Washington, DC – Leading up to oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA) and Washington v. WEA on Wednesday January 10, 2007, National Right to Work Foundation spokesmen and lead plaintiff Gary Davenport are available to discuss the cases with the media. At stake is whether the High Court will overturn a Washington State Supreme Court decision that created a “First Amendment right” for union officials to spend nonunion employees’ forced union dues on politics. If this unprecedented interpretation of the First Amendment is allowed to stand, it will represent a major step backwards for the rights of unionized employees, and it could lead to legal attacks on America’s 22 state Right to Work laws, which ban forced union dues.

### What:
Advance media availability for interviews leading up to Supreme Court Oral Arguments in Davenport v. WEA, and Washington v. WEA – the most prominent cases to be argued this month.

### When:
Between now and January 10, 2007

### Who:
Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation which is providing free legal aid to the Davenport teacher plaintiffs

Gary Davenport, Lead Petitioner in Davenport v. WEA

### Where:
In studio in the Washington, DC-area, via satellite, or via telephone

### Why:
As the only national organization dedicated solely to protecting workers from abuses of compulsory unionism, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is the foremost expert in this important area of the law. Gleason will be able to address to the direct implications of Davenport v. WEA, and Washington v. WEA, as well as the long term implications for the struggle by nonunion workers against compulsory unionism. Davenport will also be able to discuss the employee perspective of the cases.

To schedule an interview or for more information, contact Justin Hakes at (571) 243-3637, or Patrick Ashby at (703) 770-3306.

Princeton, WV (December 26, 2006) – Walter Coeburn, a ResCare, Inc. assisted living employee filed federal labor board charges against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199 and ResCare for their attempts to force unwanted unionization on Coeburn, his co-workers and employees all across West Virginia.

Coeburn filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 11 offices in Winston Salem, NC, with assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys. The unfair labor practice charges ask for an injunction to block the union and ResCare from continuing their unlawful activities, and they detail multiple violations of the National Labor Relations Act by SEIU officials and ResCare.

As part of an agreement kept secret from employees, ResCare executives agreed to abandon even the limited protections offered to employees under a NLRB-supervised secret ballot election and instead impose a coercive “card check” procedure, in which union organizers can browbeat employees individually to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization.

Because of the prevalence of union intimidation tactics directed at employees, card check is controversial for severely curtailing workers’ freedom of choice in deciding whether or not to unionize. Consequently, the organizing scheme has sparked numerous legal cases documenting coercive activities by union organizers, including threats, bribes, and stalkings of rank-and-file workers. In this case, witnesses said that SEIU organizers lied to many employees by stating that signing the cards was only a request “to get more information.”

The “card check” procedure used at ResCare is part of a larger misnamed “neutrality and card check agreement” designed to have the employer assist union organizers in pushing workers into the union’s ranks. Under such agreements, the company commonly must give union officials unfettered access to workers on company property and the home addresses and phone numbers of employees, resulting in menacing home visits from groups of union organizers. Also, such agreements usually include a “gag rule” preventing the employer from commenting on any potential impact of unionization.

In exchange for agreeing to assist the union with the card check scheme, ResCare executives received concessions from SEIU officials, including an agreed upon contract to be foisted upon the employees once the card check unionization was complete. Such “pre-recognition bargaining” clearly violates federal law, yet the SEIU and ResCare are now rolling this scheme out all over West Virginia and Ohio.

“Union officials sold out the interests of the very workers they sought to ‘represent’ in order to force unionization and compulsory dues on these employees,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union organizers’ illegal behavior shows that they don’t respect the rights of the workers; they just want the forced union dues revenue.”

In response to their ill treatment, Coeburn and his colleagues conducted a decertification drive to throw out the unwanted union. A majority of employees in the bargaining unit have signed a petition asking the NLRB to conduct an election to determine if the SEIU really has the majority employee support it claims.

**Chicago, IL (December 19, 2006)** – A group of ten Joseph T. Ryerson & Son, Inc. employees filed a wave of federal charges against the Teamsters Local 714 union today after union officials vindictively fined them for refusing to walk off the job during a Teamsters-mandated strike.

The metal processing workers obtained free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation to file the unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), because Teamsters union officials illegally failed to notify the workers of their right to refrain from formal union membership and then issued retaliatory fines – some over $1,000 apiece – for continuing to work during the strike in March of this year.

Because the Teamsters hierarchy unlawfully failed to inform the workers of their right to refrain from formal union membership and to object to paying for the union’s nonrepresentational activities, such as politics, the employees thus cannot be considered voluntary members – and are not legally subject to internal union disciplinary measures, such as strike fines.

“These Teamsters officials went to great lengths to intimidate and stifle dissent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The union hierarchy has little regard for employees who want to support their families rather than toe the union line during an unpopular strike.”

The actions of Teamsters union officials violate employee rights recognized under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court *Communications Workers v. Beck* decision. Under *Beck* and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials must inform employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and observe their right not to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining.

“Unfortunately, as long as Illinois workers labor without the protections of a Right to Work law – which makes union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary – abuses of this nature will surely continue throughout the Prairie State,” said Gleason.

**Springfield, VA (December 15, 2006)** – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced today that it has hired Matthew C. Muggeridge, a newly sworn in member of the Maryland State Bar and graduate of the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“Matthew C. Muggeridge brings to National Right to Work a real commitment to helping employees fight back against the abuses of compulsory unionism,” said Ray LaJeunesse, vice president and legal director of the National Right to Work Foundation.

As the newest of the Foundation’s ten staff attorneys, Muggeridge will help build on the Foundation’s successful litigation record on behalf of union-abused workers that includes 13 cases at the United States Supreme Court. Currently National Right to Work staff attorneys are representing 4,000 teachers in the case of *Davenport v. WEA*, which is scheduled to be argued before the High Court in January.

As a fluent Spanish speaker, Muggeridge’s addition to the staff increases the Foundation’s ability to aid Spanish speaking workers that have been victimized by compulsory unionism abuses. Additionally, Muggeridge will assist the Foundation’s cutting-edge efforts to curb workers’ rights abuses under coercive “card-check” or “top-down” union organizing schemes.

In recent years, Foundation attorneys have persuaded the National Labor Relations Board to re-evaluate the legality of these increasingly abusive union organizing tactics and have utilized cutting-edge legal strategies to protect employees from these coercive tactics which deny employees basic protections in choosing whether to unionize.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Muggeridge served as a Senior Associate for the High Park Advocacy Group in Toronto, Canada. Muggeridge also spent a year teaching at Dulwich College in London, England.

Muggeridge holds a Bachelors of Philosophy degree from Gregorian University where he graduated summa cum laude. He also holds a Post Graduate Degree in Education from King’s College in London.

**Silver Spring, MD (December 11, 2006)** – Three workers aided by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have filed federal labor board charges against the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 2 and their employer Kaiser Mid-Atlantic (a component of the national Kaiser Permanente health network) after union organizers entered into a pact with the healthcare giant to impose unwanted unionization on healthcare professionals.

The charges, filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), detail an agreement between OPEIU and Kaiser Permanente in which union officials bargained contract provisions for workers they did not legally represent. Such “pre-recognition bargaining” violates the National Labor Relations Act.

In exchange for a premature contract, Kaiser Permanente executives agreed to abandon even the limited protections offered to employees under a NLRB-supervised secret ballot election and instead impose a coercive “card check” procedure, in which union organizers can browbeat employees individually to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization.

Because of the prevalence of union intimidation tactics directed at employees, card check is controversial for severely curtailing workers’ freedom of choice in deciding whether or not to unionize. Consequently, the organizing scheme has sparked numerous legal cases documenting illegal activities by union organizers, including threats, bribes, and stalking of rank-and-file workers. In this case, OPEIU union officials told employees that raises and benefit increases depended on their signing up for union representation.

The “card check” procedure is part of a larger misnamed “neutrality agreement” designed to assist union organizers in pushing workers into the union’s ranks. Employers agree to give union officials unfettered access to workers on company property, and the home addresses and phone numbers of employees resulting in menacing home visits from groups of union organizers. Also, such agreements usually include a gag rule preventing the employer from commenting on any potential impact of unionization.

Once union officials gain monopoly bargaining power, they can then force all employees to pay dues to the union just to keep their jobs. Union officials hold this power because Maryland is one of 28 states that has not yet passed a Right to Work law, which would mandate that union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

“Union officials want to force unionization on these workers from the top down, like it or not,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union officials’ illegal behavior shows that they do not respect the rights of the workers they claim to represent; it’s all about the money and finding new sources of forced union dues revenues.”

**Washington, DC (November 15, 2006)** – A diverse group of 35 legal foundations, public policy groups, and federal government agencies this week filed supporting briefs asking the nation’s highest court to reverse a novel Washington State Supreme Court decision that found a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend on politics the forced dues extracted from nonunion employees. A failure to overturn the activist Washington ruling might jeopardize America’s 22 state Right to Work laws which ban forced union dues altogether.

The 35 parties from across the country filed 14 amicus (or “friend of the court”) briefs in *Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA)* and *Washington v. WEA*, which are scheduled for oral arguments on January 10, 2007. In the Davenport case, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are representing approximately 4,000 nonunion Washington State teachers. A list of the amici, as well as their underlying briefs, is available on the Foundation’s website.

In addition to asking for a reversal of the Washington State Supreme Court’s novel finding of a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend the compulsory dues of nonunion members, lead counsel Milton Chappell, a 30-year Foundation veteran in assisting union-abused employees, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify that it had never approved a pervasive union procedure designed to force nonunion members to pay full union dues, including hundreds of dollars per employee which are spent for a wide array of activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

While seeking to overturn the Washington State court’s dangerous precedent involving the First Amendment, Foundation attorneys are going on the offensive by asking the High Court to clarify its 45-year-old “dissent is not to be presumed” statement. Union officials have exploited that phrase from a 1961 ruling to force employees who resign union membership to take the additional affirmative step of objecting annually to cut off the use of their forced dues on politics and other non-bargaining functions. A victory on this argument would dramatically increase the impact of previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings won by Foundation attorneys establishing that nonunion employees cannot be lawfully compelled to pay for politics, lobbying, organizing, and a wide array of other non-bargaining activities.

Surprisingly, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation – a longtime proponent of Washington’s well-meant, but ineffective, “paycheck protection” law – argued in its amicus brief that the funds covered by the law were “miniscule… less than ¼ of 1% of the WEA’s total expenditures.” The law only governs a small fraction of union officials’ state and local electioneering expenditures.

“While there may now be nearly universal agreement that the underlying campaign finance statute has been ineffective, all agree that it is indefensible to use it as a springboard to create an even larger problem – a perversion of the long-standing interpretation of the First Amendment,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Washington ruling cannot be allowed to stand because of the collateral damage it is already causing to employee rights nationwide. Only weeks ago, a Colorado court relied on it in a similar ruling.”

Foundation attorneys and Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle filed Davenport in 2001 for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but are still forced to pay dues or be fired. In recent days, Washington Attorney General Robert McKenna also filed arguments for the state in a related case, *Washington v. WEA*.

Key Legal Documents

Merits brief filed by National Right to Work Foundation Staff Attorney Milton Chappell and Steve O’Ban (Davenport v. WEA)

Merits brief filed by Washington State Attorney General Robert McKenna (Washington v. WEA)

*Amicus* Briefs

13 Public Policy Groups (Evergreen Freedom Foundation,Cascade Policy Institute, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy, Excellent Education for Everyone, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Georgia Public Policy Foundation, James Madison Institute, John Locke Foundation, Nevada Policy Research Institute, Pacific Research Institute, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, Small Business Hawaii & Competitive Enterprise Institute)

Association of American Educators

American Legislative Exchange Council

Cato Institute, Reason Foundation & Center for Individual Freedom

States of Colorado, Alabama, Idaho, Ohio, Utah & Virginia

Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Religious Objector Members of the Northwest Professional Educators & Pacific Justice Institute

Pacific Legal Foundation

Institute for Justice

National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation & James Madison Center for Free Speech

United States Solicitor General, US Department of Labor, US Department of Justice & Federal Election Commission

Campaign Legal Center

Mountain States Legal Foundation

**Washington, DC (November 10, 2006)** – In their opening brief filed last night, a group of teachers receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bar union officials’ pervasive national practice of forcing nonunion employees to affirmatively object to stop the use of their forced dues for union politics.

Foundation attorneys filed the arguments in their pending U.S. Supreme Court appeal challenging a Washington State Supreme Court ruling which gave union officials a constitutional “right” to spend forced dues to promote political causes with which teachers may disagree. In September, the nation’s highest court granted review of the ruling that voided a campaign finance law seeking to limit the misuse of mandatory dues for certain political activities. Oral argument is January 10, 2007.

Lead counsel Milton Chappell, a 30-year Foundation veteran in assisting union-abused employees, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the controversial decision of the Washington State Supreme Court which somehow found a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend compulsory dues on certain politics after seizing those dues from employees who are not union members. The novel finding was the basis used by the court to strike down Washington’s ineffective state campaign finance law – often called “paycheck protection” – which sought to regulate a small fraction of the mandatory union dues union officials actually spend on political and ideological activity.

Importantly, the teachers’ brief asked the High Court to clarify that the court had never approved a pervasive union procedure designed to force nonunion members to pay full union dues, including hundreds of dollars per employee which are spent for a wide array of activities unrelated to collective bargaining. A victory on this argument would dramatically increase the impact of previous Supreme Court rulings won by Foundation attorneys establishing that nonunion employees cannot be lawfully compelled to pay for politics, lobbying, organizing, and a wide array of other non-bargaining activities.

If allowed to stand, the Washington State Supreme Court decision in *Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA)* and *Washington v. WEA* – which, as Justice Richard B. Sanders’ three-member dissent pointed out, “turns the First Amendment on its head” – could open the door for union attorneys to try to undermine America’s 22 state Right to Work laws, which make union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary.

While seeking to overturn this dangerous precedent, Foundation attorneys are opening up the offensive line of attack by asking the High Court to clarify its 45-year-old “dissent is not to be presumed” statement. Union officials have exploited that phrase from a 1961 ruling to force employees who resign union membership to take the additional affirmative step of objecting annually to cut off the use of their forced dues on politics and other non-bargaining functions.

“This case underscores why no American worker should be coerced into paying any dues to an unwanted union in the first place,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the Foundation. “Union officials have placed immense burdens on workers to ‘recover the stolen loot’ since the absence of a Right to Work law allows the theft in the first place.”

Foundation attorneys filed the suit, *Davenport v. WEA*, in 2001 for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but are still forced to pay dues or be fired. The Washington State Attorney General Robert McKenna also filed supporting arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court in his related case, *Washington v. WEA Union*, on behalf of the state.

Download the Davenport Petitioners’ Merits Brief

For more information visit the Foundation’s Davenport v. WEA case page

**Charlotte, NC (November 10, 2006)** – Five employees of Daimler-Chrysler subsidiary Freightliner, LLC are considering an appeal of a federal judge’s cryptic and illogical dismissal yesterday of their federal racketeering lawsuit against the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and Freightliner. The employees filed the lawsuit in January with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation.

“To get the company’s help in coercing thousands of workers into union ranks and to obtain at least $1 million in annual dues revenues, UAW officials sold out the very workers they sought to represent,” said Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason. “The ruling uses circular reasoning, is incorrect as a matter of law, and is ripe for an appeal.”

Filed in the U.S District Court for the Western District of North Carolina under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practice Act (RICO), the class-action lawsuit challenges an agreement intended to install a sweetheart “company union,” alleging a pattern of violations of longstanding federal law that bars employers from delivering “things of value” to unions in an effort to co-opt the union.

The autoworkers’ complaint outlines a secret quid pro quo arrangement between Freightliner and the UAW in which union officials agreed in advance to significant bargaining concessions at the expense of the Freightliner workers at its nonunion facilities in North Carolina in exchange for valuable company assistance in organizing those workers.

Specifically, Freightliner and the UAW union expressly agreed to limitations on wages, cancellation of employee profit sharing bonuses, an increase in health care costs shouldered by employees, and other concessions before union officials even had the right to bargain for employees. UAW officials outlined their lengthy list of concessions in a once-secret document titled “Preconditions to Card Check Procedure.” In a related case, the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel found the preconditions to be illegal.

In return, Freightliner promised to provide valuable organizing assistance outlined in a document titled “Card Check Procedure,” including holding compulsory “captive audience” meetings during which union organizers could propagandize employees, granting wide access to employees at home and at work, and not making any negative comments about unionization. Freightliner also denied employees secret ballot elections to choose whether to unionize. The “Card Check Procedure” also required Freightliner to automatically recognize the union when presented with the requisite number of signed authorization cards. In such Top Down organizing drives, employees are frequently coerced, browbeaten, or misled into signing such cards, which are then counted as “votes” in favor of unionization. Workers have also complained that signed cards are difficult to revoke.

Yet, the district court dismissed the suit in a cryptic and illogical four-page order in which the secret quid pro quo agreement is somehow equated with card check agreements that occur without such sweetheart provisions. Additionally, the ruling illogically suggests that finding such a quid pro quo arrangement reached prior to the negotiation of an actual collective bargaining agreement to violate criminal prohibitions of federal labor law would be tantamount to “criminalizing all collective bargaining agreements.”

The suit lists four counts of RICO violations regarding the enforcement of these corrupt arrangements against the employees of certain Freightliner facilities. The employees seek financial restitution to all employees at the Mount Holly, Gastonia, and Cleveland, North Carolina facilities in the form of treble damages for all dues seized and earnings lost as a result of the unlawful pact. Additional Freightliner plants known to be covered by the secret agreement are located in High Point, North Carolina and Gaffney, South Carolina.

Visit the Foundations Freightliner Top Down Organizing page for more information.

**Tacoma, WA (November 6, 2006)** – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a local group of mail equipment inspectors filed federal charges against the Teamsters Local 117 union today after union officials unlawfully misinformed them about their rights to refrain from formal union membership – and then threatened to have them fired for exercising those rights.

The workers’ charge, filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), details how Teamsters officials illegally informed over 90 Alan Ritchey, Inc. employees that they would be fired if they did not become formal union members and sign dues deduction cards that authorize the union hierarchy to seize full dues from their paychecks. These actions fly in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in *Pattern Makers v. NLRB* and *Communications Workers of America v. Beck*, a case won by Foundation attorneys. These rulings affirmed the right of private sector employees to refrain from formal union membership and pay a reduced amount of forced dues.

The workers argue that, due to the Teamsters union officials’ campaign of coercion and misrepresentation, not a single employee at the Auburn, Washington facility can be considered a voluntary member of the union. Their charges seek that all union memberships and dues deduction cards be voided until union officials provide the workers with correct information regarding their rights, as well as retroactively refund all dues seized under their illegal threats.

“These shameful tactics demonstrate that the Teamsters union hierarchy is more concerned with collecting forced dues than the interests of the employees they claim to ‘represent,’” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “So long as Washington State employees labor without the protections of a Right to Work law, which makes union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary, these unfortunate abuses are bound to continue.”

Despite Teamsters officials’ deliberate attempts to keep Alan Ritchey employees in the dark, a group of workers did send the union hierarchy objection letters asserting their right to pay a reduced forced dues amount that covers only the union’s proven collective bargaining costs – their right under *Beck*.

Union officials responded by declaring the reduced dues amount to be 98.7 percent of full union dues, but then failed to provide legally-mandated financial disclosure to support their forced dues demands. Teamsters officials also instructed the employees to renew their objections in April, and then annually thereafter during a union-imposed “window period.”

Foundation attorneys contend that such annual objection requirements also violate worker protections outlined by Beck.

**Honolulu, HI (October 30, 2006)** – Challenging actions by union officials to seize compulsory union dues spent for political activities, an employee at the Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii has filed federal unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union.

The charges, filed with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, detail how UNITE-HERE union officials have ignored U.S. Supreme Court precedent by refusing to acknowledge objection letters sent by employees exercising their right to refrain from paying any more forced dues than the amount proven to cover collective bargaining costs.

In the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed employees’ right to object to paying forced union dues not used for collective bargaining, such as politics, lobbying, and organizing. Additionally, the NLRB has outlined a procedure where employees can exercise their Beck rights by sending an objection letter to union officials.

However, instead of recognizing the employees’ Beck objections, the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union hierarchy set up a series of illegal bureaucratic hurdles to discourage workers from exercising these rights. Such hurdles include forcing employees to annually renew their objections during a short window period and refusing to accept Beck objections during periods while a collective bargaining contract was not in place.

“In their rush to line their political coffers, UNITE-HERE union officials are violating the rights of the very employees they claim to ‘represent,’” said Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason. “This bullying highlights how workers are mistreated in states without Right to Work protections that would make union dues-payment strictly voluntary.”

The NLRB Regional Director will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint against the union local.

This is not the first time that UNITE-HERE Local 5 union officials have violated the rights of rank-and-file workers. In March 2005, an electrician at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort filed charges at the NLRB after union officials illegally forced nonunion workers to pay money into a union strike fund that was then used to support UNITE-HERE work stoppages in other industries, including outside of the United States in Guam and Saipan. Foundation attorneys forced UNITE HERE union officials to settle that case in July and stop illegally siphoning nonunion employees’ forced dues into the general strike fund.

“Ultimately, only ending forced unionism will allow workers to hold union officials accountable,” said Gleason.

Read the NLRB charges