Fort Wayne, IN (September 24, 2014) – With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, two Fort Wayne Kroger workers filed a federal charge Monday against a local grocery union for violating their rights.

Eleanor Haynes and Barbara Peter filed the unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union Local 700 for ignoring their right to refrain from paying union dues.

Haynes and Peter resigned from the union and revoked their dues deduction authorizations — a document used by union officials to automatically collect dues from workers’ paychecks — effective with the expiration of the union’s contract with their employer. Under federal labor law, workers can unconditionally revoke their dues deduction authorizations when a contract between the union and their employer terminates.

Under Indiana’s popular Right to Work law, no worker can be required to join or pay any money to a union.

Despite the workers’ efforts to exercise their rights, UFCW Local 700 union officials continue to confiscate union dues payments from their paychecks.

«These two Kroger workers followed all necessary procedures to exercise their legally-protected right to resign their union membership and cut off union dues,» said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. «This case underscores just how important Indiana’s Right to Work law is for workers who want nothing to do with scofflaw union bosses.»

The charge will be investigated by the NLRB regional office in Indianapolis.

Twenty-four states have Right to Work protections for private-sector workers. Public polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans and union members support the Right to Work principle of voluntary unionism.

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.