Verizon Employee Files Federal Charge Against CWA Union Officials for Ignoring Her Rights
Newport News, VA (October 6, 2011) – In the wake of the recent Communications Workers of America (CWA) union-boss instigated strike that grabbed national headlines, a Newport News, Virginia Verizon (NYSE: VZ) worker has filed federal charges against the union and company for violating her rights.
With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Williamsburg resident Monika Cassell filed unfair labor practice charges against the CWA union, its Local 2205, and Verizon for ignoring her right to refrain from paying union dues.
Upset by the CWA union officials’ order to strike, and desiring to continue working to provide for their families, Cassell and other Verizon employees resigned from the union and revoked their dues deduction authorizations – a document used by union officials to automatically collect dues from employees’ paychecks – while the union did not have a contract at their workplaces.
Under Virginia’s popular Right to Work law, no worker can be required to join or pay any money to a union; and under federal labor law, employees can revoke their dues deduction authorizations once a contract terminates.
However, Verizon continues to confiscate full union dues payments from the workers’ paychecks despite their attempts to opt out. And, CWA union officials continue to demand that Verizon keep taking union dues from the workers’ pay.
Cassell’s charges also challenge the CWA union’s dues deduction authorizations because those authorizations do not allow employees to revoke them when no contract is in effect, as federal law requires. Instead, Verizon is forcing the employees to pay full union dues for at least another year – the one-year anniversary of a new contract between the company and the CWA.
«Apparently at the behest of CWA union bosses, Verizon is refusing to honor Monika Cassell’s legally protected right to resign her union membership and cut off union dues,» said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. «It is indefensible that workers who resigned their union membership and continued to work to support their families in defiance of the CWA-ordered strike are now having their rights violated by company and union officials.»
Tennessee Teacher Wins Settlement that Refunds Union Dues Used for Controversial Political Activities
Polk County, TN (October 3, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Tennessee public school teacher has won a full refund of union dues from the Polk County Education Association (PCEA), Tennessee Education Association (TEA), and National Education Association (NEA) unions. The settlement results from a 2003 complaint filed in state court by Dewey Esquinance, who wished to become a member of the PCEA to participate in negotiations over his wages and working conditions without supporting the union’s political activities.
After a Polk County Circuit Court dismissed the case in 2004, the Tennessee Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and remanded the case back to the circuit court for further deliberations. Rather than go to trial, union lawyers later offered Esquinance a full dues refund, plus interest.
When the original complaint was filed, nonunion teachers at unionized schools were not permitted to vote on contracts between the union and their employer and therefore had no say over their wages and working conditions. After Esquinance joined the PCEA, however, he learned that most union members’ dues were funneled to the TEA and the NEA, the union’s state and national affiliates. These dues were then used to support a variety of political causes Esquinance found objectionable, including financial contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women.
Last summer, Tennessee state law was amended to abolish monopoly union bargaining for public school teachers, which prevented nonunion educators from having a voice at their workplace. As a result, Esquinance and other teachers like him no longer have to join a union to participate in negotiations over their wages and working conditions.
Despite these reforms, Esquinance continued to pursue his lawsuit against the PCEA and the TEA to recover the dues union officials had spent on political activities he found objectionable.
“We’re happy to report that Dewey Esquinance’s dues will finally be returned to their rightful owner,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Nonunion teachers shouldn’t have to join a union or financially support controversial political activism just to have a say in their workplace, which is why this settlement is a victory for Tennessee educators.”
Charter School Teachers and Employees: Know Your Rights!
Today, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has published its newest "Know Your Rights" page, this one geared to charter school teachers and employees who are forced to accept union officials’ "representation," even if the workers want nothing to do with the union.
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys compiled a list of rights charter school teachers and employees have in the workplace with the specific goal to enlighten charter school employees that they can make decisions in an atmosphere free of threats, harassment, coercion, or misrepresentation.
The Foundation is also publishing a new brochure (pdf) for workers who want to know more about their rights working in a unionized charter school workplace. You can download the tri-fold brochure here (pdf).
Worker Speaks Out Against Obama Labor Board Before Congress
In the wake of National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) move to kill the only protection workers have against card check forced unionism, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing yesterday about the recent onslaught of the NLRB’s pro-forced unionism rulings as former-Chairwoman Wilma Liebman’s term expired late last month.
Testifying at the hearing was Barbara Ivey, who works at a Portland, Oregon-based IT unit at Kaiser Permanente.
Ivey and 60 of her coworkers were subjected to a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) card check forced unionization campaign (via a neutrality agreement).
Many of Ivey’s coworkers reported that they were misled or pressured by SEIU organizers into signing union cards, and didn’t even know what they meant.
After the SEIU succeeded in gaining enough cards to claim monopoly bargaining privileges over the workers, the workers were told that if they didn’t like it, they could file with the NLRB for a secret-ballot decertification election (per Foundation-won precedent in Dana) to overrule the card check campaign and remove the unwanted union.
After leaning about her rights with the assistance of Foundation staff attorneys, Ivey collected the necessary amount of signatures on a petition for a secret-ballot election. But then, on August 26, 2011, the Obama NLRB overruled the Dana precedent in Lamons Gasket and the election was summarily cancelled.
Now, the employees in the Kaiser IT department are stuck with the SEIU for anywhere from one to four years before they will even have a chance to force a secret-ballot vote (and getting a decertification vote is a major uphill battle for employees who will have campaign against an entrenched union with full-time paid professional organizers).
Yesterday, Ms. Ivey shared with Congress her experiences with the unfairness of card check unionization and the one-sidedness of the Obama NLRB. You can read Barbara Ivey’s testimony by clicking here (pdf).
You can watch the video of the hearing here.
Right to Work: Good for Business, Good for Jobs, and Good for Workers
As reported on the Washington Examiner‘s "Beltway Confidential" blog, Development Counselors International (DCI) recently asked corporate executives and representatives which states they thought were the best to locate for business. As the Examiner notes, America’s job providers overwhelmingly favored states with Right to Work laws.
Of course this should come to no surprise. The results of DCI’s survey largely mirrors that of CNBC 2010 "Best for Business" list, in which states with Right to Work protections for its workers were ranked seven of the top 10 and 10 of the top 15.
But despite the economic benefits business enjoy from Right to Work, the real beneficiaries are America’s independent-minded workers. As the National Institute of Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has found time and again, workers and their families benefit immensely from Right to Work protections: from higher incomes and purchasing power to an increased likelihood of sending their children to college and having private, employment-based health insurance.
And most important of all, workers in Right to Work states get to exercise their fundamental freedom of association — a quintessential American value supported by 80 percent of Americans and even 80 percent of union members.
Worker Advocate Challenges Obama Labor Board Overreach in Federal Court
Worker Advocate Challenges Obama Labor Board Overreach in Federal Court
National Right to Work Foundation attorneys fight Labor Board’s decision to promote monopoly unionism in virtually every workplace in America
Washington, DC (September 16, 2011) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a federal lawsuit challenging the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) new rules governing the notification of employee rights in the workplace.
The new rules require every employer to post incomplete information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if they’ve never committed a violation or been accused of unfair labor practices. However, these rules do not require union officials to issue information about workers’ rights to refrain from union membership or opt out of union dues. Until the rule changes, which were implemented in late August, employers were required to post notices of workers’ rights only if a violation of labor law occurred.
National Right to Work Foundation attorneys believe the NLRB has exceeded its authority granted by Congress and violated free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. Attorneys from the National Federation of Independent Business are challenging the new rule in the same complaint on behalf of two member businesses, Southeast Sealing, Inc. and Lehigh Valley Racquet and 24/7 Fitness Clubs.
Worker Advocate Challenges Obama Labor Board Overreach in Federal Court
Washington, DC (September 16, 2011) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a federal lawsuit challenging the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) new rules governing the notification of employee rights in the workplace.
The new rules require every employer to post incomplete information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if they’ve never committed a violation or been accused of unfair labor practices. However, these rules do not require union officials to issue information about workers’ rights to refrain from union membership or opt out of union dues. Until the rule changes, which were implemented in late August, employers were required to post notices of workers’ rights only if a violation of labor law occurred.
National Right to Work Foundation attorneys believe the NLRB has exceeded its authority granted by Congress and violated free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. Attorneys from the National Federation of Independent Business are challenging the new rule in the same complaint on behalf of two member businesses, Southeast Sealing, Inc. and Lehigh Valley Racquet and 24/7 Fitness Clubs.
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the NLRB administers union certification and decertification elections and adjudicates cases when workers, employers, or union officials file unfair labor practice charges against either unions or companies. However, the NLRB is now forcing its way into as many as six million private-sector workplaces by inventing out of whole cloth a new unfair labor practice without Congressional approval. And anyone can file the unfair labor practice charge – not just the company’s employees.
No other federal agency has ever made it unlawful to fail to post a notice that wasn’t required by Congress. Any job provider that fails to post the biased notice could find itself forced into a lengthy and costly legal battle. And as a result, Mom and Pop shops, small businesses, larger companies – even some religiously-affiliated organizations – are now under the Obama Labor Board’s microscope and will feel the pressure to hand over their employees to forced unionism.
«Under these new rules, employers are essentially weaponized against workers,» said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. «This ‘divide and conquer’ strategy should erase all doubt that the biased and ideologically-charged Obama Labor Board has turned into an organizing tool for Big Labor set to do one thing: force more workers into paying union dues to keep their jobs.»
«The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is uniquely qualified to demonstrate that this one-sided rule is nothing more than yet another attempt by the Obama NLRB to force more workers into union ranks and stifle the rights of employees who want nothing to do with a union.»
News Release: California State Employees Lay Out Class-Action Lawsuit before Supreme Court
California State Employees Lay Out Class-Action Lawsuit before Supreme Court
Court to review Ninth Circuit decision requiring California state employees to contribute to union political fund
Washington, DC (September 14, 2011) – National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed the initial brief with the United States Supreme Court, which is reviewing a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that forced nonunion California state employees to fund union officials’ political activism.
Foundation attorneys, who are litigating the case, filed the brief Monday for the eight California civil servants who initiated a class-action lawsuit against the California State Employee Association (CSEA) union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
In 2005, CSEA union officials imposed a «special assessment» to raise money from all represented state employees for a union political fund, regardless of their membership status. The political fund was used to defeat several ballot proposals, including one that revoked public employee unions’ special privilege of using forced fees for political contributions unless an employee consents. Employees who refrained from union membership were given no chance to opt out of the CSEA union’s political fund.
California State Employees Lay Out Class-Action Lawsuit before Supreme Court
Washington, DC (September 14, 2011) – National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed the initial brief with the United States Supreme Court, which is reviewing a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that forced nonunion California state employees to fund union officials’ political activism.
Foundation attorneys, who are litigating the case, filed the brief Monday for the eight California civil servants who initiated a class-action lawsuit against the California State Employee Association (CSEA) union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
In 2005, CSEA union officials imposed a "special assessment" to raise money from all represented state employees for a union political fund, regardless of their membership status. The political fund was used to defeat several ballot proposals, including one that revoked public employee unions’ special privilege of using forced fees for political contributions unless an employee consents. Employees who refrained from union membership were given no chance to opt out of the CSEA union’s political fund.
Under the Right to Work Foundation-won Supreme Court decision Teachers Local 1 v. Hudson, public employees forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment must be notified of which part of their dues are spent on union activities unrelated to collective bargaining and be given an opportunity to opt out of paying for members-only events and union boss political activism.
In 2007, a federal district court ruled that the CSEA was required to provide a notice to nonunion employees about the assessment, allow them to opt-out of paying into the union political fund, provide a refund of monies spent on union-boss politics, and pay interest from the dates of the deductions to nonmembers who chose to opt out.
After CSEA union lawyers appealed the case, a Ninth Circuit panel reversed that decision in December 2010. On June 27, 2011, the United States Supreme Court announced it would review the Ninth Circuit’s ruling.
"Allowing the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to stand would further undermine state employees’ First Amendment rights and encourage union bosses to extract more forced dues from nonunion workers as a condition of employment," stated Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. "It is unconscionable for a court to force employees who want nothing to do with the union or its so-called ‘representation’ to subsidize union political activities."
