Largo, Maryland (May 17, 2001) — Denise Mack has filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against local union officials for demanding that she be fired for refusing to give in to their illegal demands for more than $1,000 in forced union dues.

Last month, Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), Local 2 officials ordered Mack to pay what they called «back dues» for a two-year period in which she worked at a Kaiser Permanente Medical Group office in Virginia. But under Virginia’s Right to Work law, there was no requirement that Mack, who was not a member of the union, pay any union dues during that period.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed the charges on behalf of Mack, now employed at Kaiser Permanente’s Largo, Maryland, office, with the National Labor Relations Board against the OPEIU Local 2.

«This is a flagrant attempt by union officials to swindle Mack and skirt Virginia’s highly popular Right to Work law,» said Randy Wanke, Director of Legal Information for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. «It’s also obviously designed to send a message to Kaiser Permanente employees in Virginia – ‘pay up now, or we’ll get the money from you when you’re transferred to Maryland.'»

The OPEIU Local 2 union has «exclusive representation» power over Kaiser Permanente’s Virginia and Maryland employees. Last December, Mack was transferred to Maryland where union officials began demanding forced union dues from her paycheck. Maryland is not a Right to Work state. On April 18, an OPEIU Local 2 union official sent Mack a letter demanding that she pay a total of $1,153.04 in reinstatement fees and «back union dues» from February 1998 – February 2000, a time period in which she worked in Virginia, or be fired.

Foundation attorneys are seeking an immediate injunction to stop OPEIU Local 2 union officials from seizing any dues or from having Mack fired. They are also seeking to force the union to return any forced dues seized as a result of their illegal threats and to have union officials held in contempt for violating an earlier NLRB judgment against them.

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.