SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (May 17, 2001) — The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today overturned the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) precedent-setting mandate that employees fund union organizing drives nationwide with their forced union dues.
Attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation convinced the unanimous appellate court panel to overturn the NLRB’s decision in Meijer (which the Board issued after more than 10 years of inexplicable delay) on the basis that it violated U.S. Supreme Court precedent and thereby would have forced the 7.8 million American employees who work in compulsory union shops to pay union organizing expenses or lose their jobs.
Organizing expenses often exceed 20 percent of a union’s budget.
«The notoriously biased NLRB has again been caught red-handed fabricating its own vision for labor relations favoring union officials even when it violates clear Supreme Court precedent,» said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an organization that provides free legal aid to victims of forced unionism abuse.
The ruling comes one day after President George W. Bush promoted Board member Peter Hurtgen to NLRB Chairman – even though he signed the NLRB’s anti-employee Meijer ruling.
The unanimous three-judge panel on Ninth Circuit agreed that the NLRB’s decision directly violates the previous rulings of the Supreme Court. Under the Court’s 1988 ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck, a case brought by Foundation attorneys, employees may not be forced to pay for union political activities and other activities unrelated to collective bargaining, contract negotiation, or grievance adjustment. In the Foundation-won precedents Ellis v. Railway Clerks and Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association, the High Court determined that union organizing expenses were clearly unrelated to collective bargaining, and thus employees who are not members of the union could not be forced to financially support this type of advocacy activity.
In Meijer, the Board attempted to whitewash the abuse of three grocery store employees Phillip Mulder, Charles Buck, and Leon Gibbons, who originally filed the case (with the help of Foundation attorneys) against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in Michigan.
The National Labor Relations Board, especially under President Clinton, has a long history of ruling against employees who chose not to join or support unions. Previous appellate court rulings in this area of law have chastised the Board for its «administrative arrogance» and labeled its decisions «not rational.»
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in more than 250 cases nationwide per year.
