News Release: Civil Servants Slap Government Union Bosses With Second Federal Suit for Illegal Forced Dues Scheme
Civil Servants Slap Government Union Bosses With Second Federal Suit for Illegal Forced Dues Scheme
Right to Work Foundation attorneys challenge union hierarchy for repeatedly flaunting employees’ constitutional rights
Lancaster, PA (August 3, 2011) – Eight public employees have filed a second federal lawsuit against a local union and the Borough of Ephrata for illegally confiscating union dues payments from their paychecks in unconstitutional amounts and without following federal requirements.
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, who previously provided the employees with free legal aid in their first lawsuit, filed the suit yesterday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia.
The borough employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1600 union, previously asked the court to protect their National Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and other cases.
In Abood, the High Court ruled that although nonmember public employees can be forced to pay some union dues, they cannot be forced to pay for union politics and other union activities unrelated to bargaining. IBEW Local 1600 union officials were compelling the employees to paying a whopping 99.51 percent of full union membership dues before the lawsuit was settled.
Civil Servants Slap Government Union Bosses With Second Federal Suit for Illegal Forced Dues Scheme
Lancaster, PA (August 3, 2011) – Eight public employees have filed a second federal lawsuit against a local union and the Borough of Ephrata for illegally confiscating union dues payments from their paychecks in unconstitutional amounts and without following federal requirements.
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, who previously provided the employees with free legal aid in their first lawsuit, filed the suit yesterday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia.
The borough employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1600 union, previously asked the court to protect their National Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and other cases.
In Abood, the High Court ruled that although nonmember public employees can be forced to pay some union dues, they cannot be forced to pay for union politics and other union activities unrelated to bargaining. IBEW Local 1600 union officials were compelling the employees to paying a whopping 99.51 percent of full union membership dues before the lawsuit was settled.
The employees are also asking the court to protect their National Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, which requires union officials to comply with specific due-process and disclosure requirements (such as an independently-audited financial breakdown of all forced dues union expenditures) before seizing forced dues from nonmembers. IBEW Local 1600 union officials are taking 90.68 percent of full union dues, which the charge states, includes amounts not constitutionally chargeable under the Abood line of cases.
The employees are again suing to obtain refunds of the amount of forced union dues payments illegally taken from their paychecks, plus interest.
«IBEW union bosses are deliberately keeping rank-and-file workers in the dark to keep their forced-dues gravy train going,» said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation Legal Information Director. «Pennsylvania should adopt a Right to Work law so independent-minded employees do not have to jump through legal hoop after legal hoop just to find out what they are being charged for.»
Bridgeport Police Officer Wins Settlement Forcing Union Officials to Return Illegally Confiscated Dues
Bridgeport, CT (August 1, 2011) – With the help of National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, a local police officer has reached a settlement with two unions and the City of Bridgeport after filing suit to reclaim illegally-confiscated union dues.
The agreement requires the Bridgeport Police Local 1159 and Council 15 AFSCME, AFL-CIO unions to refund all illegally-seized dues to William Bailey, a nonunion police officer.
Although Bailey is not a union member, all Bridgeport police officers are subject to a monopoly bargaining agreement between the city and the Bridgeport Police Local 1159 and Council 15 AFSCME, AFL-CIO unions. After resigning his union membership in 2007, Bailey indicated that he wished to opt-out of dues unrelated to workplace bargaining in 2011.
Because Connecticut has not passed a Right to Work law, state employees can be forced to pay some union dues as a condition of employment. However, the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision Teachers Local 1 v. Hudson holds that public employees must be notified how much of their dues are spent on union activities unrelated to collective bargaining – such as members-only events and political activism – and given the opportunity to opt out of paying for those activities.
Despite this precedent, the City of Bridgeport seized, and union operatives collected, the equivalent of full union dues from Bailey’s paycheck since January 2011.
“We’re happy to report that William Bailey will reclaim some of his earnings, but litigation is no substitute for a law that protects workers’ rights,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Until Connecticut makes union membership and dues payment completely voluntary by passing a Right to Work law, similar abuse will continue elsewhere, unchecked.”
News Release: Worker Advocate Asks Federal Labor Board to Uphold Precedent Disallowing Forced Unionization of Grad Students
Worker Advocate Asks Federal Labor Board to Uphold Precedent Disallowing Forced Unionization of Grad Students
Foundation files brief supporting university teaching assistants’ First Amendment freedom of association
Washington, DC (July 29, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation filed an amicus curiae («friend of the court») brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking the Board to uphold its long-standing precedent to disallow union officials to corral university graduate students working as teaching assistants into unwanted union affiliation.
Foundation attorneys filed the brief with the NLRB in a case involving United Auto Workers (UAW) union organizers’ attempt to forcibly unionize graduate students at New York University (NYU) in New York City and ultimately to force them to pay union dues to maintain their status.
Seven years ago, Foundation attorneys filed an amicus brief in a similar case involving the UAW union attempting to forcibly unionize teaching assistants at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In that case, the NLRB voted to return to its long-standing position of more than 50 years that teaching assistants have an academic, rather than economic, relationship with universities, and that teaching assistants are not “employees” as defined by federal labor law who can be subjected to union monopoly bargaining.
In their latest brief, Foundation attorneys argue that UAW union lawyers are using the NYU case as a means to overturn the Brown University case, even though the facts are different.
Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys undercut the union lawyers’ arguments for new precedent that establishes teaching assistants as employees of the university, because grades are the central form of compensation for graduate students who are paid to teach, research, or perform temporary work.
Worker Advocate Asks Federal Labor Board to Uphold Precedent Disallowing Forced Unionization of Grad Students
Washington, DC (July 29, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation filed an amicus curiae («friend of the court») brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking the Board to uphold its long-standing precedent to disallow union officials to corral university graduate students working as teaching assistants into unwanted union affiliation.
Foundation attorneys filed the brief with the NLRB in a case involving United Auto Workers (UAW) union organizers’ attempt to forcibly unionize graduate students at New York University (NYU) in New York City and ultimately to force them to pay union dues to maintain their status.
Seven years ago, Foundation attorneys filed an amicus brief in a similar case involving the UAW union attempting to forcibly unionize teaching assistants at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In that case, the NLRB voted to return to its long-standing position of more than 50 years that teaching assistants have an academic, rather than economic, relationship with universities, and that teaching assistants are not “employees” as defined by federal labor law who can be subjected to union monopoly bargaining.
In their latest brief, Foundation attorneys argue that UAW union lawyers are using the NYU case as a means to overturn the Brown University case, even though the facts are different.
Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys undercut the union lawyers’ arguments for new precedent that establishes teaching assistants as employees of the university, because grades are the central form of compensation for graduate students who are paid to teach, research, or perform temporary work. And Foundation attorneys question whether grades would ultimately become a mandatory subject of monopoly bargaining if paid graduate students were treated as employees for purposes of unionization.
«While the UAW may have Marxist dreams that students are ‘workers’ (as opposed to students), who will be in the vanguard of an economic revolution when the workers of the world unite, the fact remains that graduate students are students and not employees, and have little commonality of interest with most employees,» the Foundation pointed out in its brief.
Foundation attorneys also argue that allowing union officials monopoly bargaining power over all teaching assistants would violate the First Amendment freedom of association rights of dissenting teaching assistants, thereby undermining academic freedom.
«UAW officials’ strong-handed attempt to corral graduate students into unwanted union affiliation and force them to pay dues for unwanted union ‘representation’ can only be explained as that the UAW union bosses see the Board’s current makeup favorable to forced unionism,» stated Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. «This case shows that union officials will stop at nothing to collect forced dues — from government employees to private-sector workers and even graduate students.»
Grocery Clerk Files Charges against UFCW Local for Misleading Him into Signing Union Card, Paying Full Dues
Los Angeles, CA (July 26, 2011) – With the help of National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, a Granada Hills clerk has filed unfair labor practice charges against the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 union. The charges state that union officials misled him into joining the union and paying full dues.
Jordan Rosenfield, an employee at Ralph’s Grocery Company, is subject to a monopoly bargaining agreement between his employer and UFCW Local 770 union officials, which means he can be forced to pay union dues and accept UFCW “representation” as a condition of employment.
However, no employee can be lawfully forced to join a union as a condition of employment. Moreover, the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision Communication Workers v. Beck holds that nonunion employees must be given an opportunity to opt out of paying for union activities unrelated to workplace bargaining, such as members-only events and political activism.
Despite this precedent, Rosenfield was told that he had to join the union and pay full union dues after taking a job with Ralph’s in late May. On June 30, UFCW officials sent Rosenfield a letter threatening to have him fired if he refused to pay an initiation fee, a reinstatement fee, and two months worth of union dues immediately.
Rosenfield’s charges will now be investigated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency charged with administering private sector labor law.
“Unscrupulous UFCW bosses misled a 21-year old clerk into thinking he had to join up and pay full dues just to make a living,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “While we hope the NLRB will quickly put an end to this deceitful practice, the only way to protect workers’ rights it to make union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary, which is why California needs a Right to Work law.”
National Right to Work Foundation Announces New Addition to Legal Team
Springfield, VA (July 25, 2011) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced today that Geoffrey MacLeay, formerly of Longwood, Florida, has joined its legal staff.
MacLeay is a member of the Florida state bar and a 2007 graduate of the Emory University School of Law.
“Geoffrey MacLeay brings a real commitment to defending employee rights against the ongoing threat of compulsory unionism,” said Ray LaJeunesse, vice president and legal director of the National Right to Work Foundation.
“Geoff is already helping to further develop the Foundation’s litigation program to counter organized labor’s well-funded attack on individual worker rights – from its coercive ‘card check’ organizing campaigns to the misuse of employees’ compulsory dues for politics.”
As the newest addition to the Right to Work legal team, MacLeay will help build on the Foundation’s record of litigation against compulsory unionism, which includes several precedent-setting cases decided by the United States Supreme Court. National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys currently represent thousands of employees in nearly 200 active cases nationwide.
Before joining the Foundation, MacLeay worked for a public relations firm in Alexandria, Virginia, where he dealt with union issues, among others. Prior to that, he worked at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, also in Alexandria.
After graduating from law school, MacLeay practiced law with a firm in Winter Park, Florida. He received a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Tulane University in 2004.
Three Wisconsin Civil Servants Move to Intervene in Union Lawsuit to Support Walker Reforms
Madison, WI (July 19, 2011) – With the help of attorneys from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, three Wisconsin civil servants have moved to intervene in a union lawsuit against Governor Scott Walker. The lawsuit, filed by lawyers from the AFL-CIO and Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) union, challenges a recently-enacted law that would free public employees from paying union dues just to get or keep their jobs.
Foundation and Institute attorneys filed the motion today in United States District Court for Kristi Lacroix, a Wisconsin teacher at the LakeView Technology Academy, Nathan Berish, a teacher at Waukesha West High School, and Ricardo Cruz, a trust fund specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds.
Although Lacroix, Berish, and Cruz are not union members, their workplaces are subject to union monopoly bargaining, which means all three employees have been forced to pay union dues and accept union “representation” to keep their jobs.
Prior to the enactment of Wisconsin Act 10, the law union officials are challenging in court, Wisconsin civil servants could be forced to pay union dues and accept union workplace bargaining as a condition of employment. The new law, signed by Governor Walker, would prevent public sector union officials from collecting any money from nonunion workers, restrict union monopoly bargaining to the issue of employee wages, and end the use of taxpayer funded payroll systems for the collection of union dues.
Lacroix, Berish, and Cruz state that union officials are infringing on their freedom of association by forcing them to associate with and contribute money to organizations they have no interest in joining. They believe that their intervention is necessary to give voice to like-minded public employees while the lawsuit is being decided.
If granted, the employees’ motion to intervene would make them full participants in the lawsuit. LaCroix has already filed an amicus curiae brief opposing union lawyers’ attempt to block the law from going into effect.
“Many independent-minded civil servants have no interest in associating with or paying dues to public sector unions, and they deserve to have their voices heard because their rights are at stake in this case,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “We hope these civil servants will be allowed to participate in a lawsuit that has far-reaching implications for all Wisconsin public employees.”
Worker: Why I sued Labor Secretary Hilda Solis
Chris Mosquera, a Maryland county government employee filed a federal lawsuit in May with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys to stop the Obama Administration from allowing union bosses to conceal lavish and corrupt union expenditures from workers.
In today’s Washington Examiner, Mosquera discussed why he filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis:
As a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, I’m more knowledgeable than most about the ins and outs of union finance.
In fact, I’ve learned some interesting things about my own local’s spending habits over the years. Like the $2 million office condo they bought in Gaithersburg, or the fact that the president of my local makes over $200,000 a year, plus other undocumented benefits.
…
Disclosure is a simple but effective tool for fighting corruption and encouraging accountability. If union officials know their spending habits are part of the public record, they’ll be less interested in expensive getaways and more interested in effectively managing their members’ hard-earned dues.
Click here to read the entire op-ed.
For more of the Foundation’s coverage of the union-boss disclosures here, click here.
The Foundation relies completely on voluntary contributions from its supporters to provide free legal aid. To make a tax-deductible contribution in whatever amount, please click here.
The Right to Work: A Fundamental Freedom
The following article by National Right to Work Legel Defense Foundation President Mark Mix appeared in the June/July issue of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College sent each month to 1.9 million subscribers. The article is adapted from a lecture given at Hillsdale College in January 2011.
The Right to Work: A Fundamental Freedom
BOEING IS A GREAT AMERICAN COMPANY. Recently it has built a second production line—its other is in Washington State—in South Carolina for its 787 Dreamliner airplane, creating 1,000 jobs there so far. Who knows what factors led to its decision to do this? As with all such business decisions, there were many. But the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—a five-member agency created in 1935 by the Wagner Act (about which I will speak momentarily)—has taken exception to this decision, ultimately based on the fact that South Carolina is a right-to-work state. That is, South Carolina, like 21 other states today, protects a worker’s right not only to join a union, but also to make the choice not to join or financially support a union. Washington State does not. The general counsel of the NLRB, on behalf of the International Association of Machinists union, has issued a complaint against Boeing, which, if successful, would require it to move its South Carolina operation back to Washington State. This would represent an unprecedented act of intervention by the federal government that appears, on its face, un-American. But it is an act long in the making, and boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom.
Where does this story begin?
The Wagner Act and Taft-Hartley
In 1935, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), commonly referred to as the Wagner Act after its Senate sponsor, New York Democrat Robert Wagner. Section 7 of the Wagner Act states:
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.
Union officials such as William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and John L. Lewis, principal founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), hailed this legislation at the time as the “Magna Carta of Labor.” But in fact it was far from a charter of liberty for working Americans.
Section 8(3) of the Wagner Act allowed for “agreements” between employers and officers of a union requiring union membership “as a condition of employment” if the union was certified or recognized as the employees’ “exclusive” bargaining agent on matters of pay, benefits, and work rules. On its face, this violates the clear principle that the freedom to associate necessarily includes the freedom not to associate. In other words, the Wagner Act didn’t protect the freedom of workers because it didn’t allow for them to decide against union membership. To be sure, the Wagner Act left states the prerogative to protect employees from compulsory union membership. But federal law was decidedly one-sided: Firing or refusing to hire a worker because he or she had joined a union was a federal crime, whereas firing or refusing to hire a worker for not joining a union with “exclusive” bargaining privileges was federally protected. The National Labor Relations Board was created by the Wagner Act to enforce these policies.
During World War II, FDR’s War Labor Board aggressively promoted compulsory union membership. By the end of the war, the vast majority of unionized workers in America were covered by contracts requiring them to belong to a union in order to keep their jobs. But Americans were coming to see compulsory union membership—euphemistically referred to as “union security”—as a violation of the freedom of association. Furthermore, the nonchalance with which union bosses like John L. Lewis paralyzed the economy by calling employees out on strike in 1946 hardened public support for the right to work as opposed to compulsory unionism. As Gilbert J. Gall, a staunch proponent of the latter, acknowledged in a monograph chronicling legislative battles over this issue from the 1940s on, “the huge post-war strike wave and other problems of reconversion gave an added impetus to right-to-work proposals.”
When dozens of senators and congressmen who backed compulsory unionism were ousted in the 1946 election, the new Republican leaders of Congress had a clear opportunity to curb the legal power of union bosses to force workers to join unions. Instead, they opted for a compromise that they thought would have enough congressional support to override a presidential veto by President Truman. Thus Section 7 of the revised National Labor Relations Act of 1947—commonly referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act—only appears at first to represent an improvement over Section 7 of the Wagner Act. It begins:
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any and all such activities. . . .
Had this sentence ended there, forced union membership would have been prohibited, and at the same time voluntary union membership would have remained protected. Unfortunately, the sentence continued:
…except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158(a)(3) of this title.
This qualification, placing federal policy firmly on the side of compulsory union membership, left workers little better off than they were under the Wagner Act. Elsewhere, Taft-Hartley did, for the most part, prohibit “closed shop” arrangements that forced workers to join a union before being hired. But they could still be forced to join, on threat of being fired, within a few weeks after starting on the job.
Boeing’s Interest, and Ours
It cannot be overemphasized that compulsory unionism violates the first principle of the original labor union movement in America. Samuel Gompers, founder and first president of the AFL, wrote that the labor movement was “based upon the recognition of the sovereignty of the worker.” Officers of the AFL, he explained in the American Federationist, can “suggest” or “recommend,” but they “cannot command one man in America to do anything.” He continued: “Under no circumstances can they say, ‘you must do so and so, or, ‘you must desist from doing so and so.’” In a series of Federationist editorials published during World War I, Gompers opposed various government mandate measures being considered in the capitals of industrial states like Massachusetts and New York that would have mandated certain provisions for manual laborers and other select groups of workers:The workers of America adhere to voluntary institutions in preference to compulsory systems which are held to be not only impractical but a menace to their rights, welfare and their liberty.
This argument applies as much to compulsory unionism—or “union security”—as to the opposite idea that unions should be prohibited. And in a December 1918 address before the Council on Foreign Relations, Gompers made this point explicitly:
There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. This is his right no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right and no one can dare question his exercise of that legal right.
Compare Gompers’s traditional American view of freedom to the contemptuous view toward workers of labor leaders today. Here is United Food and Commercial Workers union strategist Joe Crump advising union organizers in a 1991 trade journal article: “Employees are complex and unpredictable. Employers are simple and predictable. Organize employers, not employees.” And in 2005, Mike Fishman, head of the Service Employees International Union, was even more blunt. When it comes to union organizing campaigns, he told the Wall Street Journal, “We don’t do elections.”
Under a decades-old political compromise, federal labor policies promoting compulsory unionism persist side by side with the ability of states to curb such compulsion with right-to-work laws. So far, as I said, 22 states have done so. And when we compare and contrast the economic performance in these 22 states against the others, we find interesting things. For example, from 1999 to 2009 (the last such year for which data are available), the aggregate real all-industry GDP of the 22 right-to-work states grew by 24.2 percent, nearly 40 percent more than the gain registered by the other 28 states as a group.
Even more dramatic is the contrast if we look at personal income growth. From 2000 to 2010, real personal incomes grew by an average of 24.3 percent in the 22 right-to-work states, more than double the rate for the other 28 as a group. But the strongest indicator is the migration of young adults. In 2009, there were 20 percent more 25- to 34-year-olds in right-to-work states than in 1999. In the compulsory union states, the increase was only 3.3 percent—barely one-sixth as much.
In this context, the decision by Boeing to open a plant in South Carolina may be not only in its own best interest, but in ours as well. So in whose interest is the National Labor Relations Board acting? And more importantly, with a view to what understanding of freedom?
Public Sector Unionism
As more and more workers and businesses have obtained refuge from compulsory unionism in right-to-work states in recent decades, the rationality of the free market has been showing itself. But the public sector is another and a grimmer story.
The National Labor Relations Act affects only private-sector workers. Since the 1960s, however, 21 states have enacted laws authorizing the collection of forced union dues from at least some state and local public employees. More than a dozen additional states have granted union officials the monopoly power to speak for all government workers whether they consent to this or not. Thus today, government workers are more than five times as likely to be unionized as private sector workers. This represents a great danger for taxpayers and consumers of government services. For as Victor Gotbaum, head of the Manhattan-based District 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said 36 years ago: “We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.”
How this works is simple, and explains the inordinate power of union officials in so many states that have not adopted right-to-work laws. Union officials funnel a huge portion of the compulsory dues and fees they collect into efforts to influence the outcomes of elections. In return, elected officials are afraid to anger them even in the face of financial crisis. This explains why states with the heaviest tax burdens and the greatest long-term fiscal imbalances (in many cases due to bloated public employee pension funds) are those with the most unionized government workforces. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin represent the worst default risks among the 50 states. In 2010, an average of 59.2 percent of the public employees in these nine worst default-risk states were unionized, 19.2 percentage points higher than the national average of 40 percent. All of these states except Nevada authorize compulsory union dues and fees in the public sector.
* * *
Fortunately, there are signs that taxpayers are recognizing the negative consequences of compulsory unionism in the public sector. Just this March, legislatures in Wisconsin and Ohio revoked compulsory powers of government union bosses, and similar efforts are underway in several other states. Furthermore, the NLRB’s blatantly political and un-constitutional power play with regard to Boeing’s South Carolina production line is sure to strike fair-minded Americans as beyond the pale. Now more than ever, it is time to push home the point that all American workers in all 50 states should be granted the full freedom of association—which includes the freedom not to associate—in the area of union membership.
Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.
