MIT Grad Student Charges ‘Marxist’ Union with Illegal Forced Dues for Politics
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Five other MIT students also filed religious discrimination charges against radical UE
More clouds are gathering over at MIT as yet another graduate student targets the university with federal charges. She maintains the GSU union and MIT administration are illegally funneling student money into union politics.
BOSTON, MA – Following five Jewish students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) filing federal religious discrimination charges against the same union, the MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU-UE, an affiliate of the United Electrical Workers union) is now facing new federal unfair labor practice charges from civil engineering graduate student Katerina Boukin.
Under a series of controversial National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings, graduate students at private universities like MIT are treated as “employees” of the university who can be subjected to forced union “representation.” Boukin’s charges, filed at the NLRB with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, maintain that union officials are unlawfully seizing money from her research compensation to support union political activities she abhors.
Extremist Union Politics Foisted on Graduate Students
“GSU union officials are going above and beyond what is legal and are forcing me to pay for their political activities, including their opposition to Israel and promotion of Leninist-Marxist global revolution, that I find deeply offensive,” commented Boukin. “The GSU’s political agenda has nothing to do with my research as a graduate student at MIT, or the relationships I have with my professors and the university administration, yet outrageously they demand I fund their radical ideology.”
Boukin’s charges seek to enforce her rights under the Foundation-won 1988 CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision. This landmark ruling established that even in states like Massachusetts that lack Right to Work protections, union officials cannot legally compel individuals to pay for union expenses unrelated to bargaining activities, like union boss political activities.
According to Boukin’s charge, GSU union officials are violating the law by claiming she cannot exercise her rights under Beck because she missed a union-created annual “window period.” However, her charge asserts this restriction is blatantly illegal.
In fact, the GSU union was already forced to settle a prior Beck case, agreeing there to properly process students’ attempts to exercise their Beck rights. Boukin’s charges against the union argue that the union may be violating not only her rights but also the settlement it made with the NLRB.
GSU Union Bosses Also Charged for Illegal Religious Discrimination
MIT graduate student Will Sussman, along with fellow students Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky, and Adina Bechhofer, have also filed religious discrimination charges against the GSU union with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). They’ve also obtained free Foundation legal help.
The students, who are Jewish, oppose the union’s advocacy for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) anti-Israel movement. Despite asking union officials for legally-required religious exemptions from union dues payment, GSU officials denied their requests and even attempted to explain in letters how the students didn’t truly understand their faith.
As of this article, those EEOC charges remain pending against the GSU, with a federal lawsuit likely the next step if the union refuses to stop its illegal discrimination.
“Freedom of association is apparently a foreign concept to GSU union officials, who are flouting layers upon layers of federal law to compel students to fund their radical political agenda,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “However, both this case and Foundation attorneys’ cases for the five Jewish MIT graduate students show on a deeper level that the choice to provide support to a union should rest solely with workers, who may have sincere religious, political, or other objections to funding any or all of a union’s activities.”
MIT Grad Students Slam Union with Federal Discrimination Charges
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union hierarchy forcing students to pay dues, deny legally-required religious exemption
When Will Sussman declared his religious beliefs forbade him from supporting a union engaged in anti-Israel causes, GSU officials shamelessly (and illegally) went on demanding his money.
BOSTON, MA – “First, no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union . . . Secondly, the statements in your letter demonstrate that your objection to paying dues is based on your political views and not your religious belief.”
This was the brazen response of United Electrical (UE) union officials to five Jewish graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who sought legally-required religious accommodations to the forced payment of dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU, an affiliate of UE). The students, William Sussman, Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Adina Bechhofer, and Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky see funding the union as a violation of their Jewish faith due to, among other reasons, the union’s vocal support for the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement.
GSU Union, MIT Failed to Provide Religious Accommodations
“Jewish graduate students are a minority. We cannot remove our union, and we cannot talk them out of their antisemitic position — we’ve tried,” explained Sussman in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the situation. “That is why many of us asked for a religious accommodation. But instead of respecting our rights, the union told me they understand my faith better than I do.”
The students are now fighting back with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. In March, they each filed federal discrimination charges against UE and GSU with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), declaring that the union is “discriminating against me based on a failure to accommodate my religious beliefs and cultural heritage” and “discriminating against me based on national origin, race, cultural heritage, & identity.”
Because MIT officials are involved in enforcing GSU union bosses’ forced-dues demands on the students, Foundation attorneys also sent a letter to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, notifying her of the EEOC charges and warning that the university will face similar charges if it does not promptly remedy the situation.
The graduate students are only subject to the union’s forced-dues demands as a result of a controversial Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling, now being enforced by the Biden Labor Board, that deems graduate students at private universities to be “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act. As a result, the MIT graduate students are subjected to the GSUUE’s monopoly union control.
Foundation Attorneys Have Track Record of Defending Religious Objectors
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections, union officials in the private sector (which includes private educational institutions like MIT) generally have the power to compel those under their monopoly bargaining power to pay union dues or fees. However, as per Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, religious accommodations to payment of dues or fees must be provided to those with sincere religious objections.
For decades, Foundation staff attorneys have successfully represented religious objectors in cases opposing forced dues. While religious accommodations in these cases have varied, all of them forbid union bosses from demanding the worker pay any more money to the union.
Union Already Conceded Some Illegal Dues Practices
Sussman already dealt a blow against GSU officials in late February, when he forced union officials to settle federal charges he filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concerning the union’s dues demands. In those charges, Sussman asserted his rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which prevents union officials from forcing those under their control to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s core bargaining functions.
While the settlement required GSU union officials to send an email to all students under their control stating that they would now follow Beck, Sussman and his fellow students’ current EEOC charges seek to cut off all financial support to the controversial union, as is their right under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“GSU union officials appear blinded by their political agenda and their desire to extract forced dues,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Their idea of ‘representation’ apparently includes forcing Jewish graduate students to pay money to a union the students believe has relentlessly denigrated their religious and cultural identity.
“GSU union bosses’ refusal to grant these students religious accommodations is as illegal as it is unconscionable, and Foundation attorneys will fight for their freedom from this tyrannical union hierarchy,” Mix added.
