Steelworker Union Bosses Slapped with Federal Charges for Continuing to Seize Dues from Worker’s Paycheck

Union officials ignore own rules to force worker into full dues paying union membership

Des Moines, Iowa (December 31, 2009) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Bridgestone Corporation employee filed federal charges after his employer illegally diverted a portion of his paycheck to a local union to which the employee does not belong.

The case points out the need for strong and fully enforced Right to Work laws and other protections against forced unionism abuse. A few Iowa legislators have recently tried to repeal the state’s Right to Work law that makes union membership and dues payment voluntary – even though doing so would lead to employee rights violations on a massive scale.

Terry L. Welch of Polk City filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against United Steelworkers Local 310 union bosses and Bridgestone.

In October, Welch resigned from the Steelworkers union and revoked his dues deduction authorization. Dues deduction authorizations are used by union officials to automatically withhold union dues from employee paychecks.

Under Iowa’s popular Right to Work law no worker can be required to join or pay any money to a union as a condition of employment. Additionally, the union’s own dues authorization card allows Welch to revoke his authorization at any time.

Click here to read the full release.

Regular Freedom@Work readers may recall a press release from last week on the Foundation’s efforts to stop a local Arizona union from extracting forced dues dollars from nonunion members in a Right to Work state. Here’s a local television report on the developing situation:

For more information, check out the Foundation’s press release or this recent article from The Arizona Daily Star.

Union bosses want to their unions to be akin to roach motels:  Easy to check in, but impossible to check out.

On Monday, National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Raymond LaJeunesse presented the perspective of independent-minded workers at the National Mediation Board’s (NMB) hearing on proposed changes to labor regulations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) that would enable union organizers to corral tens of thousands of non-union railway and airline industry workers into union membership.

Unfortunately, the NMB — the government agency charged under the RLA with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries — voted 2-1 to consider dramatic changes concocted by the bosses of the AFL-CIO union and 30 other unions. The changes would dictate a new system in which just a majority of workers affirmatively voting in a union organizing election to impose unionization on the whole collective bargaining unit.  The current system requires union organizers to obtain the consent of a true majority of workers in a given bargaining unit to accept their "exclusive representation."

The Foundation’s vice president and legal director argued before the NMB that the proposed changes further stack the deck against independent-minded workers who must compete against Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine — operating across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units — to secure their right to be free from union boss "representation." The proposed scheme imposes a greater burden on employees who wish to refrain from union membership by forcing them to either take affirmative action to protect rights that should already be secure — or otherwise allow far less than a majority of their colleagues take away their independence.

Furthermore, Foundation attorneys also argued that the NMB needs establish a formal process under the RLA for workers wanting to remove a union as their monopoly bargaining agent as required under Foundation-won precedent in U.S. federal court.

To read the Foundation’s statement, click here.

UPDATE: On December 29, Foundation attorneys filed formal comments to the NMB. In them, the Foundation argued key four points:

• The NMB lacks the authority to make the proposed changes, only Congress does.
• The NMB’s application of the definition of what makes a monopoly bargaining unit makes it virtually impossible for independent-minded employees combat professional union organizers.
• Workers who have no interest in union membership are forced to take action to oppose the union bosses’ "representation."
• It is extremely difficult for employees to remove a union, especially so because the NMB has not established a procedure to allow workers to terminate a union hierarchy’s monopoly bargaining privileges.

For these reasons, Foundation attorneys argue that the NMB should reject the proposed changes just as they did as recently as 2008.  To read the formal comments, click here.

True to form, compulsory unionism advocates are exploiting a serious situation to try to force more workers into union monopoly control. In this case, union bosses have long set their sights on forcing America’s airport screeners into union ranks. From the Wall Street Journal:

The notion that unionized airport baggage screeners in Detroit could have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane in Amsterdam or Lagos doesn’t make much sense. But sure enough, some in Congress are using the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack to argue that a new leader for the Transportation Security Administration could have saved the day.

Rahm Emanuel’s famous declaration that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste seems to have become a way of Washington life.

That’s the meaning of the political and media beatdown now being visited on Republican Senator Jim DeMint for the high crime of putting a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to head TSA, which runs the 50,000 airport screeners. Mr. DeMint objects because Mr. Southers has refused to say whether he would reverse current policy and back collective bargaining for baggage and passenger screeners, which the Obama Administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill support.

…Mr. DeMint’s objection is rooted in a substantive concern that union practices and work rules will compromise security. TSA uses a performance pay system that tries to reward ability and effort, with the goal of recruiting and retaining the best employees. Unions prefer seniority-based pay that puts a premium on time served rather than performance.

TSA also needs to be able to change its procedures or move personnel to high-risk locations on short notice. Agency managers now have the ability to do that, but under union work rules they might need to get the permission of union leaders, who won’t want to upset the rank-and-file.

In other words, Congressman Thompson has it exactly backwards. If the goal is to have a "nimble, responsive" TSA, a non-union work force makes more sense.

The Journal correctly points out that union boss work rules can hamper TSA’s efforts to keep our skies safe. But also, union bosses often put the expansion of their forced unionism empire before the safety of the public and even the very employees they claim to represent.

But it doesn’t stop at airport screeners, Big Labor is actively pushing to subject America’s first responders to union monopoly control as well. 

Just in time for the Holiday Season, a charming piece of legislation from the great state of Wisconsin:

Wisconsin schools will be required to teach the history of organized labor under a bill signed by Gov. Jim Doyle.

The bill Doyle signed Thursday also requires Wisconsin schools to teach the history or collective bargaining.

The proposal has been around for years but never passed.

This year it cleared the Democratic controlled Legislature despite opposition from school boards and administrators who said they didn’t want the curriculum micromanaged.

Labor unions supported the bill.

No one objects to schools teaching history (which includes the rise of Big Labor in the 20th century), but it’s disturbing to have union-boss allies in the state legislature micromanaging curricula for political reasons and ordering schools to cram union propaganda down impressionable students’ throats. 

For a more balanced view about the impact of union monopoly bargaining, we recommend you check out our page on the history of the Right to Work movement. 

Grocery Store Union Bosses Face Federal Charges After Blocking Workers from Stopping Dues Payments

Local union officials and Fry’s Food Stores management collude illegally to extract forced dues from independent-minded workers

Phoenix, Arizona (December 23, 2009) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, five employees from different Fry’s Food Stores locations have filed federal charges challenging their employer’s and a local union’s efforts to block them from stopping the seizure of union dues from their paychecks.

Disgusted with recent union strike threats, large numbers of employees withdrew from the union, but union officials are now retaliating by refusing to honor their legal rights and getting Fry’s management to deduct and forward the union dues money anyway.

Shirley Jones of Mesa, Karen Medley and Elaine Brown of Apache Junction, and Kimberly Stewart and Kristy Dickenson of Queen Creek – acting for other similarly situated employees – filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 99 union bosses and Fry’s.

Click here to read the full release.

Union Lawyers Deploy Strategy to Overturn Workers’ Protection Against Card Check Organizing Abuse

Nationwide plan afoot to eliminate secret ballot elections to verify whether employees actually wanted to unionize

Washington, DC (December 17, 2009) – In five new cases before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), union lawyers are asking the NLRB to overturn a landmark 2007 decision which gave new protections to workers swept into union ranks through card check forced unionism.

In Dana Corporation, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys won new rights for employees intended to counteract the employee intimidation and harassment waged by aggressive union operatives that frequently occurs during controversial card check organizing campaigns.

The Dana decision granted employees the ability to file a decertification petition and demand a secret ballot election to toss out union officials from their workplace within 45 days after an employer recognizes a monopoly bargaining agent by card check. This important (though modest) check gives workers some ability to stop union organizers from gaining monopoly control over a workplace without even the support of a majority of the employees.

The very Foundation attorneys who originally won the landmark Dana case are providing free legal assistance to Todd Fields, an ARAMARK Uniform and Career Apparel employee in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Mike Lopez, an employee of Lamons Gasket Company in Houston, Texas, in two of the five cases before the NLRB. These two cases seeking to overturn Dana were pressed by Service Workers United (SEIU) and United Steelworkers union lawyers.

Click here to read the full release.