Phoenix, AZ (April 14, 2015) – A Fry’s Food and Drugstore pharmacy technician and Arizona State University (ASU) student has filed a federal charge against the United Food and Commercial Worker (UFCW) Local 99 union for stonewalling his attempts to exercise his rights to refrain from union membership and dues payments under Arizona’s popular Right to Work law.

With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Phoenix resident Travis Prall filed the unfair labor practice charge last Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Under Arizona’s Right to Work law, no worker can be required to join or pay fees to a union as a condition of employment.

Prall, an ASU biology student, began working for Fry’s in December 2013. In January 2015, Prall, seeking to resign his union membership and revoke his union dues deduction form, made several calls to the union hierarchy to find the exact dates during which he could resign his union membership. He never received a response.

On February 3, Prall sent a letter to the union resigning his union membership. The next day, the union rejected his membership resignation because his letter did not contain a written signature. Prall immediately sent a second, signed letter in response. On February 24, UFCW Local 99 union officials sent a letter accepting Prall’s union membership resignation but denied his dues deduction authorization revocation because it did not fall in the union’s 15-day «window period.» However, UFCW union officials have still refused to inform Prall what the 15-day «window period» is.

«UFCW union bosses are stonewalling this student, who is working part-time to help pay his way through college, about how he can exercise his legally-protected right to resign from dues-paying union membership,» said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. «This blatant abuse of power by UFCW bosses must stop immediately.»

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

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.