PALO ALTO, Calif. (March 11, 2002) — Ending a year-long union legal assault and harassment campaign against a nurse who refused to abandon her critically ill patients during a strike at Stanford Hospital, the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, has dismissed a union-levied $2,500 fine.

The Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement (CRONA) union levied the retaliatory $2,500 fine on nurse Barbara Williams when she would not walk off the job in a June 2000 strike. With the help of National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Williams beat the fine by arguing that it was arbitrarily assessed, and the union’s own bylaws did not allow it.

“Rather than punish Barbara Williams, she should have been rewarded as a hero and a credit to her profession,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “She had the courage to put her patients needs first rather than the union officials’ agenda.”

In addition to the protracted legal battle with the union, Williams has faced extensive harassment by union activists in the hospital since she refused to walk off the job.

Asked by a local newspaper why she worked during the strike, Williams answered, “I am a professional and I cannot abandon my patients. I think it is wrong, morally and ethically. I don’t want to be a part of any organization that promotes this.”

The case points up the growing trend of abuse in the health care industry that results from increasing unionization of nurses and other medical professionals.

Meanwhile, National Labor Relations Board investigators recently found that CRONA union officials had violated Barbara Williams’ Beck rights. Under Beck, a Supreme Court case that Foundation attorneys argued and won in 1988, workers who are not protected by a Right to Work law may resign from formal union membership and withhold the portion of forced union dues spent on politics and other activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

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.