Washington, DC (April 30, 2001) — The United States Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by International Association of Machinists (IAM) union lawyers to gut Virginia’s highly popular Right to Work law, a measure that prohibits forced unionism.

The ruling today ensures a broader application of Virginia’s Right to Work law as well as the payment of $135,000 in damages to the union-abused employee.

“IAM union lawyers so despise employee freedom and Virginia’s Right to Work law, they took their crusade all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason.

The High Court rejected IAM union lawyers’ petition for writ of certiorari, refusing to review a Foundation-won Virginia Supreme Court ruling in favor of Frederick Pusey who was fired for refusing to support the IAM union. IAM union officials had forced the firing of Pusey claiming that Virginia’s Right to Work law somehow did not apply to workers on NASA’s Wallops Island facility.

In some cases, federal property clearly is under exclusive federal jurisdiction, which precludes the application of state Right to Work laws. But in the Pusey case, union lawyers’ claim of federal enclave jurisdiction was based on a 1940 grant of federal jurisdiction to build and operate an air base to defend Norfolk’s naval facility during World War II.

Notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. Navy had abandoned the airfield and left the area in 1959, the union lawyers argued that it remained an exclusive federal enclave. After Foundation attorneys sued both the IAM union and Pusey’s employer, Accomack County Circuit Court Judge Glen Tyler rejected the union argument as «not credible,» finding that any claim to exclusive federal jurisdiction had long since lapsed. In December 1999, a jury ordered the union to pay Pusey $135,000 in damages and back pay. Last year, by refusing to hear an appeal from union lawyers to throw out the lower court’s ruling, the state’s highest court upheld the damage award to Pusey. Union lawyers almost immediately appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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.