WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 30, 2001) — The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced that approximately 71,000 communications workers are today being offered an opportunity to reclaim approximately $70 million in forced union dues illegally seized over nine years by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union for politics.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia forced CWA union officials to mail the rebate notice pursuant to the 1998 Foundation-won Abrams v. CWA ruling. In Abrams, the court found that union officials broke the law by failing to give workers lawful notice of their right to object to payment of full union dues, including dues spent for partisan political activities.

In the Foundation’s landmark case CWA v. Beck (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that no worker could be lawfully forced to become a formal, full-dues-paying union member and pay for any activities unrelated to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.

“CWA union officials should never have taken this money in the first place,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “Now they must return millions of dollars.”

The union must allow workers 30 days to retroactively request refunds, plus interest, for all dues between 1987 and 1995 that were used for purposes, such as politics, other than collective bargaining. Workers who think they might be eligible for the refund should contact the Foundation at 1-888-789-4255.

The CWA union’s disclosure over those years admitted that around 25 percent of full dues were not used for collective bargaining. This portion amounts to – on average – about $100 per worker, per year, before interest. Thus, many of the affected workers may be eligible for rebates up to as much as $900 for the full nine years. The court also ordered union officials to pay some 120,000 workers more than $500,000 in damages.

Kenneth Abrams and three other workers at Bell Systems-affiliated companies from Maryland and New Jersey originally filed the suit in 1987 in opposition to the union’s financing of its political agenda.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.