**San Diego, CA (August 7, 2007)** – A local employee of Albertsons, Inc. filed federal charges against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 135 union after union officials unlawfully demanded she be fired from her job unless she joined the union and paid full dues.

Sixteen year-old high-school student, Danielle Cookson, a front courtesy clerk for the grocery giant, obtained free legal assistance from attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The federal charges highlight that UFCW Local 135 union officials are failing to respect employees legal rights and requiring them to join and pay dues to the union as a job condition.

In late July, UFCW Local 135 union officials sent a “termination notification” letter to Albertsons requesting Cookson be fired from her position. In their demand, union officials ordered Cookson to pay the forced dues within seven days of the notification, or else she would be removed from the schedule and terminated.

Since she began working at Albertsons in May, union officials have attempted to seize forced dues from Cookson’s paycheck. However, Cookson was never informed of her right to refrain from formal union membership or given proper financial notice of how her forced dues would be spent, as required by Foundation-won court decisions.

“In their lust for compulsory union dues, union officials will even bully children who are working to save money for their future. But they made a big mistake trying to push Danielle around,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This abuse is all too common in California because there is no Right to Work law to ensure that payment of union dues is strictly voluntary.”

In the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision *Communications Workers v. Beck*, the Court affirmed that workers have the right to resign from formal union membership and halt and reclaim the portion of forced union dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union politics. Unfortunately, they can still be forced to pay for bargaining expenses, even if they do not want union “representation.” However, employees have the right to have an independent third party audit the union expenditures and certify that the percentage of dues that non-members are forced to pay does not include political spending and other non-collective bargaining expenses.

Despite Cookson’s formal objections, the union hierarchy failed to provide her with an independently audited breakdown of union expenditures, as required by law. The NLRB’s Regional Office will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint and prosecute the union.

“The attempts by union officials to run roughshod over workers’ rights show the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from forced unionism,” said Gleason.

**Butte, MT (August 6, 2007)** – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to prosecute the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 4 union for illegally seizing forced union dues from multiple Safeway employees’ paychecks, unlawfully threatening termination, and rejecting requests to resign from formal union membership.

With help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) employees Gerald Rasmussen and Carla Crandall originally filed federal charges against the UFCW Local 4 union in April and May, respectively. After an initial investigation, the NLRB combined the complaints into one case and scheduled a hearing for September 2007 to prosecute the union.

The employees’ original charges cite that UFCW Local 4 union officials are attempting to enforce a compulsory unionism clause requiring employees to join or pay dues to the union or be fired from their jobs, despite a formal employee election recently stripping the union bosses of their forced unionism privileges.

All 34 Safeway employees participated in the late April NLRB-supervised deauthorization vote – a secret ballot election that gives employees the right to eliminate the mandatory dues clause from a monopoly bargaining contract. UFCW Local 4 union officials have been challenging the election result.

“No one should be forced to pay dues to a union,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These sorts of abuses will continue to plague workers in states like Montana, where there is no Right to Work law to ensure that payment of union dues is strictly voluntary.”

After learning of their right to resign from formal union membership from sources independent of UFCW Local 4, Rasmussen, Crandall and other employees sent letters to union officials resigning from formal union membership. Union officials rejected their requests and never provided any of the legally-mandated financial disclosure statements to the Safeway employees.

Additionally, UFCW union officials invented their own bogus and illegal rules for resigning. In their correspondence, union officials claim the grocery employees’ letters were unacceptable because they were not notarized, the letters were not sent by certified mail in separate envelopes, and were not accompanied by copies of applicable NLRB decisions and Supreme Court rulings.

However, under the 1988 Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in *Communications Workers v. Beck*, union officials cannot require formal union membership or the payment of union dues unrelated to collective bargaining as a condition of employment. The decision also requires union officials to provide employees with verified financial disclosure of union expenditures, so that employees can cut off the seizure of forced union dues used for activities such as union politicking or lobbying.

Download the NLRB Complaint

**Corpus Christi, TX (August 1, 2007)** – A security guard helped by attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation has forced Asset Protection and Security Services (Asset) to settle federal charges he filed in April after company and union officials required him to pay union dues in violation of Texas’ Right to Work law.

Carlos Banuelos, a Corpus Christi-based Asset employee, filed federal charges against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union and his employer, a federal contractor at a detention facility at Port Isabel.

The settlement requires Asset to reimburse Banuelos for dues paid and post a notice informing all security guards at the Corpus Christi facility about their rights. Specifically, Asset agreed not to “threaten” employees with termination for refusal to pay dues as well as make whole Banuelos “for any monies, plus interest, lost as a result of the discrimination against him.”

Banuelos’ charge detailed how the SPFPA union hierarchy maintains an illegal monopoly bargaining agreement with his employer that makes financial support for the union a mandatory condition of employment. Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board agreed to issue a complaint and prosecute the SPFPA union for threatening to have workers fired for refusal to pay dues. While Asset has settled, the defiant SPFPA union refuses and is scheduled to appear at trial before an Administrative Law Judge in October.

SPFPA union officials falsely claim without proof that Banuelos and his coworkers work on an “exclusive federal enclave” that is not protected by the Right to Work law – and thus can be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Meanwhile, evidence shows that union officials have established these forced dues requirements at multiple worksites across Texas under apparently fraudulent agreements.

“Evidence indicates that union bosses have duped potentially thousands of Texans into paying compulsory union dues in violation of the law,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “They must refund every dollar seized – no one should be forced to pay union dues just to get or keep a job.”

After the National Right to Work Foundation called on Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office for over eight months, his office followed up on two Foundation-led cases by initiating legal proceedings to enforce the state’s Right to Work law. Filed on July 24, the state’s lawsuits seek permanent injunctions against the collection of forced dues by the SPFPA union, as well as Asset in Corpus Christi and AKAL Security in El Paso.

In a parallel case, Foundation attorneys successfully secured reinstatement and back pay for Juan Vielma, a security guard for AKAL Security in El Paso, whom union officials had had illegally suspended without pay for over a year for refusal to pay dues. Agreeing with Foundation attorneys, a federal Administrative Law Judge ruled that SPFPA union officials had no legal authority to compel Vielma to pay dues.

Download the NLRB Settlement

**Hartford, CT (July 24, 2007)** – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has denied a local Colt Manufacturing employee’s request for a ruling now in his precedent-setting case that has already languished at the federal agency for four years.

With free legal help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, George Gally, a 40-year veteran Colt employee, originally filed unfair labor practice charges at the NLRB in March 2003. Gally is challenging the United Auto Worker (UAW) union’s nationwide policy of barring employees from paying for union political activities unless they object annually.

Rather than decide the long-pending case, the NLRB instructed its Region 34 to set a hearing date before an Administrative Law Judge, claiming that the record in the case is insufficient to issue a final decision.

In the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court *Communications Workers v. Beck* decision, the court recognized that workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for activities other than monopoly bargaining. But UAW officials have eviscerated the Supreme Court’s Beck and related appellate court rulings by requiring Gally and his co-workers to renew their objections every year – a hurdle intended to discourage them from reclaiming their forced union dues.

Meanwhile, Gally has endured 16 years of illegal conduct by UAW officials. In December 2003, a federal Administrative Law Judge awarded Gally nearly $31,000 in compensation plus interest for pay lost after he was illegally fired at the order of UAW Local 376 union officials in 1991. Prior to his award, Gally filed the unfair labor practice charges challenging the UAW union officials’ annual objection scheme.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “By its pathetically slow processing of employee rights complaints, the NLRB helps UAW officials trap workers in union ranks. This situation underscores why Connecticut needs a Right to Work law that would make union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary.”

Gally’s case is one of many long-languishing cases at the NLRB, a federal bureaucracy long criticized for political in-fighting and institutional bias favoring compulsory unionism. In recent months, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the labor board to decide promptly another Foundation-assisted case that began 17 years earlier in 1989, when Schreiber Foods employees Sherry and David Pirlott first filed their challenge to being compelled to fund coercive union organizing drives.

Download the Board’s Order

**Corpus Christi & El Paso, TX** (July 24, 2007) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason made the following statement regarding Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s long-sought legal action this afternoon to initiate the state’s enforcement of the highly popular Right to Work law:

“The National Right to Work Foundation welcomes the Attorney General to our ongoing battle to prevent the erosion of Texans’ Right to Work. No employee should be forced to pay union dues just to get or keep a job. But the violations Foundation attorneys uncovered in Corpus Christi and El Paso may only be the tip of the iceberg.

“Evidence obtained several months ago by Foundation attorneys during a federal labor board trial suggests that Big Labor’s phony ‘exclusive federal enclave’ scheme to violate the Right to Work law is widespread. Foundation attorneys are pressing ahead to protect all employees who are victim to this compulsory unionism scheme, and we urge the Attorney General to do the same.

“Union officials must be put on notice that a Texan’s Right to Work is sacred. Every violation must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, or union officials will only be emboldened.”

**Background**: National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are currently representing two Texas security guards in cases before the National Labor Relations Board and have convinced federal officials to prosecute the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union for unlawfully threatening the security guards’ jobs. Foundation attorneys first brought Texas Right to Work law violations to the attention of the Office of the Attorney General in November 2006. Today’s action is the first formal legal action taken by the State.

In April, Foundation attorneys filed federal charges for Carlos Banuelos, an Asset Protection and Security Services guard in Corpus Christi, against the SPFPA union and his employer after union officials unlawfully threatened to have him (and other employees) fired for asserting their legal right to refrain from formal union membership and payment of union dues.

Meanwhile, in recent days, Foundation attorneys successfully secured the reinstatement of Juan Vielma, a security guard for AKAL Security in El Paso, whom union officials had illegally suspended without pay for over a year for refusal to pay dues. Agreeing with charges filed by Foundation attorneys last November, a federal Administrative Law Judge ruled in June that SPFPA union officials had no legal authority to compel Vielma to pay dues.

Texas is one of 22 states that have a Right to Work law, ensuring that union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

**Corpus Christi, TX (July 9, 2007)** – Spearheading an effort to prevent erosion of Texas’ highly popular Right to Work law, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys have persuaded National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) officials to prosecute a union for unlawfully threatening local security guards’ jobs. But the state’s own prosecutors have yet to take formal legal action to enforce multiple violations of Texas law.

Carlos Banuelos, a local Asset Protection and Security Services guard, filed federal charges in April against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union and his employer after union officials unlawfully threatened to have him (and other employees) fired for asserting their legal right to refrain from formal union membership and payment of union dues.

Banuelos’ charge details how the SPFPA union hierarchy maintains an illegal monopoly bargaining agreement with his employer that makes financial support for the union a mandatory condition of employment. Union officials enforced that illegal requirement and ordered Banuelos and his coworkers to pay a fee to the union or face termination. Texas is one of 22 states that have a Right to Work law, ensuring that union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

This is the second complaint issued within months in Texas where Foundation attorneys have helped employees fight back against unlawful dues demands from the SPFPA union hierarchy. SPFPA union officials falsely claim that Banuelos and his coworkers work on an “exclusive federal enclave” that is not protected by the Right to Work law – and thus can be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment.

Foundation president Mark Mix reiterated his earlier requests to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate and aggressively prosecute widespread violations of the Right to Work law. In oral argument in a parallel case, an attorney for another company with a contract with the SPFPA union even boasted that they require employees to pay dues “across the country in Right to Work states.” Evidence shows union officials have established these forced dues requirements at multiple worksites under apparently fraudulent agreements.

“Union officials are trampling the employee freedoms provided under Texas law,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The time has come for Attorney General Greg Abbott to take aggressive action to stop union officials from thumbing their noses at his state’s Right to Work law.”

In the parallel case in El Paso, Foundation attorneys successfully secured a reinstatement offer for Juan Vielma, a security guard for AKAL Security whom union officials had illegally suspended without pay for over a year for refusal to pay dues. Agreeing with Foundation attorneys, a federal Administrative Law Judge ruled that SPFPA union officials had no legal authority to compel Vielma to pay dues.

**Los Angeles, CA (July 9, 2007)** – A group of four Kaiser Permanente employees have forced the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers (SEIU-UHW) union to abandon multiple Kaiser Permanente units across the Southern California area after use of coercive union organizing methods. The action comes in the wake of unfair labor practice charges the employees filed just weeks earlier on June 21, and it will impact up to 400 Kaiser Permanente employees throughout the area.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys helped Lisa Eklund and three of her co-workers file the federal charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the SEIU-UHW union and Kaiser. The charges alleged that union officials deceived Kaiser employees into signing union “authorization” cards that would later be counted as “votes” favoring unionization. Union officials also falsely told employees that signing the card was merely a request for more information about unionizing and promised higher pay raises and benefits. Lastly, SEIU-UHW officials engaged in unlawful bargaining over the employees’ wages and working conditions before the employees had even selected union officials as their representatives.

On December 28, 2006, Kaiser management recognized SEIU-UHW on the basis of the “card check” count. However, Eklund’s charge highlights that SEIU-UHW union officials manipulated the size of the bargaining unit and secured signatures from employees who were ineligible to participate in the “card check” organizing drive. Upon the heath care employees’ request to disclose the names of employees who were eligible to participate, union officials were unable to indicate which employees were inside or outside of the alleged bargaining unit.

Within two weeks of filing the federal charges, the NLRB indicated its intention to formally investigate the apparently unlawful “card check” organizing scheme. Upon the NLRB Region 21’s initial investigation, SEIU-UHW union officials and Kaiser rapidly abandoned the “card check” count.

“SEIU officials have been repeatedly caught red handed running roughshod over employee rights during these coercive organizing drives,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These campaigns give employees two basic choices- union ‘yes,’ or union ‘yes.’”

“Card check” union organizing strips workers of the limited protections of a government-supervised secret ballot election in deciding whether or not to unionize. Instead, union agents frequently mislead or badger workers one-on-one into signing cards that are then counted as “votes” favoring unionization.

Only months earlier National Right to Work Foundation attorneys forced SEIU Local 49 to abandon the coercive “card check” union organizing process in Oregon and Washington for six months because of repeated and widespread abuses.

Chicago, IL (July 3, 2007) – Late yesterday, Treasure Island Foods employees successfully voted by over a 2-to-1 margin to kick the unwanted United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union out of all six area stores. The employees received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation in overcoming three years of legal challenges by UFCW union lawyers to obtain the “decertification” vote, which was conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The final tally in the election was 189 employees against the union, 91 in favor, with five votes being contested. As a result of the election, over 300 employees at all six Treasure Island Foods stores in the Chicago area will become nonunion and free to negotiate over their own wages and working conditions.

Treasure Island employees originally filed for the decertification election in 2004, after UFCW officials ordered an unpopular boycott and fell out of favor with the vast majority of employees. Even though the employees’ petition was timely filed, UFCW Local 881 and 1546 officials stonewalled the vote by filing a series of “blocking charges” at the NLRB.

In 2005, after obtaining signatures from an overwhelming majority of employees at the grocery chain, Dan Schalin and his coworkers filed another decertification election petition at the NLRB. Threatened by the independent-minded employees’ petition, UFCW union officials continued to abuse the legal process by filing further unfounded blocking charges.

Finally, with help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation, Schalin and his coworkers requested that the petition for decertification be reinstated. In late May, the NLRB Regional Director ruled in favor of their request and scheduled the election.

“UFCW officials have thrown up every stumbling block possible over three years to block Treasure Island employees from exercising their free choice,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The hostility of the union hierarchy to workers’ interests shows why Illinois needs a Right to Work law that would make union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary.”

A decertification election, an NLRB-supervised secret ballot election to oust a union, is an uphill battle for workers to obtain or win. In particular, union lawyers are adept at gumming up the works by filing baseless charges that often block an election for years. Employees can only obtain such elections during narrowly proscribed periods every few years, and incumbent union hierarchies often retaliate against dissenting employees.

El Paso, TX (June 28, 2007) – After a year-long ordeal, El Paso security guard Juan Vielma received an offer of full reinstatement to his job yesterday after he was illegally suspended in 2006 without pay – in violation of Texas’ Right to Work law. But a national employee rights organization pressed the state’s top prosecutor to aggressively pursue numerous other violations of the Texas Right to Work law still occurring.

Immediately after Vielma contacted National Right to Work Foundation attorneys for help, they filed unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board in early November 2006 against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union. Union officials and AKAL Security suspended Vielma indefinitely without pay over a year ago in retaliation for asserting his protected right not to pay union dues.

AKAL Security and union officials had claimed, with no basis whatsoever, that Vielma and his coworkers work on an “exclusive federal enclave” not protected by Texas’ Right to Work law prohibiting forced union dues.

The reinstatement offer comes after a federal Administrative Law Judge agreed with arguments presented by Foundation attorneys and ruled unequivocally earlier this month that the Texas Right to Work law applies to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility where Vielma worked. The judge also ordered the payment of full back pay and benefits. Testimony at trial in March revealed that AKAL and union bosses had no basis for claims that the Right to Work law did not apply to the El Paso ICE facility. The trial also revealed the existence of an illegal union scheme to violate the law across Texas and in other Right to Work states.

Foundation president Mark Mix today reiterated his earlier request of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate and aggressively prosecute widespread violations of the Right to Work law. Foundation attorneys first brought these violations to the attention of the Attorney General’s office on November 21, 2006.

“Although we are pleased that Mr. Vielma will finally be allowed to return to work, there is much more work to be done. Not only should the Attorney General prosecute existing violations and obtain monetary penalties available under the law, but he should also take aggressive action that puts all Texas union bosses on notice that violations of the Texas Right to Work law will no longer be tolerated,” said Mix.

Foundation attorneys have uncovered evidence that SPFPA union officials have been engaging in a willfully fraudulent scheme to force potentially thousands of employees to pay union dues in violation of the state’s Right to Work law.

The Texas Attorney General has been asked to prosecute these criminal violations of the Right to Work law as well as enforce the state’s fraud and other applicable criminal statutes.

In addition to Vielma’s case, Foundation attorneys are helping Carlos Banuelos, a Corpus Christi security guard who filed federal charges against the same union. SPFPA union officials unlawfully threatened to have Banuelos and other employees fired for refusing to pay union dues.

San Francisco, CA (June 28, 2007) — A federal judge has agreed with National Right to Work Foundation attorneys and thrown out a desperate, last-ditch effort by union lawyers to prevent employees from voting in a government-supervised secret-ballot election. 900 airport security screeners at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) will finally have the right to end the practice of forcing employees to pay union dues just to keep their jobs.

With 900 screeners forced to pay up to $800 each per year, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials stand to lose as much as $720,000 annually in compulsory dues if the employees succeed. The federal labor board has not yet set a date for the election.

The SEIU lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, named the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 20 Director, as well as appointed Members of the NLRB in Washington, DC. The frivolous suit claimed that these officials somehow do not have the discretion to permit employees to exercise their statutory right to an election. SEIU lawyers filed the suit despite the fact that the NLRB has final jurisdiction over such “deauthorization” elections, and the federal court had no legal authority to enjoin the election.

Led by Stephen Burke, a four and a half year employee of Covenant Aviation Security at SFO, the screeners are upset that SEIU officials became their monopoly bargaining agent in the first place – without a secret-ballot election, but rather through a coercive “card check” campaign – and almost immediately ordered them to pay union dues or be fired from their jobs.

Under coercive “card check” unionization, unlike a government-supervised secret ballot election, union operatives may browbeat dissenting workers into signing cards later counted as “votes” favoring unionization. Since union officials gained monopoly bargaining power over them, many screeners have reported that the union hierarchy is unresponsive and unwilling to do anything other than collect forced dues. Many screeners have reported that this dissatisfaction fostered the deauthorization effort.

Hundreds of SFO security screeners apparently object to the mandatory union dues requirement. Over 45 percent of Burke’s coworkers signed the deauthorization petition, far beyond the 30 percent necessary to trigger the NLRB supervised-election. If a majority of all employees in the bargaining unit vote in favor of deauthorization, union officials will be stripped of their special privilege to compel payment of dues.

«SEIU union officials have unsuccessfully thrown every roadblock possible in place to stonewall SFO screeners from exercising their free choice,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, a charitable organization that is providing free legal assistance to the screeners. “Without the ability to withhold dues, employees have little leverage to hold union officials accountable for their actions.”

SEIU officials had previously tried to block the employees from obtaining the deauthorization election by challenging signatures collected in opposition to the forced dues clause before it took effect. However, the NLRB in Washington, DC, recently rejected that challenge and ordered the election to proceed.