Workers officially free of unwanted union boss “representation” after every worker votes against union in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Decertification Election

Fort Bliss, TX (March 6, 2023) – Following a unanimous employee decertification vote, Grounds Management Incorporated (also known as GMI National) employees are now officially free of unwanted monopoly bargaining “representation” by Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 351 union bosses. Grounds Management worker Antonio Eduardo Reza, who united every one of his fellow coworkers in opposing the union, received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in exercising the employees’ right to hold the decertification vote.

The union decertification election was administered by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on February 15. Because a full week has now passed since the 17-0 unanimous vote without any objections made by union officials, the result is final and the workers are officially union-free.

Although the NLRB’s union decertification process is still prone to union boss-created roadblocks, Foundation-backed reforms the NLRB adopted in 2020 have made it somewhat easier for workers to remove unwanted union officials.

Before the reforms, for example, union officials could stop workers who requested a decertification vote from casting ballots by filing so-called “blocking charges,” which often contain unverified and unrelated allegations of employer actions. The 2020 rule changes improved the process so employees can at least have a chance to vote before any allegations surrounding the election are resolved.

Worker interest in removing unwanted unions is up nationwide, with National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys fielding numerous requests for free legal assistance in decertification cases, like the one brought by Reza and his coworkers. The process should be simple, with federal law stating that workers can hold decertification votes in most instances as long as they have a petition with the signatures of at least 30% of workers in a bargaining unit. However, rules created by NLRB bureaucrats combined with legal tactics deployed by union lawyers often mean workers face legal hurdles in just getting the opportunity to hold a vote whether to remove an unwanted union.

The NLRB’s own data show that, currently, a unionized private sector worker is more than twice as likely to be involved in a decertification effort as a nonunion worker is to be involved in a unionization campaign, with one analysis finding decertification petitions up 42% last year.

“Although we’re glad Antonio Reza and his coworkers were able to free themselves of a union that they all opposed, this case only demonstrates just how outrageous it is that the Biden NLRB is moving to roll back reforms that make it easier for workers to exercise their right under federal law to vote out a union they oppose,” observed Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “If the Biden-appointed majority on the NLRB has its way, just one unfounded allegation by union bosses will be enough to block a vote like this for months or more, even though every single worker wanted nothing to do with the union’s so-called ‘representation.’”

Legal brief: SCOTUS ruled that public sector union activities are political in nature, “official time” arrangement mandates taxpayer support for union politics

Austin, TX (March 2, 2023) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has just submitted an amicus brief in Roger Borgelt v. City of Austin, a case before the Texas Supreme Court. The case challenges a scheme in which the City of Austin directs taxpayer dollars to Austin Firefighters Association (IAFF) union officials to conduct union business on so-called “official time.”

The petitioners, including the State of Texas, maintain that this arrangement violates the Texas Constitution’s Gift Clauses, which forbid payouts of taxpayer funds that do not serve a legitimate public purpose. The case is currently on appeal from the Texas Third Court of Appeals.

The Foundation’s brief argues that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME case shows why the “official time” scheme runs afoul of the Gift Clauses. The High Court ruled in Janus that forcing public sector workers to fund any union activities as a condition of employment violates the First Amendment, and that union dues can only be deducted from a public sector worker’s paycheck with his or her freely given consent.

Requiring taxpayers to fund union activities “conflicts with the Supreme Court’s reasons for holding in Janus that it violates the First Amendment to require public employees to subsidize union activities,” the brief says.

Landmark Janus Decision Shows How Union Bosses Use “Official Time” to Prop Up Union Politics

The Foundation points out in its amicus brief the Janus Court’s holding that union monopoly bargaining activities “constitute speech and petitioning on matters of political…concern,” and that by funneling taxpayer money into such speech “the City is effectively paying individuals to lobby the City for a private advocacy organization and its members.”

“The notion that this political advocacy predominantly serves a public purpose, as opposed to predominantly benefiting the private organization, is untenable,” the brief reads.

The brief also refutes an assertion by the Third Court that “official time” payments made by the city are actually part of union officials’ compensation for their normal job duties. This defies Janus’ reasoning that public employees who are also union officials “do not act as government agents pursuing their official job duties when they act as union officials.”

“For example, in granting paid leave to employee Bob Nicks to act as the Union’s president, the City is not paying Mr. Nicks for his services as a firefighter or as a public servant,” the brief explains. “The City is paying Mr. Nicks for his services as an agent of a private organization—the Union—in violation of the Gifts Clauses.”

The brief also counters the lower court’s finding that taxpayer subsidies for “official time” are needed to maintain harmonious relations with the union. Just as the Supreme Court’s Janus decision rejected that argument as a permissible reason for forcing workers to subsidize union activities related to monopoly bargaining, here similarly union officials can also “exercise their powers as exclusive representatives without the taxpayer subsidy of [official time],” says the brief.

Moreover, the Foundation’s brief explains that this union argument is troubling on a much deeper level: “If respondents contend that Union officials would disrupt City services if they did not receive association business leave, that would make the benefit akin to the City paying protection money” to union officials, reads the brief.

Union Bosses Are Not Entitled to Public Funds to Pursue Union Interests

“The Texas Supreme Court must recognize that union officials are not entitled to a slice of taxpayer funds to ‘bargain’ against public interests,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Texas’ Gift Clauses forbid the payout of public funds for activities that don’t have a tangible public benefit, and it’s hard to think of an arrangement that violates the Clauses more plainly than letting union bosses pursue private union business on the taxpayer dime.”

“While Janus now protects public employees around the country from being forced to fund union activities and speech against their will, unfortunately many states and municipalities across the country permit union bosses to subsidize those same inherently political activities using direct payment of tax dollars,” Mix added. “If union bosses cannot convince rank-and-file workers to voluntarily fund such activities as Janus requires, they should re-examine their priorities, not seek to force taxpayers to pay for what public employees won’t.”

Settlements require union officials to immediately recognize workers who refuse to pay for union politics, Penn Aluminum officials must attend mandatory training

Murphysboro, IL (February 28, 2023) – Penn Aluminum International employee Mary Beck has successfully forced International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 702 union officials to stop illegally demanding money from her paycheck. National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys represented her for free before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Beck hit both the IBEW union and her employer with federal charges in June 2022, maintaining that union dues were coming out of her paycheck under a defective contract, and that union officials had ignored her resignation of union membership and her request to pay only the amount of dues necessary to keep her job under federal law. She added additional charges in August 2022, stating that union officials had acknowledged her demand, but threatened to get her fired if she didn’t pay an unspecified amount of money to the union.

Beck filed charges to defend her rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which forbids union officials from having employees in non-Right to Work states like Illinois fired for refusal to pay for union politics and other expenses outside the union’s “representation” functions.

Because Illinois lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, union officials can compel workers in facilities under union control to pay only the reduced amount of union fees under CWA v. Beck as a condition of employment. In contrast, in Right to Work states, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

Beck’s Foundation-provided attorneys have now won settlements requiring IBEW union officials going forward to immediately recognize both membership resignations and employee requests to pay reduced union fees under CWA v. Beck. IBEW bosses must also pay back to Beck all money seized illegally from her paycheck. The settlements also stipulate that Penn Aluminum management attend mandatory training on how to properly respond to employee requests to end union membership and refrain from full dues deductions.

IBEW Union Bosses Blew Off Worker Requests for Months, Then Threatened Her Termination

Beck’s charges stated that IBEW union officials didn’t acknowledge her January 2022 and March 2022 requests to end union membership and stop full dues deductions until July 2022, when they finally sent her a copy of the union contract and ended dues deductions. However, they still demanded she pay an indefinite amount of union fees to keep her job. Beck’s August 2022 charge also pointed out that the union contract did not contain language allowing IBEW bosses to take advantage of their legal privilege to force all employees to pay an amount of union fees as a condition of employment.

Union officials in an August 9 letter threatened to terminate Beck by August 15 if she didn’t pay union fees. “The letter failed to provide Charging Party with the exact amount the Union claims she owes or a reasonable opportunity for her to pay those alleged fees,” Beck’s amended charge says. Both are required by longstanding precedents.

Beck’s charges argued that the union’s continued deduction of dues after her March letter and demands for union fees without a valid contract in place violated her rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Illinois Case Shows That Federal Labor Law Doesn’t Respect Worker Free Choice

“We’re pleased that Ms. Beck has successfully vindicated her right to opt out of paying for union politics and other activities she doesn’t support,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, as her case demonstrates, federal law still lets union officials stifle full freedom of association for Ms. Beck and millions of employees across the country who work in non-Right to Work states.”

“The Foundation-won CWA v. Beck decision gives workers in non-Right to Work states at least the opportunity to stop paying for the ideological activities of a union they oppose. But no American worker should be forced to sacrifice a part of their pay for any unwanted union activities, including union bosses’ so-called ‘representation’ which may actually work against employee interests,” Mix added. “Every American worker deserves the protection of a Right to Work law.”

Union officials misled worker and ignored revocation request in attempt to deduct dues for entire school year over employee’s clear objection

Cincinnati, OH (February 10, 2023) – Southwest Public Schools employee Richard Koch has filed charges against the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4) union, telling the Ohio State Employee Relations Board (SERB) that union officials have unlawfully locked him into an entire school year of union dues deductions against his will. Staff attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation represent him for free.

Koch, who is not a union member, charges that OAPSE union bosses are arbitrarily restricting the time in which school employees can exercise their right to cut off union dues deductions to less than 3% of the year. He further explains that OAPSE officials continue seizing dues from any employee who misses the tiny, unilaterally-imposed “window period” to opt out of dues deductions, rather than acknowledging the request and effectuating it at the next “window period.”

Koch argues that state law prohibits OAPSE officials’ behavior, including the Ohio statute protecting public employees’ right to “refrain from forming, joining, assisting, or participating in” a union. Public employees also have a First Amendment right under the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision to refrain from paying union dues to a union they oppose.

OAPSE Union Officials Force School Employee to Pay Entire School Year’s Worth of Dues Despite Resignation

Koch sent a letter to OAPSE union officials on June 4, 2022, resigning his union membership and requesting that dues deductions from his paycheck cease. A union official replied to Koch later that month, telling him that his request to stop dues was “untimely,” but not informing him of the appropriate time in which to submit a revocation request.

After the 2022-2023 school year began, OAPSE union officials continued to take full union dues from his wages. Koch questioned school officials about why dues deductions were continuing despite his resignation. In October 2022, five months after Koch sent his resignation letter, a school administrator forwarded him an email from OAPSE representative John Horn explaining that union dues revocation requests are only accepted within a narrow 10-day window each year.

No union official informed Koch of this restriction, and at the time Koch indirectly found out about it, the “window period” (which was in August) had already passed. The union is now attempting to illegally seize dues from his paycheck for an entire school year instead of simply honoring Koch’s revocation request.

In addition to illegally restraining his right to abstain from union activities, Koch argues, OAPSE union bosses also violated Ohio law by deliberately concealing the actual dates in which he could cut off dues, and by not telling the school to stop taking dues from his paycheck, despite their knowledge of his desire to stop paying.

Foundation President: OAPSE Union Officials Value Dues Revenue Over Employees’ Rights

Koch seeks to stop all dues deductions from his paycheck, and force OAPSE union officials to return all dues seized illegally from his paycheck since he sent in his resignation letter. If Koch’s case is successful, it could set a precedent requiring Ohio union officials to honor every revocation request.

“Mr. Koch’s case shows that OAPSE union officials don’t even pretend to care about the rights of workers who disagree with them, and will readily violate those rights if it means the union can fill its coffers with more of those employees’ money,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Beyond blatantly violating Ohio law, OAPSE union officials are also ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s First Amendment command in the Janus v. AFSCME decision that union officials can only take union dues from workers who have affirmatively consented to support the union.”

Foundation attorneys scored a significant victory for Ohio public servants’ Janus rights in a 2020 lawsuit against another Ohio AFSCME affiliate, Council 11. Rather than face off against Foundation attorneys, those AFSCME union officials backed down and settled the case. As a result, Foundation attorneys freed almost 30,000 Ohio public employees from a “maintenance of membership” scheme that limited the exercise of Janus rights to roughly once every three years.

Biden National Labor Relations Board plans to overturn Election Protection Rule, undermining workers’ statutory right to vote whether to remove unpopular unions

Washington, DC (February 3, 2023) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has just submitted comments opposing the Biden National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposed rule to re-impose several onerous restrictions on workers. The rule is designed to, once again, trap private sector workers under the so-called “representation” of a union opposed by a majority of employees in a workplace.

The slated rule changes will overturn the Election Protection Rule, which the NLRB adopted in 2020 after the Foundation advocated for the elimination of several non-statutory policies that union officials often manipulate to avoid being voted out of a workplace by employees. The current comments opposing the changes rely on the Foundation’s unique perspective as the leading organization providing free legal aid to private-sector workers who face obstacles to exercising their right to vote on whether to remove an incumbent union (known as “decertification” elections).

“The Foundation is uniquely situated to comment on and oppose these rules, as its staff attorneys have represented individual decertification petitioners in many of the leading cases in this area of the law,” the comments say. “Foundation lawyers provide pro bono representation in a large percentage of the Board’s current decertification cases. To take just one recent snapshot, Foundation staff attorneys represent approximately 50% of the employees who filed decertification petitions in the month of December 2022.”

Biden NLRB Rule Change Will Let Union Officials Use “Blocking Charges” to Delay Elections

The Foundation’s comments explain that, if the Election Protection Rule is tossed, union officials will again be able to exploit often-unproven allegations of employer behavior to cancel employee-requested union decertification votes. Prior to the 2020 reforms, union officials could often stall a decertification vote for months or even years by filing so-called “blocking charges.”

The 2020 Election Protection Rule overturned the “blocking charge” policy, so workers now are allowed in most cases to cast ballots in a decertification vote before the NLRB deals with any allegations surrounding the election. If the Rule is jettisoned, workers would be blocked from even voting, let alone having their votes counted, any time union officials conjure up claims of workplace malfeasance.

“The bottom line is this: the former blocking charge policy incentivized [union officials] to file meritless or even frivolous unfair labor practice charges because they know the election will be delayed,” the comments say.

Foundation staff attorneys have provided legal assistance to many workers faced with “blocking charges.” Notably, the Foundation assisted a group of Alaskan bus drivers who were freed in December 2019 from an unpopular Teamsters union after three years of attempts to remove it. One employee in that situation commented to the NLRB shortly before the adoption of the Election Protection Rule that the NLRB’s continued blocking of the election based on the Teamsters’ unfair labor practice charges was “the most unfair and anti-democratic event” with which he had ever been involved.

Abuse-Prone “Card Check” Drives Likely to Become Irrebuttable

The Biden NLRB’s slated elimination of the Election Protection Rule will also block workers from filing for secret-ballot decertification elections to challenge so-called “card check” drives. A “card check” is a process in which union officials claim majority support among employees in a workplace based solely on authorization cards signed by employees and submitted by union officials, bypassing the election process entirely. The cards’ indication of true majority status is dubious as union agents may collect them directly from workers and often use threatening or intimidating tactics to do so.

The Election Protection Rule added a check to the misnamed “voluntary recognition bar,” a non-statutory policy that blocked workers from filing for a secret-ballot decertification election for a year after a union was installed via “card check.” The Election Protection Rule instead provided workers the ability to challenge a “card check” by petitioning for a secret-ballot vote, a theory first espoused in the Foundation-won 2007 Dana Corp. NLRB decision. If the Election Protection Rule is scrapped, the “voluntary recognition bar” would return.

Barring worker-submitted union decertification petitions “only shields what may well be a minority union from challenge” and “destroys employees’ [statutory] rights,” the comments assert.

Construction Workers Could Be Unionized with No Evidence of Majority Support

The comments finally warn that, if the Election Protection Rule is removed, construction workers would be exposed to unilateral attempts by union bosses and employers to impose union monopoly power with absolutely no evidence of majority employee support. The comments explain that these arrangements defy federal labor law and lay waste to employee free choice rights: “To cavalierly defer to unproven employer and labor organization assertions concerning employees’ exercise of their rights is akin to a farmer putting two foxes in charge of guarding his henhouse.”

Foundation staff attorneys represented a victim of such a scheme in Colorado Fire Sprinkler, Inc., a case that ended when a U.S. DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled that the company’s workers were unlawfully unionized despite no evidence of majority employee support for the union.

“The move to eliminate the Election Protection Rule will re-impose arbitrary policies that trample workers’ rights and allow union bosses to maintain power despite the overwhelming opposition of rank-and-file workers,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Biden NLRB, now stocked with former union lawyers, is putting on full display that its priorities lie with top DC union brass, not rank-and-file American workers.”

Former Duro Hilex Poly employee filed charges against union and employer in 2022, National Labor Relations Board complaints affirm employee allegations

Erlanger, KY (January 31, 2023) – Melva Hernandez, a former employee of paper bag manufacturer Duro Hilex Poly in Erlanger, KY, has scored a victory in her federal case charging United Steelworkers (USW) Local 832 union officials and her employer with taking dues money from her paycheck illegally. Hernandez is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.

In response to federal charges Hernandez filed in July 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has begun prosecuting the USW union. A complaint issued January 25 by the NLRB asserts union officials violated federal labor law by seizing money from Hernandez’s paycheck after she ended her union membership, and by threatening her after she told other employees about how to exercise their right to resign from the union.

Hernandez’s July 2022 charges also contended that “escape period” limitations USW officials used to restrict when workers could end dues deductions are not enforceable under federal law.

In Kentucky and 26 other states with Right to Work protections, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary and the choice of each individual worker. In states lacking such protections, union bosses can demand that workers under their control pay union “fees” as a condition of keeping their jobs. The Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet Secretary could decide to separately prosecute the USW union for breaching Kentucky’s Right to Work law.

Union Officials Forced Duro Employee into Membership & Dues Payment, Sought to Ban Speech Critical of Union

Hernandez worked at Duro Hilex Poly from 2011 until 2022. Her July 2022 charge explained that she first submitted a letter to union officials in August 2021 exercising her right to end her union membership and all dues deductions to the union. A union agent rejected her request, alleging that it would only be accepted within a so-called “escape period” created by union officials.

The complaint says Hernandez resubmitted her request in April 2022 on a date falling within the union-concocted “escape period,” only to be redirected by union agents to USW Local 832 President Tara Purnhagen.

After Hernandez tendered her resignation to Purnhagen, “Ms. Purnhagen scolded and harassed me, accusing me of trying to convince my fellow co-workers to drop their union memberships,” Hernandez’s charges say. Purnhagen also forbade Hernandez from discussing with her coworkers reasons to refrain from union membership. Until Hernandez quit her job at Duro Hilex Poly, USW officials continued taking money unlawfully from her paycheck.

Her charges argued that union officials’ actions infringed on her rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protects the right of workers to abstain from union activities if they choose, and not be retaliated against by union officials for exercising or advocating that right.

NLRB Complaint States Union Committed Multiple Rights Violations

The NLRB’s complaint affirms that USW union officials broke federal labor law by taking dues from her paycheck “notwithstanding the absence of an employee authorization for the deductions and remittance,” and by threatening Hernandez and other employees who exercised their right to leave the union or talked about doing so.

However, on the dues deduction issue, the NLRB’s complaint only seeks to prosecute USW bosses for money seized from Hernandez’s paycheck after she opted out of the union the second time, within the union’s so-called “escape period.” Hernandez filed an appeal to the NLRB in Washington, DC, contending that her first attempt should have stopped the flow of dues, because the restriction is unenforceable.

“It’s outrageous that the only way Ms. Hernandez could escape the predatory dues practices of Steelworkers union officials was to quit and find another job entirely,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Although it’s encouraging that the NLRB is finally taking action against Steelworkers officials’ patently illegal behavior, rank-and-file workers should not have to file federal cases, let alone quit their jobs, simply to preserve their freedom of association.”