Croswell, MI (April 14, 2015) – An eastern-Michigan electrical worker has filed a federal charge against a local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union for using intimidation and coercion to stop workers from exercising their rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law.

With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Paramount Industries employee Ryan Greene filed the charge last week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Detroit.

Under Michigan’s Right to Work law, no worker can be forced to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment.

However, under a new policy issued October 1, 2014, IBEW Local 58 union officials require workers to show up in person and provide photo identification to exercise their rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law. According to the charge, Greene, who resigned his IBEW union membership and revoked his dues deduction authorization discovered the new policy through an arbitration the union brought against Paramount to force Greene to continue to be a dues-paying member.

Greene’s charge comes on the heels of a federal settlement won by CEVA Logistics U.S., Inc. truck driver Kathileen Sulkowski. Sulkowski filed a similar charge with the aid of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys in 2014 after United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600 union officials denied her request to resign her union membership and dues payments unless she show up in person and provide photo identification to exercise her right to refrain from union membership. Earlier this year, the NLRB initiated a prosecution of the UAW Local 600, spurring the settlement.

«Union officials continue to pull out all the stops to prevent workers from exercising their rights under Michigan’s Right to Work law,» said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. «IBEW union officials’ latest tactic requiring workers to show up in person and furnish photo identification is designed to dissuade or intimidate them from exercising their rights to refrain from membership.»

Foundation staff attorneys are assisting several workers in cases across Michigan challenging union officials’ schemes stonewalling workers attempts to exercise their rights under the state’s Right to Work law.

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.