Armstrong, Pa. (May 14, 2002) – Facing religious discrimination charges, the state’s teacher union has begrudgingly agreed to honor the right of an Armstrong school teacher to refrain from paying dues to the union because the organization’s social advocacy violated his religious convictions.

Carl Glock, a practicing Christian, objected to association with the Armstrong Education Association (AEA) and its affiliates, the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and National Education Association (NEA), because of their support of resolutions calling for special legal protections for homosexuality, abdicating parental responsibility, and criticizing the practice of home schooling.

After filing charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Glock’s attorney, provided by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, helped persuade the union hierarchy to halt its discrimination by allowing Glock to donate his monthly agency fee to the Western Pennsylvania School for the Blind, rather than funding the AEA union and its affiliates.

“For far too long, union officials have ordered people of faith to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “It’s outrageous for the union hierarchy to demand that a teacher put allegiance to the union’s radical social agenda ahead of his conscience.”

The case arose when AEA officials would only donate a portion of Glock’s 1999-2000 dues to charity and intended to keep the rest. During the 2000-01 school year, the AEA refused to honor Glock’s status as a religious objector and confiscated his entire dues payment for the union. In response, Glock contacted the National Right to Work Foundation, which provided him with free legal representation.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs. To avoid the conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to accommodate the employee – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to accept the funds.

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.