High Point, NC (December 4, 2013) – A local Thomas Built Buses worker has filed a federal charge against a local union for subjecting her to a campaign of harassment and intimidation because she exercised her right to refrain from union membership and inform her coworkers of their right to refrain.

With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Tracy McLaughlin filed the unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

United Auto Worker (UAW) Local 5287 union officials obtained monopoly bargaining powers over the workplace in 2006 after union and company officials cut a deal to force union “representation” on the workers without a secret-ballot election.

In her charge, McLaughlin states that union officials have harassed her because she has exercised her right under North Carolina’s popular Right to Work law to refrain from membership in, and dues payments to, the UAW Local 5287 union. McLaughlin states that she has also been harassed because she informs her coworkers of their right to refrain.

McLaughlin filed a charge in October 2013, against Thomas Built for turning a blind eye to the harassment. In that charge, McLaughlin recounted that in June 2013, Thomas Built management refused to address her claim that a union official falsely accused her of harassment in attempt to get her disciplined. Instead of providing her information on how to file internal company disciplinary charges, Thomas Built management instead suggested she get counseling.

McLaughlin also recounted in her charge against Thomas Built a September 2013 incident in which a union official falsely accused her of calling a union member a “terrorist” in an attempt to get her disciplined for her efforts in informing her coworkers of their rights under the state’s Right to Work law. After company management threatened to fire McLaughlin, she brought witnesses to substantiate her account of the incident. Company management ignored her account and the witnesses. When she asked why union members get to resolve their problems by presenting witnesses in a timely manner, company management told her that if she wanted representation, she would have to join the union.

“UAW union partisans are targeting a worker simply for exercising her First Amendment rights of speech and association,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These UAW union militants need to stop harassing workers who exercise their rights under North Carolina’s popular Right to Work law.”

FirstEnergy Worker Wins Federal Settlement from Local Electrical Worker Union

Union officials threatened worker to join union or lose her job

Reading, PA (December 5, 2013) – A FirstEnergy Corp. worker has won a federal settlement from a local union after she filed a charge against the union with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

The settlement comes after Deborah Adie of Orwigsburg filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In the charge, Adie stated that International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 777 union officials demanded she join the union or she would lose her job.

Click here to read the full release.

Reading, PA (December 5, 2013) – A FirstEnergy Corp. worker has won a federal settlement from a local union after she filed a charge against the union with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

The settlement comes after Deborah Adie of Orwigsburg filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In the charge, Adie stated that International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 777 union officials demanded she join the union or she would lose her job.

Under federal law, no worker can be forced to formally join a labor union. However, because Pennsylvania is not a Right to Work state, workers can be forced, as a condition of employment, to pay certain union fees to keep their job. IBEW Local 777 union officials never informed Adie of her right to refrain from full-dues-paying union membership, a right upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Right to Work Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck case.

In mid-March, Adie wrote a letter to the union hierarchy in which she resigned her union membership and objected to paying full union dues. Despite her request, union officials refused to acknowledge her resignation, and they continued to collect full union dues from her paychecks.

In April, Adie was told by a union official that instead of her March resignation letter, she needed to fill out a union form in order to resign her membership. Because she failed to turn in the specific union form, she was notified that the union would not recognize her March resignation letter and would continue to take full union dues from her paychecks.

Under the terms of the settlement, union officials are required to return all illegally-seized union fees taken from Adie’s paycheck and to post a notice in the workplace notifying workers of their right to refrain from formal, full-dues-paying union membership.

“No worker should ever be forced to join or pay dues to an unwanted union just to get or keep a job,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This case underscores why Pennsylvania needs to pass a Right to Work law making union membership and dues payments completely voluntary.”

Twenty-four states have Right to Work protections for employees. Public polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans and union members support the Right to Work principle of voluntary unionism.

Former Rhode Island Nurse Files Brief in Obama NLRB “Recess Appointment” Supreme Court Case

Invalid Labor Board negates Supreme Court’s restrictions on union bosses’ power to force workers to pay for union politics

Washington, D.C. (November 25, 2013) – A former Warwick, Rhode Island nurse has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the high-profile legal battle over President Barack Obama’s recent purported recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Jeanette Geary filed the amicus brief today with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Foundation staff attorneys argue in the brief that the recess appointments are unconstitutional because the U.S. Senate was still in session per the body’s rules. Therefore the President could not make the appointments to the NLRB without Senate confirmation.

Click here to read the full release.

Washington, D.C. (November 25, 2013) – A former Warwick, Rhode Island nurse has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the high-profile legal battle over President Barack Obama’s recent purported recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Jeanette Geary filed the amicus brief today with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Foundation staff attorneys argue in the brief that the recess appointments are unconstitutional because the U.S. Senate was still in session per the body’s rules. Therefore the President could not make the appointments to the NLRB without Senate confirmation.

If Foundation attorneys’ argument that the Obama’s NLRB appointments are unconstitutional prevails at the High Court, then the Board had only two valid members and lacked the quorum it needed from April 2011 to August 2013 to enact rules or enforce federal labor law. The case is on appeal after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that President Obama’s recess appointments were unconstitutional.

The brief makes the point that modern technology has reduced the need for recess appointments, which originally were intended for when a vacancy arose while Congress was unavailable for extended periods of time. Modern communications technology and air travel have made it so that Congress can consider a President’s nominees at almost any time, regardless of the Senators’ geographic dispersal.

Geary’s case began when she filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against a local nursing union for illegally forcing her and other employees to pay for the union’s lobbying or lose their jobs. In 2012, President Obama’s NLRB negated U.S. Supreme Court precedent and granted union bosses power to charge nonmember workers for union political lobbying, including political lobbying in other states.

In an effort to shut down these illegal NLRB appointees, Foundation attorneys filed a petition for a writ of mandamus asking the D.C. appeals court to bar the NLRB from further action in the case. That petition later became moot when the Senate confirmed a full Board.

“Jeanette Geary’s case is just the latest example of how independent-minded workers have received unjust treatment at the hands of Obama’s illegal, pro-Big Labor NLRB,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We hope the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the President’s illegal actions and restore the proper balance of power as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the NLRB recess appointment case on Monday, January 13, 2014.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Ruling Allows Union Recertification Elections

Teachers seek union recertification elections guaranteed under law

Madison, WI (November 22, 2013) – Last night, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling that allows teachers across the state to vote to determine whether union officials can continue to claim to represent those teachers in their respective workplaces.

The ruling strikes down a Dane County Circuit Court judge’s order that prohibited the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) from conducting secret-ballot recertification elections that are guaranteed under Wisconsin Act 10.

Click here to read the full release.

Madison, WI (November 22, 2013) – Last night, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling that allows teachers across the state to vote to determine whether union officials can continue to claim to represent those teachers in their respective workplaces.

The ruling strikes down a Dane County Circuit Court judge’s order that prohibited the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) from conducting secret-ballot recertification elections that are guaranteed under Wisconsin Act 10.

With the help of attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, five Wisconsin public school teachers filed amicus briefs urging the court’s ruling. All five teachers are employed in workplaces where they have been subject to a union monopoly bargaining agreement, which means all five have been forced to accept the union’s so-called “representation.” The teachers work in school districts in Waukesha, Milwaukee, La Crosse, Racine, and Elmbrook.

“Many independent-minded civil servants have no interest in associating with government sector unions and they deserve to have their voices heard,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Act 10 protects those workers’ right to do so and now these civil servants will be allowed to participate in the elections that they were promised to express their interests regarding their union representation.

Wisconsin Act 10 prevents public sector union officials from collecting any money from nonmember workers, restricts union monopoly bargaining to the issue of employee wages, ends the use of taxpayer-funded payroll systems for the collection of union dues, and guarantees that public workers will vote on their union representation yearly.

Michigan Labor Board Files Complaint Against Teacher Union for Circumventing Right to Work Law

Teacher union officials stonewall worker’s attempt to resign from union membership and dues payments

Pinckney, MI (November 20, 2013) – The Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) in Detroit has issued a complaint against the Michigan Education Association (MEA) union for violating a local special needs classroom assistant’s rights under Michigan’s recently enacted public-sector Right to Work law.

The complaint stems from a state charge that Linda Evon of Pinckney filed with the MERC last month with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Click here to read the full release.

Pinckney, MI (November 20, 2013) – The Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) in Detroit has issued a complaint against the Michigan Education Association (MEA) union for violating a local special needs classroom assistant’s rights under Michigan’s recently enacted public-sector Right to Work law.

The complaint stems from a state charge that Linda Evon of Pinckney filed with the MERC last month with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Evon, who works as a special needs classroom assistant for Pinckney Community Schools, informed the MEA union hierarchy on September 4, 2013, that she was exercising her right under Michigan’s Right to Work law to refrain from union membership and dues payments after the union’s monopoly bargaining agreement with her employer expired on June 30, 2013. Under Michigan’s Right to Work law, contracts entered into after the law went into effect must respect workers’ right to refrain from union membership and union dues payments.

Instead of complying with Evon’s request, MEA union officials told her that she would have to wait for a union-designated “window period” of August 1 through August 31, 2014, before she could resign union membership and refrain from union dues payments.

Evon points out in her charge that Michigan’s Right to Work law protects her unequivocal right to refrain from union membership at any time. Analogously, Supreme Court precedent under federal labor law also protects workers’ absolute right to refrain from union membership at any time without penalty.

“Across the state, union officials are trying to illegally keep workers from exercising their rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The way the MERC handles this case, and other similar Foundation cases, could very well set the precedent on how civil servants can exercise their rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law.”

In similar cases across Michigan, Foundation staff attorneys have assisted two other public-sector workers who filed charges with the MERC and an additional private-sector worker who filed a federal charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The MERC has issued a complaint against the Teamster union in one of those cases as well.

Springfield, VA (November 14, 2013) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a charitable organization that provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, has launched a multimedia advertising campaign to inform Illinois public school teachers of their rights to refrain from union membership and the payment of full union dues.

“Employee rights have been in the news since the tumultuous but ultimately successful efforts to reform labor law in neighboring Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We’d like to capitalize on that momentum by informing Illinois educators of their rights to opt out of paying for union politics.”

Illinois is one of 26 states that lack Right to Work laws, which means employees – including public school teachers – can be forced to pay union dues or fees just to get or keep a job. However, under Supreme Court precedents won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, employees cannot be lawfully forced to pay for union activities unrelated to workplace bargaining, such as union political activism.

All employees also have the right to resign their union membership at any time.

“Unfortunately, many Illinois public school teachers are simply unaware of their rights to leave a union and stop paying for union politics,” continued Mix. “We hope to address that problem by educating as many teachers as possible about their workplace rights.”

Radio ads will direct Illinois educators to TeacherRefund.com, a website that provides legal information about teachers’ rights to resign from a union and opt out of dues for union politics.

“No teacher should be forced to pay for political causes he or she disagrees with, which is why these educational campaigns are so vital,” said Mix. “Our team of experienced staff attorneys is standing by to help Illinois public school teachers assert their workplace rights.”