Albuquerque, N.M. (July 28, 2004) – The United States District Court for the District of New Mexico found late yesterday that local union officials violated the constitutional rights of hundreds of nonunion City of Albuquerque employees by failing to properly disclose the union’s spending of their forced union dues. The Court then opened the door for the workers to seek precedent setting punitive damages against the union from a jury for intentionally or recklessly and callously violating the workers’ 1st and 14th Amendment rights. The Court also ordered a complete refund of all forced dues taken from nonunion City workers’ paychecks from August 1999 through July 2000.

The rulings came down in related cases brought for roughly 300 blue-collar Albuquerque City workers by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. The workers sued the City of Albuquerque and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 624, New Mexico AFSCME Council 18, and AFSCME International after the illegal seizures began.

Under the rulings, the City and Local 624 must also strike an indemnification clause from their collective bargaining agreement. In that clause, the union promised the City that it would pay all of the City’s damages, attorneys’ fees, and expenses in defending any suit filed by employees about the forced union dues. The Court enjoined the City from accepting such indemnification from the AFSCME union in the future and ordered the City to repay all past indemnification.

“AFSCME officials will no longer be able to bribe the City of Albuquerque to seize union dues from its workers’ paychecks by promising to reimburse all legal costs that arise from violating the workers’ First Amendment rights,» said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This ruling is a significant step toward curtailing the power of union officials to shake down workers for political contributions where there is no Right to Work law prohibiting all forced dues.”

Foundation attorneys filed suit after the City unlawfully deducted forced union dues from the paychecks of nonmembers without proper procedural protections required to prevent the monies’ use for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as support of union politics. The amount of unlawfully seized dues amounts to roughly $52,000. The AFSCME union now faces the possibility of a substantial additional judgment awarding punitive damages for misrepresenting how union officials were spending the nonmembers’ forced dues.

The actions of AFSCME union officials violated First Amendment protections articulated in the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson. Under Hudson, union officials must disclose an independent audit of their expenses, justifying the lawfulness of the disbursements charged to nonmembers, before seizing any forced union dues from employees who choose to refrain from formal union membership.

Senior District Judge C. Leroy Hansen cited in his opinions that the notice to workers detailing the union’s expenditures was inadequate, stating, “The simple fact of the matter is that the union’s original notice did not include the information it was required by law to include.” Dismissing the union’s inability to prove that the forced dues amount was correct, Judge Hansen said, “accounting inconvenience is an insufficient excuse to allow the union to continue to violate the First Amendment rights of the Plaintiffs.” Judge Hansen also likened the AFSCME union’s funneling of forced dues through the International, State, and Local affiliates with no record of how they were being spent to “money laundering.”

Asheboro, N.C. (July 27, 2004) – Three Goodyear Tires (Goodyear) employees filed federal charges today against their employer and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union for jointly coercing a majority of the plant’s workers to accept an unwanted union. Receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the workers filed the unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Winston-Salem.

Bowing to pressure brought by USWA union operatives, Goodyear signed a so-called “neutrality agreement” that prohibited the traditional and less abusive secret ballot election process in favor of a coercive “card check” campaign. As a result, Goodyear gave union organizers full access to employees’ personal information and company facilities to browbeat workers into signing union recognition cards that were counted as “votes” for unionization.

After USWA officials claimed that a majority of workers had signed such cards in mid-March, the union was installed by Goodyear as the monopoly representative of roughly 340 workers at the plant.

However, numerous workers submitted letters to Goodyear and the arbitrator who counted the cards revoking their previously signed cards. USWA officials, Goodyear, and the arbitrator ignored the revocations.

The workers’ unfair labor practice charges simply ask the NLRB to recount the cards and recognize the letters from workers revoking previously signed cards. The NLRB will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint.

“Goodyear and USWA officials pulled the rug out from underneath workers by corralling them into unwanted union representation without so much as a secret ballot vote,” stated Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Since employees are increasingly rejecting union membership when given a true choice, union officials are cutting back-room deals with companies to help bully workers into compulsory unionism.”

The filing comes on the heels of a decision by the NLRB Regional Director in Winston-Salem to prosecute the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and Freightliner for illegally coercing another group of Foundation-assisted workers to sign union recognition cards at the Thomas Built Bus facility in neighboring High Point, N.C. That complaint will be the first of its kind issued by any NLRB regional officer in response to a rapidly expanding wave of allegations of employee rights violations related to so-called “neutrality agreements” and “top-down” unionization campaigns.

Oxnard, Calif. (July 27, 2004) — The United Farm Workers (UFW) union agreed late yesterday to pay out over $105,000 in back pay to a large group of strawberry pickers unlawfully fired from their jobs for refusal to join the union and sign dues check-off authorizations permitting the union to collect full dues directly from their wages.

The settlement comes after attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation persuaded the General Counsel of California’s Agriculture Labor Relations Board (ALRB) to issue a complaint against the UFW union in December 2003 for unlawfully ordering and causing the mass firings of more than 100 Oxnard Coastal Berry employees in 2001. Under the settlement agreement, those workers will receive checks to compensate them for lost pay within the next several weeks.

With the assistance of Foundation attorneys, Francisco Alcazar, Bertha Ambriz, Bertha Andrade, Ella Carranza, Alma Rose Arredondo, and Manuel Mena filed the class-action unfair labor practice charges against the UFW union in June 2001. Coastal Berry, which employs approximately 750 workers, is the world’s largest strawberry producer.

“These employees so disdained the notion of joining and supporting the UFW union, that they decided they would rather lose their jobs,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “It’s an outrage that the union would attempt to drive dissenting workers into financial ruin.”

The unionization of Oxnard Coastal Berry occurred under controversial circumstances in the first place. In May 2000, by order of an ALRB packed with three one-day appointments by Governor Gray Davis, UFW union officials were granted monopoly bargaining power over Coastal Berry employees – even though a large number of the employees did not support the union. In March 2001, Coastal Berry entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the UFW union. Within days, UFW officials demanded that all Coastal Berry workers join the union and sign payroll deduction cards that would have allowed union officials to seize dues from their paychecks.

The ALRB complaint stated that UFW union officials unlawfully demanded that the berry pickers pay full union dues as a condition of employment, violating several Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Chicago Teachers v. Hudson. UFW union officials also unlawfully failed to inform employees of their rights to object to paying for non-collective bargaining activities (such as politics), and the right to challenge the union’s fee calculations before an impartial decision maker.

California State Senator Tom McClintock (R-19th District), whose legislative district borders Oxnard, weighed in for the workers: «The National Right to Work Foundation should be commended for representing the hard-working Californians that have been denied their jobs due to politics. Ironically, the UFW claims to be for workers, yet it turned more than 100 workers away from the fields where they have labored for years.”

The plight of Coastal Berry’s union-abused workers was featured in a national public television documentary.

Washington, DC (July 20, 2004) – In an issue emerging as a top election-year priority for organized labor officials, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and John Edwards (D-NC) have joined with Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to file formal arguments at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) urging the agency governing America’s private sector workplaces to deny employees access to the less-abusive secret-ballot election process when choosing whether to unionize.

“For two politicians who claim they’ll stick up for America’s workers, taking away basic freedoms is a strange way to show it,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

Kerry, Edwards, Kennedy, 14 other Senators, and 31 congressmen joined together to file the amicus curiae brief, perhaps the most noteworthy of dozens of briefs filed last week by representatives of management, unions, employees, public policy groups, and Members of Congress – arguing either in opposition to, or in favor of, the plight of disenfranchised employees aided by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys.

The Board invited the briefs after voting 3-2 to determine the enforceability of increasingly common arrangements intended to limit further employees’ freedom to determine whether union officials are authorized to represent them. These arrangements, sometimes called “card check” or “neutrality agreements,” involve high-pressure card solicitation drives that frequently result in complaints of union coercion from rank-and-file workers.

Replacing the less-abusive secret ballot election process with “card check” has become the number one requirement of candidates to obtain Big Labor’s support in the 2004 elections. According to the AFL-CIO’s recent statement to BNA’s Daily Labor Report, “we don’t have any issue that’s a litmus test, but this is as close as it gets.” According to the AFL-CIO, more than 80 percent of newly organized employees each year are already unionized through the controversial “card check” process while the traditional election process, favored by federal labor policy and the courts, is used far less frequently.

“Having trouble selling even a bare majority of workers on the merits of unionization, union officials are resorting to the in-your-face ‘card check’ process to intimidate workers into supporting a union,” said Gleason.

Congressman Charlie Norwood (R-GA), a signatory to a separate congressional brief and lead sponsor of legislation to reduce “card check” organizing abuses, said “Hard-working folks deserve the right to a fair and secret election – not the threats, arm-twisting, and shakedown tactics that come with ‘card check’ campaigns.”

The lead consolidated cases at the NLRB, brought by Foundation attorneys, arise out of the automotive industry where suppliers have cut deals with union officials to waive the secret ballot election process and to assist in pressuring employees to sign union authorization cards. The coercively obtained cards were then counted as “votes” in favor of authorizing the union to act as the employees’ monopoly bargaining agent.

These pacts also typically require employers to hand over their employees’ private information (including home addresses) to union organizers, subject employees to unsolicited “home visits,” and permit wide access to company facilities – resulting in employee complaints of browbeating and other harassment.

Cincinnati, Ohio (July 19, 2004) – Five Cincinnati firefighters today filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against an International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) union affiliate and top city officials for violations of the First Amendment by seizing compulsory union dues from the paychecks of scores of nonunion firefighters.

Receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the firefighters charge that IAFF Local 48 union officials acted in concert with the City of Cincinnati and seized compulsory union dues from them without first providing an adequate independent audit of the union’s expenditures. The complaint also names Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken, among other top city officials, for signing and enforcing an agreement with the union that resulted in the unconstitutional acts.

The firefighters filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio’s Western Division. They allege that IAFF Local 48 union officials intentionally seized the forced union dues without first providing the financial disclosure and procedures required by a long-standing U.S. Supreme Court ruling interpreting that the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution protect public employees from demands to pay for union political activity and other activities they may oppose.

Like many similar agreements around the country, the Cincinnati monopoly bargaining agreement included an “indemnification clause” whereby the union promises to pay all legal costs a city may incur in defending a suit that results from illegal seizures of compulsory dues. These agreements remove the incentive for the employer to ensure the union is not mistreating workers. Some courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over Ohio, have stuck these agreements down as void as against public policy.

“IAFF union officials simply want nonunion firefighters to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union operatives should not be allowed essentially to bribe city officials to do their dirty work by promising to reimburse all legal costs that arise out of violating firefighters’ First Amendment rights.»

The firefighters are asking the court to enjoin IAFF officials from seizing forced dues from any nonunion employee represented by Local 48 until they provide the legally required notice and procedures.

The workers also seek class-action status for their case, and restitution for all firefighters represented by IAFF Local 48 in the form of a refund of all past forced dues collected since July 2002. If the court grants class-action status, a remedy in the case could force significant financial reimbursements to all past and present nonunion firefighters who were forced to pay such union fees-an amount estimated as high as $100,000.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must first provide an audited disclosure of the union’s expenses. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

Washington, DC (July 16, 2004) – Representatives of management, unions, employees, and Members of Congress filed a flurry of formal arguments on yesterday’s deadline in the National Right to Work Foundation’s lead case before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that will determine to what extent employees may enjoy the protections of a secret ballot election when deciding whether to form a union.

Filing one of many briefs on the employees’ side, an unprecedented coalition of three former members of the NLRB (John Raudabaugh, J. Robert Brame, and Dennis Devaney) argued for 21 Members of Congress that employees should have a right to a secret ballot election conducted by the NLRB to “test” a union’s claims of majority support after an abusive “card check” organizing drive.

In a statement released today, Congressman Charlie Norwood (R-GA), a signatory to the congressional brief and lead sponsor of legislation to reduce “card check” organizing abuses, said “Hard-working folks deserve the right to a fair and secret balanced election — not the threats, arm-twisting, and shakedown tactics that come with card check campaigns.”

In contrast, the Big Three (and Delphi) argued that they should be entitled to cut deals and bargain without employee interference after a union is recognized pursuant to a so-called “neutrality” or “card check” agreement – even when a clear majority of employees opposing unionization immediately petition thereafter for a secret ballot decertification election.

Many other amicus curiae briefs, filed both for and against the disenfranchised employees, poured in from across America as the Board debates the enforceability of increasingly common arrangements intended to limit employees’ freedom to determine their union status. According to the AFL-CIO, more than 80 percent of newly organized employees each year are now unionized through this “card check” process.

“Increasingly unable to sell workers on union membership, union officials have resorted to coercive tactics such as ‘neutrality’ agreements and the in-your-face ‘card check’ solicitation process to intimidate workers into supporting a union,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Big Three should be ashamed of themselves for selling their hard-working employees into forced unionism in return for concessions from United Auto Workers (UAW) officials.”

The NLRB solicited briefs from the legal community after granting review last month by a 3-2 vote in consolidated cases filed by Foundation attorneys for employees at Dana Corporation and Metaldyne that challenge the so-called “voluntary recognition bar rule” which prevents free employee elections. Under pressure from the Big Three – as well as a union “corporate campaign” – the automotive suppliers cut deals with the UAW to waive the secret ballot election process and to assist union organizers in pressuring employees to sign union authorization cards. The coercively obtained cards were then counted as “votes” in favor of unionization.

These pacts typically require that the employer hand over employees’ private information (including home addresses) to union organizers, subject employees to unsolicited “home visits,” and permit wide access to company facilities resulting in employee complaints of harassment. After Dana and Metaldyne granted recognition to the UAW union, large groups of employees immediately filed petitions – signed by 35 percent and more than 50 percent, respectively – opposing unionization and calling for a formal decertification election.

In a related development, the U.S. Senate today held hearings on the subject of “card check” organizing.

Washington, D.C. (July 15, 2004) – By a 3-2 vote, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week struck down an activist Clinton-era ruling which had allowed union officials to corral university graduate teaching assistants (TAs) into unwanted union affiliation, and ultimately to force them to pay union dues to maintain their status.

In the case involving the United Auto Workers (UAW) union’s attempt to forcibly unionize TAs at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the NLRB voted to return to its long-standing position of more than 25 years that TAs have an academic, rather than economic, relationship with universities, and that TAs are not “employees” under federal labor law who can be subjected to union monopoly bargaining.

Agreeing with the position taken by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys in an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief filed in early 2002, the NLRB found that, because TAs are admitted into, rather than hired by universities, they are students in, rather than employees of, the institution.

“While some students may have Marxist dreams that they are ‘workers,’ rather than students, who will be in the vanguard of an economic revolution when the workers of the world unite, the fact remains that they are students and not employees, and have little commonality of interest with most employees,” the Foundation pointed out in its brief.

In their brief, Foundation attorneys cited that grades are the central form of “compensation” for TAs and questioned whether grades would ultimately become a mandatory subject of monopoly bargaining if TAs were treated as “employees” for purposes of unionization. Foundation attorneys also argued that allowing union officials monopoly bargaining power over all TAs would violate the First Amendment freedom of association rights of dissenting TAs, thereby undermining academic freedom.

UAW union officials sought monopoly bargaining privileges over roughly 450 TAs at Brown University. While UAW officials relied on a NLRB decision in 2000 involving New York University which, for the first time, classified TAs as employees, Brown University contended that “[c]ommon sense dictates that students who teach and perform research as a part of their academic curriculum cannot properly be considered employees without entangling the…[National Labor Relations]Act into the intricacies of graduate education.”

“This was a shameless attempted power grab by UAW officials to corral graduate students into unwanted union affiliation and force them to pay dues for unwanted union ‘representation,’” stated Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Jefferson, Wisc. (July 13, 2004) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Tyson Foods (Tyson) workers requesting to vote in a deauthorization election. If successful, the election would free nearly 400 workers at Tyson’s Jefferson, Wisconsin facility from being forced to pay union dues for unwanted union representation as a condition of employment.

In their “Friend of the Court” brief, Foundation attorneys argue that contrary to arguments made by lawyers for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, evidence clearly shows that the replacement workers are permanent employees and, accordingly, such workers have the right to vote in such an election. The NLRB accepted review of the appeal filed by UFCW union lawyers after the acting regional director in Milwaukee ruled in favor of the employees seeking to vote in the election.

Tyson Foods hired the permanent replacement workers after approximately 390 employees walked off the job in a crippling strike in February of 2003.

UFCW union lawyers somehow contend the workers are temporary replacements, despite a letter from Tyson to union officials to the contrary effect, and despite the fact that the company published announcements in 10 Jefferson-area newspapers from April 2003 to January 2004 stating that Tyson was in the process of hiring permanent replacement workers. Tyson also had replacement workers sign a “Permanent Replacement Acknowledgement” form affirming their permanent employment status upon hiring.

“UFCW union officials fear losing the power to mandate dues payments from all workers. Without the power to get employees fired for refusal to pay union dues, union officials could actually be held accountable for their actions,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason.

If the NLRB affirms the regional director’s finding, then the replacement employees at the Jefferson Tyson facility will be able to vote in the deauthorization election.

A deauthorization election has only one purpose and effect: to remove the forced-union-dues clause from the collective bargaining agreement. Even after a successful deauthorization, all employees remain fully subject to other terms of the collective bargaining agreement, including agreements regarding wages and benefits, and they are still barred from negotiating on their own behalf. However, the union hierarchy would lose its power to get employees fired for refusal to pay union dues and would instead be forced to persuade individual employees why it deserves their financial support.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, in order to request a deauthorization election, thirty percent of workers in a bargaining unit must sign a petition in support of holding the election. A majority of the workers in the bargaining unit, and not just of those voting, must then approve deauthorization.

Columbus, Ohio (July 12, 2004) — The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) is guilty of religious discrimination for forcing a worker to affiliate with a union he believes to be involved in immoral activities. The determination follows a similar finding against the Ohio Civil Service Association (OCSA) union hierarchy last year.

The Cincinnati office of the federal agency found the OEPA’s and OCSA’s actions to be in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act after hearing the evidence and reviewing arguments provided by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys.

Glen Greenwood, an OEPA employee working in the agency’s Columbus facility, requested that OEPA officials place his forced union dues payments in escrow while he waited for a religious accommodation to paying dues to the union. As a devout Presbyterian, Greenwood believes that supporting this union violates his sincerely held religious beliefs because of the union’s support for abortion on demand and special rights for homosexuals.

In March, Greenwood received a letter from the General Counsel of the Department of Administrative Services. The letter stated that Greenwood’s request to place his forced-dues payments in escrow was denied on the basis that he did not belong to a “qualified” church. With the help of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Greenwood filed the religious discrimination charges with the EEOC in early May after the OCSA and OEPA refused to honor his objection to supporting the union.

“OCSA union officials simply want workers like Glen Greenwood to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union officials’ actions show they care more about stuffing their coffers with forced union dues than with respecting the wishes of the very rank-and-file employees they claim to represent.”

The EEOC has now advised both the OEPA and OCSA that they may face prosecution in federal court if they refuse or otherwise fail to participate in informal conciliation with Greenwood.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs. To avoid the conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to accommodate the employee – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to accept the funds.

«Glen Greenwood’s case shows that Big Labor believes paying tribute to a union is more important than paying tribute to your faith,» stated Gleason.

Albuquerque, N.M. (July 2, 2004) – Certifying a federal civil rights lawsuit as a class action, the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico authorized hundreds of nonunion employees of the City of Albuquerque to challenge the misuse of their forced union dues for politics and other activities.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed the class action suit, Harrington v. Albuquerque, on behalf of roughly 300 blue-collar city government employees against the City of Albuquerque and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Union Local 624, New Mexico Council 18, and AFSCME International.

Foundation attorneys filed the suit after the City unlawfully deducted forced union dues from the paychecks of nonmembers used for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, including support of union politics, without proper procedural protections. The unlawfully seized dues were deducted from workers’ paychecks between July 1999 and April 2000. The amount of unlawfully seized dues in question amounts to roughly $36,000, and the AFSCME union faces the possibility of a substantial judgment awarding punitive damages, particularly in light of its misconduct. AFSCME’s notice to nonunion workers also misrepresented how union officials were spending their forced dues.

Certification of the class action suit follows the remanding of a similar case, Wessel v. City of Albuquerque, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. In Wessel, which was not a class action, the Court of Appeals ruled that workers’ procedural rights had been violated, and that they could seek restitution of monies not used for lawful chargeable purposes.

Senior Judge C. Leroy Hansen dismissed the arguments of AFSCME union lawyers to prevent Foundation attorneys from being recognized as counsel for all employees who are similarly situated to the lead plaintiff, stating, “…all [AFSCME union] Defendants have shown is that Plaintiffs’ counsel want to win this lawsuit…The Defendants do not allege that Plaintiffs’ counsel has acted unethically or otherwise inappropriately, as the Defendants’ counsel have repeatedly done themselves.”

Judge Hansen’s comments referred to arguments by AFSCME union lawyers opposing class action certification that cited language from previous cases “…out of context under the apparent and mistaken impression that the court would not read the cases cited in their briefs…”

The actions of AFSCME union officials violated First Amendment protections as articulated in the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson. Under Hudson, union officials must provide an independently audited disclosure of their books and justify expenditures before seizing any forced union dues from employees who have chosen to refrain from union membership.

“AFSCME officials are trying to get away with using City of Albuquerque employees as their personal piggy bank,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Rather than actually represent these workers, union operatives simply want them to shut up and pay up.”