On Thursday, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys asked the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) General Counsel to reinstate federal charges challenging a common and illegal union tactic in the entertainment industry.

Foundation attorneys are helping an independent contractor who occasionally works as a "daily hire" for ABC.

The monopoly bargaining contract between the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) union and ABC contains a forced-unionism clause mandating that "daily hires" join the union or pay so-called agency dues to the union "after twenty (20) days of employment in one year or thirty (30) days employment in two consecutive years."

But the National Labor Relations Act clearly states that union officials may only begin compelling the payment of dues after thirty days of actual employment, a so-called "grace period" from the unjust practice. But Brain Johnson, the independent contractor who filed the unfair labor practices charges, has never worked close to 30 days consecutively and is in fact a "daily hire" for the entertainment company.

As Foundation attorney W. James Young explains in the letter of appeal, NLRB precedent indicates that "an employee has a right to a new grace period when an employer rehired him unless the employee was delinquent in dues when previously employed by that employer." Because Johnson had never surpassed 30 days of employment with ABC, he could never have been delinquent, and thus the NABET union cannot force him to pay dues.

But the NLRB’s Regional Director in New York refused to prosecute the union for misrepresenting his rights and obligations under federal labor law. Amazingly, the Regional Director even ignored NLRB precedent from her own region that held a similar forced-dues clause facially invalid.

Young urges the NLRB’s General Counsel to reverse the Regional Director’s outrageous and desperate attempt to back the union position in this case, sidestepping the core, and potentially far-sweeping issue in the case.

Click here to read the full text of the letter of appeal.