issue of Foundation Action, our bi-monthly newsletter. You can sign up to receive a print edition of the newsletter here.
Foundation Legal Director Warns Congress of NLRB’s Big Labor Bias
Testimony highlights Board’s indifference to individual workers’ rights
WASHINGTON, DC?- On February 13, Ray LaJeunesse, Vice President and Legal Director of the National Right to Work Foundation, testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about the need to more vigorously enforce employees’ rights to refrain from funding union politics.
LaJeunesse, who has over 40 years of experience on the Foundation’s legal staff and has argued four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, repeatedly criticized the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for its lax enforcement of the rights of workers who wish to refrain from union affiliation. Under the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent Communication Workers v. Beck, private sector employees have the right to refrain from paying for union activities unrelated to workplace bargaining, such as members-only events and union political activism. However, the Obama-era NLRB has shown little interest in helping employees assert their rights to opt out of paying for union politics.
NLRB throws up bureaucratic hurdles to employee rights
LaJeunesse pointed out that the Board has permitted union officials to install a number of bureaucratic hurdles that discourage independent-minded employees from asserting their Beck rights. LaJeunesse noted that many unions now require employees to annually renew their objections to union political spending during a designated “window period,” a practice that allows union officials to continue extracting full dues from nonunion employees if they miss an arbitrary filing deadline.
Moreover, the Board has recently held that nonunion employees can be charged for organizing activities and political lobbying for “goals that are germane to collective bargaining.” LaJeunesse noted that this elastic interpretation of the Supreme Court’s Beck standard undermines the ability of nonunion employees to refrain from funding ideological and organizing activities they may disagree with.
“In sum, the problem is systemic,” concluded LaJeunesse. “The Board has dismally failed to protect workers’ Beck rights. Indeed, the current Board seems bent on totally eviscerating those rights.”
Obama Appointees Kowtow to Big Labor
Unfortunately, the Board – a supposedly neutral arbiter of American labor law – has been stacked with pro-Big Labor appointees throughout the Obama Administration. Former NLRB Member Craig Becker actually worked for the SEIU and AFL-CIO before joining the Board and ruling on cases he was involved with as a union lawyer. Current NLRB Member Michael Griffin also worked as a union lawyer before joining the Board.
“As our Legal Director noted in his testimony before Congress, the Board has shown a total disregard for the rights of independent-minded employees,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We hope this will serve as a wake-up call to citizens concerned about the Board’s pro-forced unionism bias.”
SEIU Union Officials Violate Federal Settlement
Sacramento, CA (April 4, 2013) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, a Sutter Roseville Medical Center respiratory care practitioner has filed another federal charge against a statewide union for violating a federal settlement by coercing her and her colleagues into paying full union dues even though they are not union members.
In late 2011, Mary Massen won a federal settlement after filing charges against with the Oakland-based Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers – West (SEIU-UHW) union with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Because California does not have Right to Work protections for its workers, Massen, who has exercised her right to refrain from formal union membership, is still forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment. However, because of a Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck, she cannot be compelled to pay the portion of union dues used for the union’s political, lobbying, and member-only activities. Union officials are also legally obligated to inform workers of these rights and to provide workers with an independently verified audit of chargeable and non-chargeable expenses.
In the initial case, SEIU-UHW officials failed to provide nonmember employees with the disclosure Beck requires and forced the workers to object annually, a tactic designed to coerce workers into paying full union dues. Additionally, union officials required employees to provide their social security numbers to refrain from paying union dues used for union boss political activities, further discouraging workers from exercising their rights.
The settlement eliminated SEIU-UHW’s annual renewal requirement, stopped union officials from demanding social security numbers from workers exercising their Beck rights, and required union officials to post an informational notice in the workplace.
However, SEIU-UHW union officials have been deducting full union dues from Masson and other nonmembers’ paychecks for 2013, despite their status as nonmembers.
“These scofflaw SEIU union bosses continue to make a mockery of federal labor law,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “California needs a Right to Work law to protect workers from these types of forced unionism abuses in the future.”
Twenty-four states have Right to Work protections for employees. Public polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans and union members support the principle of voluntary unionism.
Hostess Delivery Driver Wins $47,000 in Federal Case Challenging Teamster Union Boss Discrimination
Tulsa, OK (April 4, 2013) – An Interstate Bakeries Wonder Bread/Hostess delivery driver has won over $47,000 in back pay and reimbursement from a local Teamster union and the company in a union discrimination case that the union twice appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oklahoma worker Kirk Rammage received free assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation during his seven year legal battle challenging a local Teamster union’s discriminatory policy.
Rammage was the single nonunion sales representative with Dolly Madison for over 15 years before his division was merged in 2005 with Wonder Bread/Hostess. Although the company initially wanted to protect Rammage’s seniority during the merger, Teamsters Local 523 union officials insisted that union members receive preferential treatment by putting Rammage at the bottom of the seniority roster despite his longer workplace tenure. The company later caved in to the union bosses’ demand.
By insisting that Rammage lose his seniority, Teamster officials effectively signaled that union workers took priority over their nonunion colleagues. As a result, Rammage was forced to commute to a new work location more than 70 miles away.
After Rammage filed federal charges against the union, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled against the discriminatory Teamster-imposed policy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the NLRB’s decision on an appeal filed by Teamster union lawyers. Those rulings were later nullified by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 on the ground that the Board lacked a three member quorum at the time of its decision.
The case then went back to the NLRB. Once the Board had a quorum, the NLRB revisited the facts of the case and again concluded that Teamster officials broke the law by discriminating against employees based on their union representation status. The Tenth Circuit upheld the NLRB ruling again on appeal and slapped Teamster Local 523 with monetary sanctions for the frivolous nature of the union’s lawyers’ second appeal. Teamster union lawyers appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court again, but the Court declined to take the case.
The case then went before a NLRB Administrative Law Judge to determine the amount of back pay and damages the union and employer owe Rammage. The judge ruled last week that Rammage is entitled to $47,337 in back pay and reimbursements. That amount will continue to increase due to interest until Rammage is paid by the union hierarchy and/or the company.
“Justice delayed is justice denied and Mr. Rammage has been denied justice for far too long,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We hope this latest ruling settles the case once and for all.”
Government Union Bosses Face Federal Suit for Illegal Forced Dues Scheme
Philadelphia, PA (April 10, 2013) – A Downingtown Area School District school teacher has filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the school district for violating her rights and refusing to follow federal disclosure requirements.
Maria del Carmen Gonzalez Tucker filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Tucker resigned from formal union membership in the Downingtown Area Education Association (DAEA), an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Education Association and the National Education Association (NEA) unions, in early December 2012.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that workers have the unconditional right to refrain from union membership at any time. Additionally, the Court ruled in the Foundation’s Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson case that union officials must provide nonmember public workers with an independently-audited breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures and the opportunity to object and challenge the amount of forced union fees before an impartial decision maker.
This minimal safeguard is designed to ensure that workers have an opportunity to refrain from paying for union political activities and member-only events.
Despite Tucker’s resignation, DAEA union officials notified her that she “will be part of the DAEA through the 2012-2013 school year.” Tucker’s suit alleges that the school district continues to deduct full union dues from her paychecks at union officials’ behest even though the union hierarchy has refused to follow the federal disclosure requirements outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hudson.
Tucker is asking the court to halt the deduction of full union dues from her paychecks until she receives proper disclosure and to order a refund of any illegally-seized union dues and fees. The suit also challenges as unconstitutional two Pennsylvania laws that purport to grant union officials the power to force nonmember workers into paying full union dues against their will.
“Because Pennsylvania does not have a Right to Work law, union bosses can compel nonmember workers into paying union dues and fees as a condition of employment,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This case underscores why Pennsylvania needs a Right to Work law making union affiliation and dues payments completely voluntary.”
Four Workers Move to Defend Michigan’s Right to Work Law against Union Boss Federal Lawsuit
Detroit, MI (April 16, 2013) – Four Michigan workers have moved to intervene in a Big Labor-backed federal lawsuit challenging Michigan’s newly-enacted Right to Work law, which frees workers from paying union dues just to get or keep their jobs.
With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, workers Terry Bowman and Brian Pannebecker, who work for Ford Motor Company in Ypsilanti and Sterling; Aaric Aaron Lewis, who works for AT&T in Kalamazoo; and Robert G. Harris, who works for Aunt Millie’s Bakery in Jackson, filed the motion to intervene today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The four workers are forced to financially support a union in order to keep their jobs.
If granted, the workers’ motion to intervene would make them full participants in the lawsuit.
In February, the Michigan State AFL-CIO union, the union-affiliated group Change to Win, and the AFL-CIO-affiliated Michigan State Building and Construction Trades Council union filed a federal lawsuit claiming that federal labor law preempts Michigan’s Right to Work law.
However, federal labor law explicitly gives states the power to pass Right to Work laws. National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have successfully defended state Right to Work laws from union-backed challenges numerous times, and the U.S. Supreme Court has long held that state Right to Work laws are constitutional.
Although Michigan’s recently-enacted Right to Work law states that no employee can be required to pay union dues as a condition of employment, forced dues contracts between unions and employers entered into prior to the effective date of the law remain in force throughout the state.
Machinist Union Hierarchy Faces 15 Additional Federal Charges in Wake of Last Summer’s Caterpillar Strike
Chicago, IL (April 17, 2013) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, 15 additional Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) workers have filed federal charges against a local Machinist union for violating their rights and levying retaliatory strike fines against them in the wake of last summer’s union boss-instigated strike against Caterpillar.
The 15 workers join 24 other workers who filed similar charges late last month and two who filed charges late last year with free legal assistance from Foundation attorneys.
On May 1, 2012, International Association of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 851 union bosses ordered all of the over 800 Joliet Caterpillar workers on strike. The 41 workers who have filed charges to date were among the over hundred workers who worked despite the IAM union boss demands.
Under federal law, workers who are not voluntary union members are exempt from the union hierarchy’s constitution and bylaws and thus cannot be disciplined for continuing to work during a union boss-ordered strike. However, IAM Local 851 union bosses recently levied fines totaling hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars against the workers for continuing to work during the strike.
Some workers allege that they were never truly voluntary union members because IAM Lodge 851 union officials never informed them of their right to refrain from union membership. Some workers were even illegally told that union membership was mandatory as a condition of their employment when they tried to resign membership. Others have additional defenses.
Some workers allege that union officials gave them permission that it was acceptable to go back to work to continue to support their families. One worker alleges that union militants threatened him with violence if he returned to work. Two others allege union officials illegally charged them for union dues at times when they were briefly laid off from their jobs at Caterpillar.
“As more abused Caterpillar workers come forward, the pattern of rights abuses perpetrated by IAM union bosses becomes clearer,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The ugly aftermath of the Caterpillar strike underscores the need for an Illinois Right to Work law. IAM union bosses have become so mad with their forced-dues power that it appears their standard operating procedure is simply to intimidate and otherwise violate the rights of Caterpillar workers who do not toe the union line.”
Twenty-four states have Right to Work protections for workers. Public polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans and union members support the principle of voluntary unionism.
Union, Company Face Federal Prosecution after Construction Worker Digs Up Illegal PAC Scheme
Beckley, WV (April 22, 2013) – A Pennsylvania construction company and a local union are facing a federal prosecution for violating the rights of a former truck driver/laborer and illegally seizing union dues from workers’ paychecks for the union’s political action committee (PAC).
With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Jeff Richmond of Meadow Bridge, WV, filed federal unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Penn Line Service, Inc. and the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 453.
In July 2012, when Penn Line Service hired Richmond, company management informed him that the job was a “union job.” Between July and October, the company confiscated, and the LIUNA hierarchy accepted, full union dues from Richmond’s paychecks even though he had not joined the union nor given prior authorization for the company to take full union dues from his paychecks.
In October, company management gave Richmond and his coworkers a union membership and dues deductions authorization form. The form included a section for the employees to authorize “voluntary” contributions to LIUNA’s political action committee, the Laborers’ Political League, and the West Virginia Laborer’s District Council PAC.
Richmond signed up for union membership because he thought it was required for him to keep his job. Richmond did not, however, authorize the “voluntary” PAC contributions. Shortly thereafter, Richmond was discharged from his job for refusing to sign up for the union PAC contributions.
Under federal law, no worker can be forced to join a union. However, because West Virginia does not have a Right to Work law, workers who refrain from union membership can be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck case that nonmembers may not be forced to pay for union activities unrelated to workplace bargaining, such as union political activities and members-only events.
The NLRB issued a formal complaint against the union and the company. A hearing is set for June 4, 2013.
“Bulldozing someone into contributing to a union PAC that violates their sincerely-held beliefs is a clear violation of federal law,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “No worker should ever be forced to pay union dues or fees for a cause in which they disagree. That is why West Virginia needs to pass a Right to Work law making union membership and dues payments completely voluntary.”
Seven More Caterpillar Workers File Charges Against Machinist Union
In an ongoing Foundation case, seven additional Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) workers have filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against a Chicago-area Machinist union for violating their rights and levying retaliatory strike fines against them.
The seven workers join 41 other workers who have filed similar charges to date with free legal assistance from Foundation attorneys. The charges come after International Association of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 851 union bosses ordered over 800 Joliet, Illinois Caterpillar workers on strike. Over a hundred workers continued to work despite the IAM union boss-instigated strike.
Under federal law, workers who are not voluntary union members are exempt from the union hierarchy’s constitution and bylaws and thus cannot be disciplined for continuing to work during a union boss-ordered strike. However, IAM Local 851 union bosses recently levied fines totaling over a million dollars against the workers for continuing to work during the strike.
Two workers’ charges were settled in December, and the remaining 46 workers whose cases have not been resolved all allege that they were never truly voluntary union members. Multiple workers allege that union militants also threatened them with violence, and one alleges that union militants physically assaulted his wife and child.
For more information about this and other Right to Work Foundation cases, please stay tuned to the Foundation’s Freedom@Work blog.
Update 5/10/13: With free legal assistance from the Foundation, two more workers filed charges on May 10. This brings the total charges to date to 50, 48 of which are pending with the NLRB.
Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down NLRB Rule to Push More Workers into Union Ranks
Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down NLRB Rule to Push More Workers into Union Ranks
Right to Work Foundation fights Labor Board’s decision to promote monopoly unionism in virtually every workplace in America
Washington, DC (May 7, 2013) – Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) controversial new rule requiring virtually every private-sector employer in the country to post one-sided information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if the employer had never been accused of unfair labor practices.
Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation, made the following statement in the wake of the ruling:
"National Right to Work Foundation attorneys argued that the NLRB had exceeded its authority granted by Congress.
"We are pleased that the D.C. Circuit has reined in one of the NLRB’s more outrageous efforts to expand itself into a taxpayer-funded union organizing operation by holding that the federal agency cannot compel private entities to post pro-union messages in their workplaces.
"The NLRB’s unprecedented actions infringed upon free speech and clearly exceeded the agency’s statutory authority. This is a good day both for workers and all who value workplace independence and free speech."
