Sacramento, CA (February 10, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, Dennis McLeod is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to reconsider his request for a secret ballot unionization election at the Thunder Valley Casino.

In the spring of 2010, UNITE HERE Local 49 union officials initiated a coercive “card check” organizing drive to unionize McLeod and his coworkers. Although union organizers claimed to have collected enough signed cards from employees to obtain monopoly bargaining privileges, the casino’s workforce expanded following unionization, raising questions about whether a hurried card check campaign actually reflected the views of a majority of employees.

Under the Foundation-won Dana decision, workers may collect signatures to request a secret ballot election during a 45 day window period following notice that their employer has recognized a union based on a card check organizing drive. The ruling is intended to counteract coercive practices frequently associated with union card check campaigns, which allow organizers to bully or mislead employees into signing cards that count as “votes” toward unionization.

On April 29, 2010, Thunder Valley Casino employees were notified of their rights under the Dana precedent. McLeod and several of his coworkers proceeded to collect signatures from casino employees to trigger a secret ballot unionization election.

Through a quirk of the calendar, the 44th and 45th day of the Dana window period fell on a weekend. Although McLeod faxed and mailed his request for a secret ballot election to the NLRB on the 44th day, the Board’s regional director originally found that his submission was “untimely.” Following an appeal, the regional director again declined to hold an election because McLeod allegedly failed to submit the accompanying signature petitions with his request for a secret ballot election, despite the fact that the petition and the signatures were already in the mail before the window period ended.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, McLeod is now appealing this ruling to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC.

“Workers should never be forced into a union’s forced dues-paying ranks without a secret ballot vote,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “UNITE HERE union bosses forced their way into this workplace through a notoriously unreliable card check scheme. The NLRB should respect the intent of workers and order a timely secret ballot election so that Thunder Valley employees have a chance to vote the union out.”

Washington, DC – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a charitable organization that provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, sent a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protesting the agency’s decision to threaten lawsuits against state ballot amendments aimed at prohibiting ‘card check’ organizing drives but not threaten suits against state laws that aid unions.

The letter, signed by Foundation Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse, points out that this latest move reveals a troubling pattern of forced unionism favoritism at the NLRB, which is charged with overseeing private sector labor and employment law throughout the country.

LaJeunesse notes that in numerous other cases where federal statutes preempt state law, the current NLRB has failed to act if asserting federal prerogatives would mean undermining union officials’ special privileges.

For example, Foundation attorneys currently represent Carol Jean Badertscher, a nurse who was threatened with fines and jail time under California’s draconian ‘anti-strikebreaker’ law for crossing a union picket line. Although the NLRB’s then General Counsel acknowledged that the California law is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, the Board declined to declare the anti-strikebreaker law preempted or order notice to California workers about their rights to continue working during a strike.

However, the Board recently threatened four high-profile lawsuits against Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah for enacting laws designed to prohibit recognition of unions without an NLRB-supervised secret ballot election.

Those threats highlight a pattern of forced unionism favoritism that further tars the Board’s reputation for evenhandedness. The most notable example of this trend was the recess appointment of Craig Becker, a former SEIU lawyer, to serve on the Board. Despite the involvement of his former employer in several pending cases, Becker has refused to recuse himself and is now poised to issue rulings that could shape American labor law for decades.

“The Board’s selective interest in asserting federal prerogatives is just the latest example of this Administration’s obvious forced unionism bias,” said Foundation Legal Information Director Patrick Semmens. “The Obama NLRB rushed to intervene when it meant stopping state attempts to limit coercive card check organizing drives. But in cases where federal preemption would mean striking down state laws that push more workers into unions’ forced dues-paying ranks, the Board is conspicuously silent.”

Worker Asks Federal Appeals Court to Overturn Backroom Deal Between Union and Company Officials

Union organizers obtained workers’ personal information as part of a quid pro quo with the company to force employees under union control

Hollywood, FL (February 3, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Mardi Gras Gaming employee is taking his case against local union officials and his employer to a federal appeals court.

In 2008, Unite Here Local 355 and Mardi Gras Gaming officials entered into an agreement in which union officials agreed to spend over one hundred thousand dollars in workers’ forced union dues on a gambling ballot initiative and guaranteed not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility.

In return, Mardi Gras officials promised they would hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union operatives access to company facilities for the purpose of organizing through a coercive card check campaign, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether employees actually wanted to unionize.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mardi Gras Gaming employee Martin Mulhall filed a lawsuit against Unite Here in 2008, arguing that the company’s concessions to the union are of substantial monetary value because the company made the union organizing process easier and less expensive.

Read the entire release here.

Hollywood, FL (February 3, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Mardi Gras Gaming employee is taking his case against local union officials and his employer to a federal appeals court.

In 2008, Unite Here Local 355 and Mardi Gras Gaming officials entered into an agreement in which union officials agreed to spend over one hundred thousand dollars in workers’ forced union dues on a gambling ballot initiative and guaranteed not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility.

In return, Mardi Gras officials promised they would hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union operatives access to company facilities for the purpose of organizing through a coercive card check campaign, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether employees actually wanted to unionize.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mardi Gras Gaming employee Martin Mulhall filed a lawsuit against Unite Here in 2008, arguing that the company’s concessions to the union are of substantial monetary value because the company made the union organizing process easier and less expensive.

Federal law aimed at preventing union operatives from agreeing to undermine workers’ rights in exchange for concessions from management explicitly prohibits employers from giving “any money or other thing of value” to unions.

The suit also alleges that union bosses’ 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.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently upheld Mulhall’s standing to vindicate his rights in federal court. Now he asks the appellate court to judge his case on the merits and reverse a lower court’s illogical ruling that management’s concessions are not “things of value.”

“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,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Workers should never be cajoled or harassed into union ranks.”

Union Bosses, School District Face Federal Suit for Illegal Forced Union Dues Scheme

School employees challenge unconstitutional union dues confiscation

Cincinnati, OH (January 21, 2011) – A group of Cincinnati Public Schools employees today filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the city school district for illegally confiscating union dues from their paychecks in violation of their constitutional rights.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, providing the employees with free legal aid, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The school district carpentry shop employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the Greater Cincinnati Building & Construction Trades Council union (GCBCTC) and its affiliates, ask the federal court to protect their Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson.

Read the entire release here.

Cincinnati, OH (January 21, 2011) – A group of Cincinnati Public Schools employees today filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the city school district for illegally confiscating union dues from their paychecks in violation of their constitutional rights.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, providing the employees with free legal aid, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The school district carpentry shop employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the Greater Cincinnati Building & Construction Trades Council union (GCBCTC) and its affiliates, ask the federal court to protect their Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson.

In Hudson, the Court, while still allowing the forced payment of certain union fees as a condition of employment, established procedural safeguards to ensure public employees are not compelled to subsidize union activities beyond what union officials can prove is spent on bargaining and contract administration. Union expenditures such as organizing and political activism cannot be legally charged to nonmember public-sector workers.

The Court also ruled union officials must provide public workers with an independently-audited financial breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures.

GCBCTC union officials are compelling the employees to pay union fees to keep their jobs while refusing to provide the financial breakdown Hudson requires.

The employees are suing to obtain refunds of the amount of forced union dues payments illegally taken from their paychecks and to halt union bosses from further union fee collections until they comply with the workers’ constitutional and civil rights to refrain from full-union-dues payments upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

“GCBCTC union bosses are using state law to take these workers’ civil and constitutional rights to the woodshed” said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation legal information director. “Ohio desperately needs a Right to Work law making union affiliation and dues payments completely voluntary to prevent these types of forced unionism abuses from occurring.”

“Only then will independent-minded employees have the solid foundation they need to take a stand for their rights.”

Worker Advocate Urges Labor Board to Affirm Right to Object to Subsidizing Union Politics in Languishing Cases

Numerous cases before NLRB lay dormant as workers suffer from union policies designed to discourage objections to paying full union dues

Washington, DC (January 13, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation is urging the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to promptly resolve four cases almost identical to one decided last year by the Board as independent-minded workers wait for a resolution.

The Foundation – the nation’s premier advocate on behalf of workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – scored a legal victory in August 2010 for workers who were subjected to a burdensome machinist union boss policy requiring employees to annually renew their objection to supporting union politics and other non-bargaining expenses or be converted back to paying full union dues.

The NLRB in Washington, DC determined that the machinist union’s annual objection requirement for workers who choose to refrain from union membership is illegal under Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent upheld in Communications Workers v. Beck (1988).Under Beck, nonmember employees in states without Right to Work laws cannot be compelled to pay for union politics, lobbying, and member-only events.

In a letter penned by Foundation Vice President & Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse to the NLRB, the Foundation asks that the Board apply their August 2010 decision to four virtually identical cases still pending before the Board.

Read the entire release here.

Washington, DC (January 13, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation is urging the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to promptly resolve four cases almost identical to one decided last year by the Board as independent-minded workers wait for a resolution.

The Foundation – the nation’s premier advocate on behalf of workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – scored a legal victory in August 2010 for workers who were subjected to a burdensome machinist union boss policy requiring employees to annually renew their objection to supporting union politics and other non-bargaining expenses or be converted back to paying full union dues.

The NLRB in Washington, DC determined that the machinist union’s annual objection requirement for workers who choose to refrain from union membership is illegal under Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent upheld in Communications Workers v. Beck (1988). Under Beck, nonmember employees in states without Right to Work laws cannot be compelled to pay for union politics, lobbying, and member-only events.

In a letter penned by Foundation Vice President & Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse to the NLRB, the Foundation asks that the Board apply their August 2010 decision to four virtually identical cases still pending before the Board.

In the pending cases individual employees, represented by Foundation staff attorneys, are challenging annual objection policies of the United Steelworker (USW), United Autoworker (UAW), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and Communications Workers of America (CWA) unions. The case involving the UAW union has been languishing in the NLRB bureaucracy for eight years.

Additionally, NLRB Regional Directors are withholding action on other similar cases awaiting the national Board’s actions.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Given that the NLRB decided the key legal issues last summer, their refusal to swiftly apply the precedent to other unions is shameful.”

“While the Board delays, independent-minded workers across the country continue to be abused by burdensome requirements and restrictions from union hierarchies they want nothing to do with.”

Last week, Right to Work attorneys filed an amicus curiae brief in American Trucking Associations v. Port of Los Angeles on behalf of two truckers who don’t want to be forced to give up their independent status and join a licensed trucking service to do business in LA. The Foundation’s brief challenges a new "concession agreement" entered into by the city that would only allow large trucking services to work out of the Port of Los Angeles, freezing out independent owner-operators. You can read the whole thing online, but here’s an excerpt from the Foundation’s brief:

If the Port’ s scheme is upheld, the victims will be individuals like amici Raymond Porras and Pilar Orellana. They are owner -operators, meaning that they own their trucks and work for themselves. As their own bosses, they enjoy the independence of setting their own schedules and operating their trucking businesses as they see fit. The Concession Agreement will force them to forfeit this independence, sell their trucks, and become employees of larger companies to continue operating at the Port.

The Port’s scheme is also widely viewed as underhanded way to force truckers into union ranks: If independent contractors are forced to seek employment at a licensed trucking service, they can also be forced to join a union and pay dues if the company they’re joining is already unionized.

As always, Foundation attorneys stand ready to help employees across the country protect their Right to Work. For more information on the Foundation’s legal aid program, click here. 

Worker Advocate Urges House Chairmen to Investigate Questionable Pro-Union Rule Change

National Mediation Board’s new rules allow airline and railway workers to be unionized without majority support

Washington, DC (January 10, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation, which provides free legal assistance to employees nationwide, is urging Congress to investigate a recent rule change at the National Mediation Board (NMB) that dramatically increases the power of union officials to organize workers in the airline and railway industries. Foundation President Mark Mix submitted letters to Representatives John Kline, John Mica, and Darrell Issa on Wednesday, encouraging them to open an immediate investigation into the NMB’s new election procedures.

Last year, the Board hastily implemented new union certification procedures over the objections of NMB Chair Elizabeth Dougherty. Foundation attorneys currently represent five Delta employees who are challenging the NMB’s rule change in federal court.

The two NMB members who voted to approve the new rule, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, are former union officials with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Association of Flight Attendants (AFA). Both unions were a major part of an AFL-CIO-led coalition that prompted the NMB to discard its previous election procedures, which had remained in force for 75 years under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

Click here to read more.