Citizen Activist Wins Battle to Inform Keystone State Teachers of Their Constitutional Rights
Harrisburg, PA (September 30, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, citizen activist Simon Campbell has bested teacher union bosses in state court over his right to inform Pennsylvania’s nonmember teachers of their constitutional rights regarding union membership and dues payment.
Several years ago, Simon Campbell of Bucks County founded a group dedicated to the goal of making sure all public school children in the state have the legal right to a strike-free education after his own children were forced out of school in the wake of a debilitating union boss-instigated strike.
More recently, Campbell has requested that public school districts disclose the mailing addresses of teachers who have refrained from formal union membership with the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) union, but are still forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment because Pennsylvania does not have Right to Work protections for its workers.
Campbell wanted to advise the teachers about their rights under National Right to Work Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent, such as their right not to subsidize union boss activities other than collective bargaining and contract administration and their right to challenge the union hierarchy’s calculations regarding the amount of forced dues charged to nonmember teachers.
PSEA union officials sued the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records to block Campbell’s requests. Last week, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania rejected the PSEA union lawyers’ case. Campbell has now again begun the process of obtaining the mailing addresses he sought.
“Plain and simple, all Pennsylvania teachers deserve to know their constitutional rights,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “And many independent-minded teachers would greatly benefit from Simon Campbell’s efforts to inform them of their rights upheld under various Foundation-won Supreme Court precedents.”
“However, the best way to protect the rights of Pennsylvania’s teachers, and all workers in the Keystone State, is for Pennsylvania to pass a Right to Work law making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary,” added Semmens.
Circuit Court OKs Federal Lawsuit Aimed at Preventing Union Officials from Launching Coercive “Card Check” Drive
Boca Raton, FL (September 16, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Mardi Gras Gaming employee has won the right to proceed with a lawsuit aimed at halting a backroom deal in which his employer pledged to assist union organizers and agreed to a coercive card check organizing drive. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit overruled a prior District Court decision that held Martin Mulhall lacked standing to sue the Unite Here Local 355 union and Mardi Gras Gaming.
With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mulhall originally filed suit against Unite Here in 2008 for agreeing to support Mardi Gras Gaming’s efforts to obtain a gambling license in return for organizing assistance. In exchange for over one hundred thousand dollars in union dues spent on a gambling ballot initiative and a union guarantee not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility, Mardi Gras Gaming agreed to assist organizers’ efforts to push workers into union ranks. Company officials promised union operatives they would hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union officials access to Mardi Gras facilities for the purpose of organizing, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether employees actually wanted to unionize.
However, the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) explicitly prohibits employers from giving “any money or other thing of value” to unions. This rule is intended to prevent union operatives from agreeing to undermine workers’ rights in exchange for concessions from management. In his lawsuit, Mulhall argues that the company’s concessions to Unite Here are of substantial monetary value because they made the union organizing process easier and less expensive. The suit also alleges that Unite Here’s willingness to spend over a hundred thousand dollars to lobby on behalf of Mardi Gras Gaming demonstrates just how valuable the agreement is to union officials.
So-called “neutrality agreements” between companies and unions like the one agreed upon by Unite Here operatives and Mardi Gras Gaming give union organizers license to browbeat and intimidate workers into acceding to unionization. Armed with employees’ home addresses and access to company facilities, union officials frequently harass and cajole workers on and off the job until they agree to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization.
Although the District Court claimed that Mulhall’s suit could not proceed because he was in no danger of “imminent injury,” the Court of Appeals’ decision recognized that the union’s deal could infringe on employees’ rights to free association by forcing them to accept union monopoly bargaining. The ruling remanded the lawsuit to United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida for it to decide Mulhall’s complaint on the merits.
“Unite Here operatives agreed to a corrupt bargain that advanced union boss interests at the expense of individual workers’ rights,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “We’re happy to report that Martin Mulhall’s efforts to challenge this backroom deal will now go forward.”
Grand Rapids Press Calls on Federal Judge to Strike Down «Forced-Unionization Travesty»
Regular Freedom@Work readers may recall that National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are duking it out in federal court against government union lawyers over a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. In order to thank union bosses for their political support, Granholm handed all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions.
Granholm, following the Rod Blagojevich blueprint of forced-union organizing, directed state officials to grease the skids for union organizers to railroad the child-care providers under union boss control.
A courageous group of child-care workers asked National Right to Work for assistance, as some of them didn’t even know they were being forced into union dues-paying ranks until it was too late, and they want nothing to do with the union. This courageous group of workers filed a federal class-action lawsuit to challenge Granholm’s scheme as a violation of their Constitutional rights of free speech, free association, and their right to freely petition government for redress of grievances because, in effect, Governor Granholm is picking the lobbyists of Michigan’s child-care providers.
In mid-July, Foundation attorneys appeared in federal court in Grand Rapids and convinced the judge to proceed with the child-care workers’ case — despite state and union lawyers’ multiple attempts to have the case dismissed. Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Press called on the federal judge to strike down the forced unionism scheme. As the Grand Rapids Press explains:
Covert unionization violates basic constitutional rights of freedom of association. The formation of the union for Michigan child care providers four years ago was downright sneaky and unfair. A lawsuit in federal court, brought by some affected child care providers, objects to their being shoe-horned into unions — and forced to pay dues — against their will. In that suit, and in one brought in state courts, the child care providers have legitimate grievances. They should prevail.
The forced-unionization travesty occurred primarily because Michigan Democrats wanted to help the UAW and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pad their membership rolls.
In 2006, the UAW and AFSCME partnered to form a union called Child Care Providers Together Michigan. The union represents and draws dues from people who care for children from low-income families. The new union members belong either to the UAW or AFSCME, depending on the part of the state in which they live.
Whatever attempts were made to inform child care providers of the pending unionization must have been feeble at best. Only 15 percent of the state’s 40,000 dues-paying providers took part in the vote-by-mail certification election that formed the union. Fully 92 percent of those voting said yes to the union. But they hardly constitute a valid majority of all the now-dues-paying members. Hopefully, the federal lawsuit will uncover how this election was allowed to occur.
The low-income clients provided a rationale — though not a legitimate one — for the forced unionization. The argument is that because providers take public money in state subsidies for those clients, they are therefore public employees. Union dues are taken directly from the state subsidies, money that should go toward child care. The UAW and AFSCME receive 1.15 percent of the subsidies, amounting to more than $1 million a year.
To suggest that government grants make providers public employees is an epic stretch. The child care workers are employed by the parents who hire them. At best, they contract with the government for child care services for low-income clients.
…The suit in federal court, filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, challenges the unionization as a violation of the workers’ constitutional right to free association.
That is the crucial point.
Indeed. And UAW and AFSCME union bosses are funneling millions of dollars to the campaigns of pro-forced unionism politicians (such as Governor Granholm), and now those same politicians are forcing Michigan’s home-care providers to pay to the tune of $3.7 million into union boss coffers. If Foundation litigators are successful in federal court, the outcome can have a far reaching, national impact in rolling back Big Labor’s state-by-state push of forcing susceptible, unsuspecting home-care providers under union control.
Nurses’ Opposition Forces Union Operatives to Abandon Hahnemann University Hospital Organizing Drive
Philadelphia, PA (September 14, 2010) – After a two year organizing campaign aimed at forcing Hahnemann University Hospital nurses into union ranks, the California Nurses Association (CNA) union abruptly ceased its efforts to unionize the facility last month. The union’s organizing drive was marked by a legally-questionable agreement between CNA operatives and hospital management challenged by nurses represented by the National Right to Work Foundation.
Under a so-called “neutrality agreement” between hospital and union officials, CNA organizers were given preferential access to hospital facilities and Hahnemann supervisors were gagged from truthfully responding to nurses’ inquiries related to unionization. Despite these provisions, the union lost a consent election in July 2009.
During the organizing campaign, Right to Work attorneys helped Hahnemann nurses file legal challenges against the union’s abusive organizing strategy. When union officials threatened Kimberly Hummel with “private arbitration” for opposing the CNA’s presence, the Right to Work Foundation helped her file a complaint against the union’s heavy-handed threats with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Undeterred by their July 2009 election loss, CNA officials filed a series of election “objections” against the hospital for harassing union organizers. Union operatives also managed to convince hospital officials to agree to disregard the results and hold another unionization election. With the help of Foundation attorneys, another nurse stepped forward in January 2010 to file charges against CNA officials and Hahnemann for staging another unionization drive over the wishes of a majority of hospital employees.
Finally, CNA officials realized they did not have majority support and quietly withdrew their NLRB election petition in late August.
The Hahnemann University Hospital organizing campaign isn’t the first time CNA officials have faced legal challenges for suspicious organizing tactics or walked away when independent-minded nurses fought back. Several Houston-area medical professionals filed unfair labor practice charges against the union for crafting a similar “neutrality agreement” in Texas.
“Despite their best efforts to gag independent-minded nurses and cajole them into union ranks, CNA operatives have finally realized they aren’t wanted at Hahnemann University Hospital,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Coercive tactics and secret organizing pacts violate workers’ rights, so union officials’ loss is a win for employee freedom.”
Labor Day Recap: National Right to Work Exposes Big Labor’s Radical Agenda
Over the Labor Day weekend, columns by National Right to Work president Mark Mix appeared in newspapers across the country and online exposing Big Labor’s power grabs and coercive practices over American workers.
In Investor’s Business Daily Mix highlighted the extremism and ethics problems of Craig Becker, the Service Employee International Union’s (SEIU) inside man at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):
In the face of bipartisan opposition, Obama bypassed Congress and installed Becker at the NLRB through a recess appointment. Now that he’s established at the head of an agency responsible for overseeing American labor law, Becker is poised to expand Big Labor’s privileges even further.
Faced with apparent conflicts of interests brought to light by the National Right to Work Foundation, Becker quickly downplayed any connection to the SEIU, his longtime employer. Despite crafting legal strategies on behalf of that union for much of his career, Becker refused to recuse himself from several NLRB cases involving the SEIU’s local affiliates.
Despite his relatively brief tenure, Becker’s biases are already evident. In one recent case, Becker wrote that the board should consider waiving rules that require union bosses to provide workers with independently audited breakdowns of union expenditures.
On National Review Online, Mix outlined union militants’ stealth to bypass Congress to implement radical changes to labor law that grant new special privileges to union bosses at the expense of hardworking Americans:
By cramming the NLRB full of forced-unionism operatives, Obama has successfully laid the groundwork for a stealthy push to undermine the rights of American workers. The NLRB’s administrative agenda and electronic-voting schemes now threaten to undo much of the hard work that went into defeating card-check legislation.
Some doubt that such sweeping changes could be enacted without congressional approval, but we’ve already seen Big Labor’s strategy in action. The National Mediation Board (NMB), a federal agency that governs airline and railway employees, has just enacted a far-reaching rule change that allows for workplace unionization without the consent of a true majority of employees.
Mix exposed Big Labor’s plot to monopolize government-sector workers in the Washington Times:
The outsized power and privileges of government union bosses clearly are a major force behind the unsustainable growth of government payrolls. According to data furnished by respected labor economists Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, nonunion government employment nationwide actually fell by 2 percent, but Big Labor-controlled government employment grew by nearly 4 percent from 2007 to 2009.
Government union bosses’ success in expanding the ranks of employees under their monopoly bargaining power – even as private-sector and nonunion government payrolls have shrunk – spells trouble for the future of the American economy. Our country simply must reverse the long-term trend in which the growth of government-union employment far exceeds that of private-sector employment in good and bad times alike.
Otherwise, American taxpayers and businesses are destined to face ever-more-onerous tax burdens to pay for bigger and bigger government in the decades to come.
Finally, in local newspapers nationwide including the Duluth News Tribune, Mix warned that no worker is safe from the union moguls’ designs:
Take Major Stephen Godin, a retired Marine who has instructed ROTC in Worcester, MA, for 15 years. Major Godin’s dedicated service to his country and his students deserves our respect and gratitude.
But three months ago, Massachusetts Teachers Association union officials threatened his dismissal for not paying union dues, even though he is not a member of the union. Because Massachusetts lacks a Right to Work law making union association strictly voluntary, nonmembers can be forced to pay some fees to a union as a condition of employment.
Public outcry prompted the governor to exempt ROTC instructors from forced-dues requirements, but other teachers across the state still labor under compulsory unionism.
Mark Mix also appeared on nationally syndicated and local radio shows coast-to-coast.
New Foundation Podcast: Right to Work and Labor Day
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Doug Stafford discussed the importance of employee freedom on The Frank Beckman Show this Labor Day. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below.
As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.
Why is the National Mediation Board Telling Workers Who Oppose Unionization False Information?
Last week, the National Mediation Board ordered a union "representation" election for Delta Air Lines flight attendants. The NMB will conduct the election under its new controversial rules approved by the two former union officials who now comprise a majority of the board.
The new procedure stacks the deck in favor of unionization by granting a union monopoly bargaining power over railway or airline industry workers if the union acquires support from just a bare majority of workers who turnout for an election, no matter how few actually vote.
But Delta flight attendants, and other workers in the airline and railway industries who could soon find themselves in similar situations, won’t know that by reading the Frequently Asked Questions page on the NMB’s website.
28. Q: How do voters vote no?
A: If a voter does not wish to be represented, they should not call the TEV telephone number or access the NMB’s Internet voting website.
As National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman explains in a letter to the NMB (PDF), this is false and should be immediately corrected so workers can vote in accordance with the rule change.
It’s not like the Obama Administration has a habit of keeping independent-minded employees in the dark about their rights or anything…
Worker Advocates Issue Labor Day Statement: “Big Labor is Pulling Out All the Stops to Maintain Power”
Washington, DC (September 5, 2010) – Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Right to Work Committee, released the following statement regarding this year’s Labor Day holiday.
“This Labor Day, as we celebrate working men and women across the nation, union officials are mounting an unprecedented effort to expand their coercive powers over America’s employees and employers. Their goal is to expand the number of workers forced to pay union dues or fees and accept mandatory union representation just to keep their jobs.
“Union officials’ ambitious agenda goes beyond the scope of previous years. By their own admission, Big Labor officials are gearing up for their most aggressive midterm election political blitz ever. And regardless of the outcome, they are focused on a series of unprecedented power grabs and pay backs sure to send shivers up any independent-minded worker’s spine.
“Statements from key congressional leaders and union officials indicate a high probability of a post-election lame-duck Congressional session, where they will try to breathe life into coercive ‘card check’ legislation, which would shove millions of unwilling workers into unions and force struggling job-providers to knuckle-under government-imposed contracts. Meanwhile, the rights-infringing, budget-busting Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill, which threatens America’s first responders with federally-mandated monopoly unionization, still lurks in the shadows of the Senate. The National Right to Work Committee continues to mobilize its 2.6 million members to combat these draconian bills.
“Throughout the U.S., more than 12 million American workers are already compelled to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. Millions more are required by law to accept a union’s so-called ‘representation,’ even if they never asked or voted for it. And for the first time ever, a majority of government employees nationwide work under monopoly unionism.
“Sadly, many workers feel they have no choice but to pay for organized labor’s extensive political activities, while others are still unaware of their right to object. That’s why the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is providing free legal aid to thousands of employees nationwide.
“American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gomper’s famous adage that ‘No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion’ is as relevant as ever this Labor Day. This Labor Day, we commend all workers brave enough to stand up to union intimidation, harassment, and even violence as they defend their cherished freedoms. And we look forward to the day when no American is forced to pay tribute to an unwanted union.”
The FEC Turns a Blind Eye to Big Labor’s Shady Fundraising Tactics
In The Washington Examiner, Right to Work President Mark Mix takes on the Federal Election Commission’s lax oversight of suspicious Big Labor political fundraising:
Obama Labor Board Launches Assault on Workers’ Right to Secret Ballot to Remove Unwanted Union
Obama Labor Board Launches Assault on Workers’ Right to Secret Ballot to Remove Unwanted Union
NLRB’s decision to revisit pro-worker precedent highlights Board Member Craig Becker’s refusal to recuse himself despite massive conflicts of interest
Washington, DC (September 1, 2010) – In a decision dated August 27 but only released yesterday, three members of the National Labor Relations Board granted review of a landmark 2007 case in which the federal labor board granted employees the right to demand a secret ballot election to remove an unwanted union within 45 days after the union obtained monopoly bargaining status through the coercive card check process.
In late 2009, union lawyers initiated a strategy to overturn the Dana Corp. decision won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. In a series of cases nationwide, union lawyers asked the NLRB to revoke the new protections to workers swept into union ranks through card check forced unionism, and now three members of the Board – all former union lawyers themselves – have agreed to consolidate two of those cases in a review of Dana.
As the dissenting Board members point out, workers across the country have already used Dana decertification elections to kick out unwanted unions, demonstrating the unreliability of card check instant organizing campaigns. Workers frequently sign union authorization cards due to union organizers’ intimidating tactics or even outright lies about what signing a card means. To remove the limited protection of the secret ballot in these cases – as the Obama NLRB appears set to do – would deny workers the ability to vote according to their conscience and remove an unwanted union from their workplace.
