Lawsuit seeks to enforce Right to Work law provision that Wisconsin Attorney General Kaul refused to defend at the US Supreme Court last month

Burlington, Wisc. (June 4, 2019) – An employee at Packaging Corporation of America’s (PCA) Burlington, WI facility has just filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin against United Steelworkers Local 231 for enforcing a dues collection policy in violation of both federal labor law and a provision of Wisconsin’s Right to Work law.

According to Martin Carter’s lawsuit, which was filed with free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, United Steelworkers (USW) union agents subjected him to a dues checkoff authorization policy that violates federal law by being irrevocable for longer than one year, and violates Wisconsin’s Right to Work law by not allowing employees to stop dues deductions at any time with a 30-day notice.

According to the complaint, Carter believed upon being hired that signing off on the dues checkoff authorization was a condition of employment. When he tried to revoke that authorization later and exercise his rights under Wisconsin’s Right to Work law, which makes union dues and membership voluntary, union agents stonewalled his attempts deliver his revocation letter.

Carter’s lawsuit follows controversy surrounding Wisconsin’s new Democratic Attorney General, Josh Kaul. Last month Kaul withdrew the state’s petition asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that part of Wisconsin’s Right to Work law, which gives private sector employees the right to revoke their dues “checkoff” with 30 days’ notice, was preempted by federal labor law. Rather than defend Wisconsin’s law, Kaul sided with union officials whom reports show gave his campaign for attorney general more than $400,000 in direct contributions, with union affiliates being his seven largest contributors.

Kaul’s capitulation left standing a divided 2-1 U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision that federal law preempts states like Wisconsin from protecting workers seeking to stop dues payments. Carter’s lawsuit brings this issue back to federal court, potentially giving the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to decide an issue that it was blocked from considering when Kaul reneged on his campaign pledge to defend Wisconsin laws, even those passed under the Walker administration.

“Martin Carter’s case shows there are real worker victims of Attorney General Kaul’s dereliction of his duty to defend all of Wisconsin’s laws,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “As this case shows, union bosses play fast and loose with workers’ rights in their attempt to trap them into forced dues payments against their will, which is precisely why Wisconsin legislators enacted the Right to Work law’s provision giving workers the option of cutting off dues payments within 30 days of asking to do so.”

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 more than 250 cases nationwide per year.