Teachers Win Case at Michigan Court of Appeals Against Union Officials for Violating Right to Work Law
Court affirms ruling against union officials who demanded that two Ann Arbor teachers continue to pay union fees after resigning union membership
Ann Arbor, Michigan (March 22, 2019) – Two public school teachers have won a victory at the Michigan Court of Appeals with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys after union officials violated their legal rights.
The court affirmed the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) finding that union officials with the Ann Arbor Education Association (AAEA) union, an affiliate of the Michigan Education Association (MEA) union, violated the rights of teachers Jeffrey Finnan and Cory Merante under Michigan’s Right to Work Law by demanding that they continue to pay union fees even though they had resigned their union membership. The teachers both worked for the Ann Arbor School District.
Michigan’s Right to Work statutes, which went into effect in March 2013, protect workers from being forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment and allow workers to cut off all union dues or fees after resigning their union membership.
Finnan and Merante each filed unfair labor practice charges against the AAEA because union officials demanded that they continue paying union fees after resigning union membership. An administrative law judge (ALJ) sided with the teachers, finding that union officials had engaged in unfair labor practices by demanding that the teachers continue to pay union fees.
MERC affirmed the ALJ’s findings and ordered the union to cease and desist from demanding payment of union fees from the nonmembers in violation of their rights.
Union officials appealed, but the Michigan Court of Appeals now has affirmed MERC’s decision. The court agreed that union officials had violated the rights of Finnan and Merante under Michigan’s Right to Work Law to refrain from financially supporting the union.
“This ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals upholds Right to Work protections for workers laid out clearly in state law,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Time and again, Michigan union bosses have demonstrated that they will stop at nothing to obtain membership dues and union fees from the workers they supposedly represent, regardless of workers’ wishes.”
Since Right to Work legislation was signed into state law in December 2012, Foundation staff attorneys have litigated more than 100 cases in Michigan to combat compulsory unionism.
Worker Victory: NLRB Overturns Region’s Order Forcing Hospital Employees into Union they Never Supported and Overwhelmingly Opposed
Washington, DC (March 1, 2019) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a decision overturning a Regional Director’s decision forcing employees at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Schuylkill East in Pennsylvania under the so-called “representation” of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bosses even though the workers opposed the union and rejected an SEIU organizing drive targeting them.
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys represented a group of employees in the case, providing free legal assistance to hospital employees challenging the Regional Director’s ruling.
National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix released the following statement regarding the decision:
“This ruling is a much needed victory for workers over a shameful union power grab aided and abetted by a demonstrably partisan Regional Director who only a few years ago was suspended for his pro-union conduct that violated NLRB ethics rules. Despite the workers in this case successfully resisting an SEIU organizing drive, union bosses attempted to game the NLRB system to force these workers into union forced-dues ranks. The unanimous Board decision overturning the Regional Director’s order is evidence of just how radical the accretion in this case was, and how the accretion doctrine undermines the premise of the National Labor Relations Act which is supposedly based on the idea that workers have a say in whether or not they are unionized.”
Learn more about the case here.
