Los Gatos, Calif. (April 26, 2004) – A nurse employed by Community Hospital of Los Gatos today filed class-action federal charges against both Tenet Healthcare and the California Nurses Association (CNA) union for attempting to unlawfully corral hospital nurses into unwanted union representation.

The nurse alleges that hospital management granted CNA union officials wide access to the workplace in order to browbeat nurses into signing union authorization cards. CNA officials even began bargaining with Tenet over wages and working conditions without CNA having first obtained support from a majority of employees.

Sherril Hopper, a five-year veteran registered nurse at the San Jose-area hospital, filed the unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.

Hopper alleges that CNA union officials confronted nurses in the hospital parking lot, and misrepresented that the cards were petitions that would help pass a bill supposedly aiding California nurses – rather than something that would be counted as support for unionization. Hopper also reports that numerous coworkers were called and visited at home by CNA union operatives. CNA officials obtained nurses’ home addresses and phone numbers from the hospital without their consent.

Upon receipt of Hopper’s unfair labor practice charges, the NLRB must investigate the allegations and decide whether to issue formal complaints and prosecute the case. The charges seek to bar the company from continuing actively to support union organizing efforts at Tenet’s California hospitals. Tenet agreed to support unionization of its employees after CNA union officials waged a relentless “corporate campaign,” using pressure through the media and public officials to paint Tenet as a social outlaw.

“CNA union officials are shamelessly using numerous unlawful tactics to strong-arm nurses into union ranks regardless of their wishes,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

In addition to deceiving nurses in order to induce them to sign union cards, Hopper reports that CNA organizers have set up on site at the hospital to put daily pressure on nurses to install the CNA as their monopoly representative. Meanwhile, Tenet has stifled counter-efforts by nurses who wish to remain union free.

Frustrated that workers are not voluntarily choosing to join or be represented by unions, union officials have increasingly turned to bullying employers into actively aiding unions in imposing unionization on employees through so-called “partnership” and “neutrality” agreements. Through these “top-down” organizing techniques, employees are denied the opportunity to determine their union status through the less-abusive, NLRB-supervised secret ballot election process.

Washington, D.C. (April 22, 2004) – Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a national workplace rights advocacy group, issued the following statement regarding today’s House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations hearing titled “Developments in Labor Law: Examining Trends and Tactics in Labor Organization Campaigns”:

“Unable to persuade employees to support unionization voluntarily, union organizers now frequently use what amounts to economic blackmail to pressure companies to sign backroom ‘neutrality agreements’ which hand a company’s employees over to compulsory unionism – contrary to employees’ wishes.

“These often coerced deals strip workers of the opportunity to vote in a secret ballot election, grant union operatives sweeping access to the workplace (as well as employees’ confidential personal information), and enable union organizers to make unwelcome home-visits and use other pressure tactics to elicit signatures on union authorization cards. Employees are also often subjected to mandatory ‘captive audience’ speeches threatening possible job loss and other retaliation if they fail to sign the cards.

“Despite more than a dozen formal allegations of abuse by workers across the country challenging the validity and implementation of these coercive agreements, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) bureaucracy has so far failed to take action.

“NLRB General Counsel Arthur Rosenfeld has the power to ameliorate this problem by issuing complaints, but regrettably, he has not been called to testify today. Without immediate action by the NLRB, American workers stand to lose what few rights they currently enjoy under federal labor law to determine their own union status.

“While we certainly welcome any effort to bring attention to this important issue, Congress should hold additional hearings that lay bare the ugly realities of top-down organizing, call Mr. Rosenfeld to explain the NLRB’s refusal to act, and receive testimony from several of the countless thousands of rank-and-file employees who have had their rights trampled upon by top-down organizing tactics.”

Click here to read the testimony that National Right to Work Foundation Staff Attorney Glenn Taubman gave to the Subcommittee.

Buffalo, N.Y. (April 20, 2004) — A teaching assistant (TA) at the State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo campus today filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against a Communications Workers of America (CWA) union affiliate for illegally deducting compulsory dues from the paychecks of all nonunion SUNY TAs in New York State without properly disclosing the union’s expenditures.

Gregory Ball, a computer programming teaching assistant, filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. Ball alleges that CWA Local 1104 union officials intentionally seized the forced union dues without first providing the notices, procedures and the independently audited financial disclosure required in a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Such actions flagrantly violate protections established under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution intended to ensure that employees are not forced to pay for ideological and other non-collective bargaining activities they may oppose.

Ball is asking the court to enjoin CWA officials from collecting forced dues from any nonunion employees represented by Local 1104 until they provide an audited accounting as to how compulsory union dues are spent, and the other required procedures that protect the First Amendment rights of nonmembers.

In addition, Ball seeks class-action status for his case, as well as restitution for all similarly situated employees in the SUNY system in the form of a refund of all past agency fees collected since April 2001. If the court grants class-action status, a remedy in Ball’s case could potentially benefit all past, present, and future nonunion SUNY employees forced to pay those fees– a number estimated to be in the hundreds.

“Union officials simply want employees like Gregory Ball to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Unfortunately, without the protections of a Right to Work law, New Yorkers can be forced to pay compulsory union dues or risk losing their jobs.”

Under New York state law, though public employees may not join or resign their formal union memberships, union officials may still automatically deduct an “agency fee” from their paychecks.

However, as detailed in the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must first provide an audited disclosure of the union’s books. Such audits are intended to assure that forced union dues seized from nonunion teachers and other public school employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

Los Angeles, Calif. (April 15, 2004) – Federal charges filed by several employees of Albertson’s grocery chain who face retaliatory fines for refusal to engage in illegal “sympathy strike” activity have forced union officials to waffle. Nevertheless, retaliation continues against many workers that refused to obey the illegal strike order.

Teamsters Local 952 union officials have been socking employees with confiscatory fines –$1,600 per employee – simply for the act of following the union’s own “no strike” contract with Albertson’s. The targeted employees had simply continued to report to work during the recent statewide grocery strike ordered against Albertson’s, Vons, and Ralphs by the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

With the help of National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Juan Saldana and several other Albertson’s distribution center employees filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after Teamsters union officials imposed $1,600 fines for refusal to abandon their jobs.

After the charges were filed, union officials dropped the discipline for some employees – but then inexplicably reinstated the fines. Other employees are seeing their fines dropped as a result of the charges.

Saldana and his coworkers allege that Teamsters Local 952 officials unlawfully failed to inform workers of their rights to refrain from formal union membership and to object to paying for the union’s nonrepresentational activities, such as electoral politics. The charges state that union officials also misled workers by telling them they had to sign automatic dues deduction cards, pay full union dues, and remain full members as a condition of employment.

Furthermore, Teamsters union officials told Saldana that they would “have his union card pulled” and that he would be fired if he refused to violate the union’s own “no-strike” policy, and strike against his employer.

“Teamsters union officials have been waging an ugly and illegal campaign of retaliation against workers who decided to honor their commitments to their families and their employer by refusing to walk off the job,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.

In November 2003, Saldana and his coworkers learned from sources independent of the union of their rights to refrain from formal union membership and be forced to pay no more than the union’s proven collective bargaining costs. Once the workers resigned their formal memberships, union officials again misled them by informing the workers that their resignations would have to be renewed annually.

The actions of Teamsters union officials violated worker protections recognized in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck, a case argued and won by Foundation attorneys. Under the Beck ruling, workers may not be compelled to pay dues beyond the union’s proven collective bargaining costs, and they are entitled to an independent audit of union expenditures.

High Point, N.C. (April 14, 2004) – A Freightliner employee at the Thomas Built Bus facility filed federal charges today against his employer and local union officials for jointly coercing the plant’s workers to accept an unwanted union. Receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Thomas Built worker Jeff Ward filed the unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Bowing to pressure brought by United Auto Workers (UAW) union operatives, Thomas Built signed a so-called “neutrality agreement” that included a prohibition of the traditional and less abusive secret ballot election process in favor of a coercive “card check” campaign. Under the agreement, union organizers were given full access to employees’ personal information and company facilities to browbeat workers into signing union recognition cards that were counted as “votes” for unionization.

In addition, all employees were forced to attend multiple “captive audience” speeches akin to union rallies, held on company time, in which Thomas Built and UAW union officials had workers sign such cards. Workers were also told that efforts to revoke any previously signed cards would be disregarded.

After UAW officials claimed that a majority of workers had signed recognition cards in mid-March, the union was installed by Thomas Built as the monopoly representative of all 1,100 workers at the plant. The NLRB will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint.

“Freightliner and UAW officials pulled the rug out from underneath workers by corralling them into unwanted union representation without so much as a secret ballot vote,” stated Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Since employees are increasingly rejecting union membership when given a true choice, union officials are cutting back-room deals with companies to help bully workers into compulsory unionism.”

Meanwhile, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are currently assisting two Gaffney, South Carolina, Freightliner employees that filed charges against Freightliner, Daimler-Chrysler, and the UAW union for withholding pay raises as part of a strategy to coerce employees into ceding to unionization. Those charges are currently pending with NLRB General Counsel Arthur Rosenfeld in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. (April 6, 2004) – Two Dana Corp. employees today filed federal charges challenging an unlawful provision within the master agreement between the “Big Three” auto makers (General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, and Ford) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union that pressures “tier one” suppliers to help forcibly unionize employees.

The charges attack an increasingly common “top-down” organizing tactic that is used to short-circuit traditional grassroots-driven union organizing drives and bypass the less-abusive secret ballot election process. The workers allege that the UAW union’s “good corporate citizen policy” and other contract clauses are, in effect, an illegal “secondary boycott” provision that requires “Big Three” parts suppliers to assist union organizers or lose their significant sales contracts.

With free legal aid from attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Dana Corp. workers Gary Smeltzer and Joseph Montague filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the UAW union. Smeltzer and Montague, employees at Dana Corp.’s St. Johns, Michigan, plant currently face a UAW union organizing drive precipitated by the national agreement.

Facing pressure from the “Big Three” and the “good corporate citizen policy,” Dana signed a so-called “neutrality agreement” with the UAW. The agreement requires the company to deny employees an opportunity to vote in a traditional secret ballot election, gives union organizers employees’ private information including home addresses, and subjects employees to a highly coercive card-check recognition process which includes “home visits” and other intimidation of employees into signing the cards. (If a majority of the employees are successfully pressured to sign the cards, the union hierarchy is granted “exclusive representation” power and the employees are ultimately forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.)

“The UAW union’s so-called ‘good corporate citizen policy’ is nothing more than a coded statement that if you do not grease the skids for unionization at your company, you will lose your business with the Big Three,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Since employees are increasingly less likely to opt in favor of unionization when actually given a chance to vote their consciences, union organizers have resorted to harassment, bullying, and other tactics.”

The NLRB’s regional director will investigate the employees’ unfair labor practice charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint.

Miami, Fla. (April 6, 2004) — Three nonunion security officers at the Miami Federal Courthouse hit United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA) Union Local 131 officials with a lawsuit today for illegally ordering them to pay union dues to keep their jobs in violation of state law.

With free legal aid from attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Cynthia Vitale and two coworkers filed the lawsuit in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Dade County, Florida. The security guards allege UGSOA officials’ actions violated Florida’s Right to Work law, which prohibits the practice of forcing employees to join or pay dues to an unwanted union.

“UGSOA officials’ actions show they are more concerned with stuffing their coffers with union dues than respecting the rights of employees they seek to ‘represent,’” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

Beginning in May 2003, UGSOA union officials posted several notices at the Miami Federal Courthouse claiming all security officers were required to either join the union or pay a non-member agency fee equivalent to 95% of full union dues. Vitale and her coworkers assert that UGSOA officials used the notices in order to pressure nonunion members into the union against their will.

Some of the notices also falsely claimed that the security officers worked on federal property and thus were not protected by Florida’s Right to Work law and could therefore be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment. While it is true that those employed on “exclusive federal property” are not covered by a state Right to Work law, only one such property exists in Miami, and Vitale and her coworkers perform the vast majority of their work on other properties.

“These bully tactics demonstrate why the vast majority of Florida workers are fortunate to labor in freedom and under the protections of a Right to Work Law,” stated Gleason.

Sacramento, Calif. (April 2, 2004) — A United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of California has ruled to allow more than 2,800 California state employees to reclaim money illegally confiscated for politics and other activities by officials from the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) union.

After admittedly spending most of its revenues on politics, PECG union officials must now give all non-union engineers a new opportunity to retroactively object and reclaim the portion of their forced dues spent for union activities unrelated to collective bargaining. Additionally, the court ruled that union officials failed to provide an independent audit of the union’s books and records, and must do so immediately.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys originally filed the class-action suit, Hoirup v. PECG, in March 2002 on behalf of Donald Hoirup, an employee of the California Department of Conservation California Geologic Survey in Sacramento. The U.S. District Court order requires PECG union officials to provide all nonunion workers a notice of their right to object to paying fees equal to membership dues and collect a refund of all past illegally seized dues, with interest, no later than June 21. The amount that each objecting worker will receive will vary according to their length of employment.

“This ruling holds some of California’s government union officials to account for trampling workers’ rights,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “However, as long as the state’s union officials have the government-granted privilege to order workers to ‘pay up or be fired,’ such abuses will inevitably continue.”

The PECG is one of California’s most politically active unions. Union officials have seized compulsory dues from workers and used them to fund ballot initiatives and other political activities. According to the union’s own records, over three-fourths of PECG’s $8.1 million annual budget for the year 2000 was used for political activities.

On April 1, 1999, the newly elected Governor Gray Davis signed the union pact that forced all workers to pay illegally high dues to PECG union officials.

According to the constitutional protections construed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foundation-won decisions of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association, union officials may not collect compulsory dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining. Politics, lobbying, public relations, and other non-bargaining activities are non-chargeable to employees who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership. Moreover, under the Foundation-won Chicago Teachers v. Hudson decision, union officials must provide an independent audit of the union’s expenditures to all non-union members as a precondition to collecting any compulsory dues.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (March 30, 2004) — Despite a previous vow to appeal, Teamsters Local 377 officials at the Youngstown St. Elizabeth Health Center will not contest an order by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to end pervasive unfair labor practices against local workers. With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the workers originally filed federal charges in 2001 against union officials for refusing to accept their resignations and for failing to properly notify them of their right to refrain from paying dues to subsidize union political activities.

In February, the ALJ of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) effectively granted the case “class-action” status, determining that Teamsters officials had failed to inform all 900 workers in the bargaining unit of their rights. In a surprising reversal, the union hierarchy has officially decided not to appeal, and all such workers are entitled immediately to receive a refund of dues collected for political and other non-collective bargaining activities, with interest. In addition, all workers who paid dues for periods when no contract was in effect are entitled to full reimbursement.

Although the NLRB Office of Compliance will determine the exact amount each individual worker may reclaim, estimates of the total amount of refunded dues and interest range up to $360,000.

“While Teamsters union officials were willing to raid workers’ paychecks unlawfully in private, they have chosen publicly not to defend their actions,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Their blatant disregard for workers’ rights shows the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from a system of forced unionism.”

Officials of the Youngstown-based union illegally refused to accept employees’ written resignations from union membership and told employees that they must pay all “back dues” before the union would even consider their resignations. Union officials also demanded the firing of workers for refusal to pay dues, without first informing them of their right to become objecting nonmembers, and pay a reduced amount of forced dues. Local Teamsters union officials also used payroll deductions unlawfully to collect dues for periods in which there was no valid forced unionism clause.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision, workers may resign from formal union membership at any time and not pay forced dues beyond the union’s proven collective bargaining costs. Under the ALJ’s decision, Teamsters Local 377 officials must inform Health Center workers of these rights, rescind a threatening letter, and allow all employees to collect retroactive refunds.

Goshen, Ind. (March 26, 2004) – A majority of employees at Cequent Towing Product’s Goshen facility have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking that local union officials be stripped of their newly granted “exclusive representation” power over roughly 450 of the company’s employees. The petition was filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.

More than 230 workers signed the petition, which was given to Cequent before it recognized the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union as their “exclusive bargaining representative” earlier this week. As a result of that recognition, employees were denied the opportunity to vote on union status through a secret ballot. If a decertification election is allowed and is successful, all Ceuqent employees then would be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment, and would not be forced to pay union dues.

The workers who signed the petition each declared that they do not want USWA officials bargaining on their behalf, revoked any previously signed union recognition cards, and asked for a secret ballot election on their union status. Under federal labor law, petitioning employees need only obtain signatures from 30 percent in the bargaining unit to trigger a decertification election.

“Workers should have the right to cast off the unwanted monopoly representation of union officials at any time,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “It’s an outrage that Cequent struck a backroom deal with USWA officials to deny them so much as a secret ballot vote.”

Earlier this week, the union was chosen by the employer pursuant to a so-called “neutrality” agreement and a “card check” authorization process – a process that bypasses a secret ballot election and allows union officials to bully workers one-on-one into signing union recognition cards. In recent years union organizers have had less success in persuading employees to vote in favor of unionization and have instead focused on eliciting employer support to corral workers into union collectives through methods that curtail employee free choice in the union recognition process.

Meanwhile, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are currently in U.S. District Court challenging the secret deal between Heartland Industrial Partners (Cequent’s parent company) and the USWA union that forces companies acquired under Heartland’s umbrella actively to help the union organize employees and ultimately force them to pay union dues as a job condition. In return, USWA officials pour unsuspecting workers’ trust funds into Heartland, promise to stifle certain employee rights under federal law, and limit employees’ ability to influence their own wages, benefits, and working conditions.