Worker Advocate: Supreme Court Should Hear Case Over Wisconsin Right to Work Law’s Limit on Union “Window Period” Schemes
National Right to Work Foundation asks High Court to reconsider precedent blocking states from protecting workers’ right to cut off union payments
Springfield, VA (February 7, 2019) – The National Right to Work Foundation has submitted an amicus curiae brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a writ of certiorari in a case involving a union’s challenge to part of Wisconsin’s Right to Work Law that allows workers to cut off dues payments at any time with 30 days notice. The State of Wisconsin filed its cert petition in Allen v. International Association of Machinists in January asking the Supreme Court to take the case.
Wisconsin’s Right to Work Law, passed in 2015, makes union membership and dues payments strictly voluntary. That fundamental aspect of the law remains in effect after a separate union legal challenge to that aspect failed and is not part of the case that the Supreme Court has been asked to hear.
To ensure workers could exercise their Right to Work, a provision in the law allows employees to revoke their authorization for union officials to deduct union dues or fees at any time and requires that union officials stop these unauthorized deductions within 30 days. The provision protects workers from “window period” schemes often enforced by union officials to limit workers from revoking authorization for dues or fee deductions except for a few days annually.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that this part of the statute is preempted by federal law. The Seventh Circuit’s ruling relied on the Supreme Court’s Sea Pak v. Industrial, Technical, & Professional Employees decision issued in 1971, which the state of Wisconsin is now asking the High Court to revisit.
The Foundation’s amicus brief asks the High Court to review the Seventh Circuit’s decision because federal law allows Wisconsin to protect employees from forced payments, including from union-created limitations on cutting off dues.
As the amicus brief notes, Congress left the final decision about whether to permit, outlaw, or limit compulsory unionism to individual states under Section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This includes allowing states to set a stricter standard for when union officials must halt unauthorized dues or fees deductions than the after one year maximum prescribed by the NLRA.
“Time and again, Big Labor has concocted ways to seize unauthorized dues and fees from workers’ wages through ‘window period’ schemes and other underhanded tactics,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Foundation’s amicus curiae brief advances the widely accepted common-sense argument that Wisconsin and other states should be allowed to create additional protections for workers from compulsory unionism.”
Michigan Workers Pursue Federal Unfair Labor Practice Charges against Unions for Illegal Dues Seizures
Grand Rapids worker files NLRB charge against Teamsters, while Dearborn worker wins settlement with Ford Motor Company in ongoing case with UAW
Grand Rapids, MI (January 29, 2019) – A Michigan worker has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys because his employer has continued unlawfully deducting union dues from his paycheck for union officials, even after he instructed the union to cease taking dues from his wages.
Parnell White, employed as a driver by Head Start of Kent County in Walker, Michigan, sent a letter to International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 406 in Grand Rapids, resigning his union membership and revoking his authorization for Teamsters union officials to deduct any further union membership dues.
The letter was received by union officials on November 27, 2018, during the union’s prescribed annual 15-day “window period” to revoke dues authorization. However, the union refused to acknowledge his letter, and dues continue to be taken out of White’s paycheck and received by union officials without his permission.
White’s charge alleges that the union officials’ actions violate his rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Those illegal actions are preventing him from enjoying the protections of Michigan’s Right to Work Law which prohibits union officials from forcing workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
This charge is similar to another ongoing case in Dearborn, Michigan. There Lloyd Stoner filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and his employer, the Ford Motor Company, with free legal assistance from Foundation staff attorneys.
UAW union officials refused to acknowledge Stoner’s March 2018 request to stop all deductions of union dues from his paycheck. Instead, his employer continued to take union dues from his hard-earned wages and continued sending the dues to the union.
Earlier this month, Stoner won a settlement with Ford Motor Company, although the charge against UAW is still outstanding. Along with other conditions, Ford will refund any outstanding deducted dues with interest to Stoner. The company also must post public notices to employees informing them of their rights to abstain from supporting union activities. The case against the UAW continues.
«Union officials have repeatedly refused to respect workers’ legal rights in the Great Lakes State, as demonstrated by the more than 100 cases workers have filed in Michigan since Right to Work was enacted there six years ago,» said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. «Rather than win the voluntary support of rank-and-file workers, in their efforts to stuff their pockets Michigan union bosses continue to systematically violate the rights of the very workers they claim to represent.»
New Hampshire State Employees File Class Action Lawsuit Against SEIU Seeking Refund of Illegally Seized Union Fees
Union officials violated civil servants’ First Amendment rights under the Supreme Court’s Janus decision by deducting unauthorized forced fees
Concord, NH (January 18, 2019) – New Hampshire state workers filed a class action lawsuit in federal court with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys stating that union officials violated their constitutional rights by forcing them to pay unauthorized union fees as a condition of employment.
State employees Patrick Doughty and Randy Severance are suing the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire (SEIU Local 1984) in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire.
The employees are asking the court to order union officials to refund the fees seized from their wages and those of countless other New Hampshire public employees who were subjected to the same unconstitutional mandatory union payments.
For years, the state forcibly deducted union fees from the two employees’ paychecks at the behest of union officials, even though neither was a member of SEIU Local 1984, nor had they agreed to pay any union fees. The lawsuit seeks refunds of all forced fees seized by the union going back at least three years as New Hampshire’s statute of limitations permits.
Taking union fees from Doughty and Severance without their explicit authorization violated their First Amendment rights, according to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME, a case argued and won by Foundation staff attorneys in 2018. The High Court ruled in Janus that coercing civil servants into financially subsidizing a union violates their rights to free speech and free association.
The ruling also made it clear that before union officials can collect any dues or fees from them, public employees must affirmatively opt in for such payments and must knowingly waive their First Amendment right not to pay. The Supreme Court’s Janus ruling also observed that public sector unions have been “on notice” since at least the 2012 Knox v. SEIU decision – also argued and won by Foundation staff attorneys – that forced union fees were likely incompatible with the First Amendment.
«For years, New Hampshire union bosses violated the First Amendment rights of the very public employees they claimed to represent,» said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. «Just as a bank robber caught red-handed would never be allowed to keep the proceeds of such criminal behavior, union officials must also return the money they’ve pilfered from the paychecks of hundreds of thousands of workers across the country in violation of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.»
Ventura County Professor Files Class Action Lawsuit Challenging Union «Window Period» Scheme to Unlawfully Seize Dues
Union officials violate hundreds of public workers’ constitutional rights under the Supreme Court’s Janus decision by deducting unauthorized forced dues
Los Angeles, CA (January 15, 2019) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, a math professor from Ventura Country, California, is challenging an illegal “window period” scheme to forcibly seize union membership dues from his paycheck without his consent and in violation of his constitutional rights.
Plaintiff Michael McCain filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against the American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Ventura County Federation of College Teachers, AFT Local 1828, AFL-CIO; and Ventura County Community College School District.
A public employee who works for the Ventura County Community College School District, plaintiff Michael McCain attempted to exercise his First Amendment rights by resigning his union membership following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME, a case Foundation attorneys argued and won.
The High Court ruled on June 27, 2018, that union bosses may not forcibly seize dues from public sector workers. Instead, government employees must knowingly waive their First Amendment right not to subsidize a union and affirmatively authorize deductions before union officials can collect membership dues or fees.
However, AFT union officials never informed McCain of his First Amendment rights, making it impossible for him to have waived them. Union officials continue seizing membership dues from McCain’s hard-earned wages, even after McCain resigned his union membership and made it clear in a letter sent to the union just weeks after the Janus decision that he does not consent to dues deductions. Union officials claim that McCain can only cut off dues deductions during a union-created 15-day “window period” each year.
McCain’s class action lawsuit asks the court to strike down this unlawful “window period” scheme and order union officials to stop deducting unauthorized dues. His complaint also seeks a refund of membership dues that were wrongfully taken from him and hundreds, if not thousands, of other public employees.
“Union officials have a long history of manipulating ‘window period’ schemes, arbitrary union-enacted limitations trapping workers into forced dues, and other obstacles designed to block individuals from exercising their constitutional rights,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Despite what union bosses say, First Amendments rights cannot be limited to just 15 days out of the year.”
“The Supreme Court affirmed the rights of public workers in the Foundation’s victory in Janus, but Michael’s case shows union bosses are determined to defy the High Court and continue their abusive practices,” Mix added.
