Washington, DC (June 26, 2013) – An Orange County, California hospital worker and her National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney will testify today before a U.S. House subcommittee about the need for workers to be able to choose free from coercion whether they want a union hierarchy in their workplace.

Marlene Felter, a Chapman Medical Center worker who led an effort to stave off unwanted Service Employees International Union (SEIU) boss «representation» from her workplace, and attorney Glenn Taubman, who has over 30 years of experience on the Foundation’s legal staff, will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions at 10:00 AM.

Felter will highlight the need for the Secret Ballot Protection Act, sponsored by Congressman David Roe (R-Tenn.), while testifying about her personal experiences dealing with a coercive SEIU card check unionization campaign.

Felter and her coworkers were a target of an SEIU card check unionization scheme after SEIU Healthcare Workers West and Chapman Medical Center officials entered into a backroom deal known as a «neutrality agreement» designed to grease the skids for workers to be forced into union ranks. In the agreement, management granted union operatives access to company facilities and waived the right to have a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether workers wished to be unionized.

Union organizers frequently use card-check organizing tactics to bribe, browbeat, or cajole workers into forced-union-dues payments against their will.

The Secret Ballot Protection Act guarantees workers a secret ballot vote in union elections. The subcommittee will also hear testimony regarding the Representation Fairness Restoration Act, which would invalidate the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s policy of allowing union militants to target and organize small units of workers if they know most employees at a workplace don’t want to join the union.

«Time and again, Barack Obama’s NLRB has failed to protect workers who wish to refrain from union affiliation and forced dues payments,» said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. «Congress needs to reign in Obama’s out-of-control NLRB.»

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.