COLUMBUS, Ind. (April 26, 2001) — Three Cosco, Inc. employees filed federal charges today against a powerful local union for threatening to end their careers in apparent retaliation for exposing the union’s illegal scheme to collect forced union dues.

In a previous federal case which resulted in a settlement agreement, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys forced United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 1155 union officials to stop illegally seizing forced union dues from the workers who had been «grandfathered» out of doing so under the union’s collective bargaining agreement.

Foundation attorneys filed today’s unfair labor practice charges on behalf of Douglas Brown, Ronald Venable, and Kenneth Witt with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Local 1155 union officials for violating the terms of that settlement by demanding that the employees be fired for not paying forced union dues under a prior collective bargaining agreement, reaching back to 1996. Under the settlement, union officials were barred from demanding forced union dues prior to October, 2000.

«Union officials are out for revenge,» said Randy Wanke, Director of Legal Information for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. «They want to put these brave employees out on the street for exposing the union’s illegal scheme.»

The employees first filed federal charges in 1997 against Local 1155 officials, under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision, for using a portion of their forced dues for politics.

Upon further investigation into that case, Foundation attorneys discovered that the collective bargaining agreement at Cosco did not authorize the seizure of forced union dues at all between July 26, 1998 – October 20, 2000 from employees who were not members of the union. Union officials have since amended the collective bargaining agreement to force all nonmembers to pay union dues.

Foundation attorneys are seeking an immediate injunction prohibiting union officials from ordering Cosco management to fire these employees.

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.