School Bus Driver Files Federal Charges Against AFSCME Union Officials for Discriminating against Nonunion Employees
Indianapolis, IN (February 1, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, an Indianapolis bus driver has filed federal unfair labor practice charges challenging American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3826 union officials’ discriminatory workplace practices.
Barry Hickman is a bus driver employed by First Student in Indianapolis, Indiana. As an employee in a unionized workplace, he is forced to accept union monopoly bargaining and pay certain union dues to Local 3826. Hickman was also involved in a prolonged legal battle to opt out of paying dues for union political activism, which was finally resolved in 2009 when AFSCME officials acknowledged his right not to fund their political activities.
However, Hickman and similarly situated employees have been targeted for workplace discrimination by union officials. AFSCME bosses are retaliating against Hickman and his coworkers because they previously filed unfair labor practice charges against the union with the assistance of National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
At issue in these new charges is a scheme to manipulate First Student’s extra trip list to artificially limit the earnings of Hickman and other employees who object to the union’s activities. The trip list assigns First Student drivers additional compensation for driving trips beyond scheduled routes. Union officials manipulated the list to limit nonunion drivers’ access to extra trips. When Hickman asked to review the extra trip list, union officials told him to get a lawyer.
Hickman’s charges allege that these practices violate the National Labor Relations Act and the union’s duty of representation, which grants union officials the power to ‘represent’ all workers in a bargaining unit, regardless of their union membership status. The charges will now be investigated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
“AFSCME union bosses are always eager to keep independent-minded workers in line and paying forced dues, and this discriminatory policy is just one more ugly example of how employees who bravely stand up to union intimidation are treated,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Mr. Hickman shouldn’t have to ‘get a lawyer’ to ensure he’s treated fairly on the job, but union bosses forced his hand.”
“Ultimately, passing a Right to Work law in Indiana would go a long way towards curbing this type of ugly retaliation by union bosses against the employees they claim to represent,” Semmens continued.
Tenet Health Care Corporation, Union Officials Collude to Overturn Employee Vote against Union
Philadelphia, PA (January 28, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Philadelphia nurse has filed federal charges challenging an attempt by her employer and outside union organizers to ignore the results of a workplace election rejecting unionization.
Joanne K. McGovern is a registered nurse employed by Hahnemann University Hospital, a medical facility owned and operated by Tenet Healthcare Corporation. McGovern and her hospital coworkers recently endured a prolonged organizing drive, during which union operatives from the California Nurses Association (CNA) union and its local affiliate, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) union, attempted to impose unionization on hospital employees.
Despite a backroom deal between the CNA union and Tenet that suppressed employee opposition to unionization and granted union organizers preferential access to hospital facilities, the nurses voted against the CNA in June 2009.
Undeterred by this setback, union lawyers have turned to private arbitration and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to block the certification of this result, claiming that CNA organizers were intimidated during the organizing drive.
Although the NLRB has yet to rule on these claims or even hold a hearing, hospital and union officials recently agreed to disregard the election results anyway. In November 2009, the CNA union and the hospital announced plans for a new unionization election despite the fact that the NLRB has not invalidated the results of the last workplace election.
McGovern’s charges challenge the legality of this move, arguing that workers who have already voted should not be subjected to repeated elections until they submit to unionization. The charges will now be investigated by the NLRB.
“After getting roundly rejected by Hahnemann nurses, union officials just won’t take no for an answer,” said Patrick Semmens, director of legal information for the National Right to Work Foundation. “By attempting to stifle hospital workers’ votes against unionization, CNA bosses have shown that their real goal is pushing nurses into the union’s forced dues-paying ranks, like it or not.”
Citizen Activist Seeks to Bring Union Boss Lobbying Disclosure Battle to Michigan Supreme Court
Citizen Activist Seeks to Bring Union Boss Lobbying Disclosure Battle to Michigan Supreme Court
Teacher union bosses hiding taxpayer-funded political communications from public
Detroit, MI (January 28, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a citizen activist announced today he will file an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court in an ongoing public disclosure battle over the use of school district e-mail systems for union political activities.
In 2007, political activist Chetly Zarko from DeWitt – invoking Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosure law – requested e-mail communications among Howell Education Association (HEA) union brass regarding heated collective bargaining negotiations between the Howell Public School (HPS) system and union officials. The HEA union is a local affiliate of the Michigan Education Association and National Education Association unions.
At the time of the collective bargaining conflict, Zarko suspected union boss lobbying was occurring at taxpayer expense. Zarko is seeking the release of approximately 5,500 e-mails between the union hierarchy and teachers.
Citizen Activist Seeks to Bring Union Boss Lobbying Disclosure Battle to Michigan Supreme Court
Detroit, MI (January 28, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a citizen activist announced today he will file an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court in an ongoing public disclosure battle over the use of school district e-mail systems for union political activities.
In 2007, political activist Chetly Zarko from DeWitt – invoking Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosure law – requested e-mail communications among Howell Education Association (HEA) union brass regarding heated bargaining negotiations between the Howell Public School (HPS) system and union officials. The HEA union is a local affiliate of the Michigan Education Association and National Education Association unions.
At the time of the collective bargaining conflict, Zarko suspected union boss lobbying was occurring at taxpayer expense. Zarko is seeking the release of approximately 5,500 e-mails between the union hierarchy and teachers.
HEA union officials claimed a special exception from the requirements of Michigan’s FOIA law, despite the fact that the e-mails were sent over a taxpayer funded e-mail system and the HPS’s “Acceptable Use Policy” explicitly states that e-mails sent on the server are “not consider private communication [and] may be re-posted.”
Foundation attorneys won a ruling from the Livingston Circuit Court requiring disclosure, but union lawyers managed to convince the State of Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn the lower court’s decision.
“Public resources should not be spent on the shadowy and self-serving political activities of union bosses,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Howell Education Association union officials should be subject to the same public disclosure requirements as everyone else who uses taxpayer funds.”
New Right to Work Video: The Obama White House – Where Everybody Knows the Union Bosses’ Names
Although surprisingly NOT registered as a lobbyist, SEIU Top Boss Andy Stern is The White House’s most frequent visitor. Union bosses get top billing at high-profile administration events. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’s last job was at Big Labor-front group American Rights at Work. To commemorate the union bosses’ newfound friendliness with top White House politicos, we decided to put together a short video on the Obama Administration relationship with Big Labor:
The Right to Work Foundation continues to work tirelessly to promote greater transparency at the Department of Labor. Unfortunately, the root of the too-close-for-comfort relationship between union bosses and the White House can be traced back to Big Labor’s many government-granted powers. Until we’re able to roll back these union boss privileges, the White House will remain a favored destination for Big Labor bosses.
Conflict of Interest? The News Media and Forced Unionism
At The Daily Caller, the anonymous Anchorman — "a well-known news anchor from a top-10, big-city news station" — brings up an interesting point about his colleagues’ political coverage. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) union "represents" most television network news correspondents and anchors. That "representation" includes political advocacy, including as the anchorman points out, lobbying efforts on the health care / forced unionization legislation currently pending in Congress.
If that bothers you, you should also know that your “objective” network correspondent, roaming the halls of Congress right now trying to ferret out the “truth,” probably pays hundreds, or even thousands of dollars in union dues to AFTRA every year. He or she, in all likelihood, depends on AFTRA for one of those “Cadillac” health insurance plans that is the subject of so much debate. He or she also will receive a nice little AFTRA pension come retirement time, and perhaps most importantly, will depend on AFTRA to help defend, protect or advise them in any serious conflicts, demotions, firings, or legal issues with management at their TV station or network.
Might this conflict of interest also impact the media’s coverage of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill? We’d be surprised if it didn’t affect some reporters’ objectivity In fact, here’s the kind of analysis of that bill you won’t see on the nightly news.
NLRB Busted for Keeping Information Secret Documenting Employee Objections to Card Check Organizing
In 2007, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys persuaded the National Labor Relations Board to establish new rights for workers through the landmark Dana/Metaldyne decision. The ruling empowered workers to call a vote to kick out an unwanted union during a 45-day window period following a successful "card check" organizing drive.
The ruling was a rebuke of union organizers and their coercive tactics, as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) acknowledged the abuses, and determined that employees needed a way to challenge the imposition of a union workplace monopoly via card check by obtaining a secret ballot decertification election.
Prior to the Obama Administration, the NLRB maintained an online database of all card check recognitions and any subsequent union decertification elections. The NLRB, however, stopped updating this information last spring. Foundation attorneys recently demanded the NLRB to update the database regularly, and NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman responded last week. Although she blamed the General Counsel’s office for the neglect, she stated the agency would post new information monthly going forward.
While this information doesn’t prevent coercive card check organizing on the job – an increasingly common union tactic even without passage of the pending EFCA legislation in Congress – it does help the public see how widely used this abusive union organizing actually is… and which companies have blocked their employees’ access to secret balloting.
Perhaps even more importantly, this data reveals the nasty little fact that card check signing does not represent employees’ true wishes. For in many cases, the very union bosses who came in through card check were sent packing — only days later — after employees obtained a secret ballot vote.
AFL-CIO Czar Trumka: Card Check Forced Unionism Will Pass
Last week, AFL-CIO union czar Richard Trumka (download the Foundation’s Fact Sheet on his history of condoning union violence and corruption) made headlines by predicting that the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill will pass in early 2010. The heated debate over the health care overhaul legislation has kept the public eye off this other union boss power grab for a few months, but Trumka’s prediction makes it clear Big Labor’s high command haven’t forgotten about their highest priority.
The Card Check Forced Unionism Bill would effectively eliminate workers’ right to a secret ballot in workplace unionization drives and replace it with overt union intimidation:
Under the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that refer to the secret ballot election would be rendered a dead letter, even though they are not technically stricken from federal law.
Big Labor spin artists can claim all they want that the workers can still "choose" to have a secret ballot election, but there simply is no way by which workers can force union bosses to file for a secret ballot election — and it is union bosses, not workers, who are in possession of the cards. Reporters who repeat this union boss talking point owe their readers a correction.
Read the full analysis here. Union bosses prefer card check instant organizing because it puts all of the power in their hands — free from the meddling interference of government election supervisors and the workers themselves.
Fortunately, we already know what card check campaigns look like. Unfortunately, we only know this because hardworking Americans have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, and coercion by union bosses to get them to sign cards. In the video below, Dana Corporation employees in Albion, Indiana, shared their stories with the National Right to Work Committee.
The National Right to Work Committee warns to beware of any bogus compromises under the guise of protecting the secret ballot. One of the most dangerous aspect of the "compromise" talks is the lack of focus on the other toxic provision of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill: mandatory binding arbitration.
Under the bill, workers won’t just lose the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether or not to form a union. Even those who choose to join a union’s ranks may see their voting rights severely limited, as mandatory binding arbitration would allow government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers. That means union members may not even be able to vote to ratify their contracts: Whatever the government says… goes.
Even Far Left icon George McGovern knows this is a terrible idea. And as Reason Foundation analyst Shikha Dalmia detailed in the Wall Street Journal, states’ experiments with mandatory binding arbitration and public sector unions have led to atrocious results — including out of control budgets and fiscal mismanagement.
Worker Advocate Seeks Biased Agency Members’ Recusal on Controversial Transportation Union Rule Change
Worker Advocate Seeks Biased Agency Members’ Recusal on Controversial Transportation Union Rule Change
Former airline union officials should not use federal power to help their unions corral tens of thousands of workers into union membership
Washington, DC (January 19, 2010) – Citing substantial legal precedent, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a motion with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking the recusal of the two former union officials who are behind a dramatic rule change proposal on how a union is imposed on non-union railway and airline industry workers.
The NMB, the federal agency tasked with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, is quietly rolling back 75 years of precedent and changing labor union organizing regulations, greasing the skids for union organizers to lock industry workers into union ranks.
The two board members who now comprise the majority of the board, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, were both appointed by President Barack Obama and were executive officers for two of the very unions pushing for the changes.
Worker Advocate Seeks Biased Agency Members’ Recusal on Controversial Transportation Union Rule Change
Washington, DC (January 19, 2010) – Citing substantial legal precedent, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a motion with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking the recusal of the two former union officials who are behind a dramatic rule change proposal on how a union is imposed on non-union railway and airline industry workers.
The NMB, the federal agency tasked with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, is quietly rolling back 75 years of precedent and changing labor union organizing regulations, greasing the skids for union organizers to lock industry workers into union ranks.
The two board members who now comprise the majority of the board, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, were both appointed by President Barack Obama and were executive officers for two of the very unions pushing for the changes.
Hoglander was a union official with the Air Line Pilots Association union and Puchala was an officer of the Association of Flight Attendants union. Both unions are a major part of an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) union-led coalition urging the NMB to discard its policy of requiring a true majority of all workers within a collective bargaining unit to decide for themselves if they wish to be represented by a union. The new procedure would stack the deck in favor of unionization by requiring only a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to make that decision for the whole group.
The members voted 2-1 to preliminarily support the controversial change, and NMB Chair Elizabeth Dougherty has criticized the hasty actions of the two members.
“President Obama’s appointed Big Labor operatives on the National Mediation Board should recuse themselves from this controversial effort to give union bosses the upper hand over independent-minded workers,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of National Right to Work. “If these members do not recuse themselves, the NMB’s actions will betray the integrity of government decision-making as well as President Obama’s pledge that his personnel would avoid these very violations of ethics.”
Foundation attorneys have previously appeared before the NMB asking for the proposed change to be rejected because it would make it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine, particularly since these campaigns must be run across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units. The proposed change also imposes a greater burden on employees who wish to refrain from union membership by forcing them to either take affirmative action to oppose the union or otherwise potentially allow far less than a majority to make that decision for them.
