In response to inquiries from impacted employees, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has published a special legal notice for nurses and support staff ordered by United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials to go on strike at St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo, Ohio.
Workers interested in returning to work should read the notice before doing so to learn their their rights and protect themselves against attempts by union officials to levy punitive fines against workers who return to work.
St. Vincent’s nurses and support personnel should know they have the following rights:
1) You have the right to resign your membership in the union. If you don’t support this union, you can send the union a letter resigning your membership. A sample letter can be found HERE.
2) You have the right to go to work even if the union bosses order a strike. Union officials can (and often do) levy onerous monetary fines against union members who work during a strike. So, you should seriously consider resigning your union membership BEFORE you return to work during a strike, which is the only way to avoid these ruinous union fines and discipline. See Union Discipline and Employee Rights.
Your resignation letter must be postmarked THE DAY BEFORE you return to work, or hand delivered BEFORE you actually return to work. A sample letter is HERE.
3) You have the right to revoke your dues checkoff and stop paying dues during the period when there is no collective bargaining agreement in effect. You must send a letter to St. Vincents and the UAW to accomplish this. A sample letter is HERE.
4) You have the right to sign and circulate decertification petitions to change your bargaining representative. Information on this option can be found here.
5) If the UAW union officials ever sign a new contract with St. Vincent, you have the right to become a “Beck objector” and pay only reduced financial core fees instead of full membership dues. If you become a Beck objector, you will not be forced to pay for the UAW unions’ far left political and social agenda. Information about this option is found here.
According to the latest disclosure, the UAW admits that approximately 25% of its dues are spent on often controversial politics that you cannot legally be forced to pay.
Read the complete legal notice for St. Vincent Hospital nurses and support staff here.
The notice is note the only special legal notice recently issued in response workers needing to protect themselves from UAW officials’ actions.
The Foundation also recently published a special legal notice for autoworkers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant informing them about their legal rights as UAW officials attempt to impose monopoly unionism on workers there. The special legal notice to Volkswagen employees, available in full here, summarizes these rights and notes that “workers not only have a right to learn information about the downsides of union affiliation, but also to share that information with their fellow team members”:
For example, UAW officials won’t want workers to learn about the many times UAW officials violated workers’ rights while enriching themselves, including in an ongoing federal corruption case that has already resulted in multiple top union officials going to jail. In fact, it the last ten years there have been 82 criminal enforcement actions against UAW officials by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Department of Justice for conspiracy to defraud, embezzlement, theft, knowledge of a conspiracy, and/or receiving prohibited payments.
Partially as a result of those violations, over the last 10 years the UAW’s reported total liabilities have increased to $115,925,262 as of 2018. Such financial desperation has led the UAW to violate federal labor law and Michigan’s Right to Work law, such as when it was caught red-handed forcing represented employees in Michigan, a Right to Work state like Tennessee, to pay dues against their will.
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Get the facts before you sign your name on any UAW petition or decide to vote for the UAW officials in an election. Union officials cannot legally infringe on your rights to hear and disseminate information critical of the union and union officials.
You have the legal right to refrain from signing a union authorization card or voting for the UAW. You also have the legal right to rescind a union authorization card after it has been signed. Whether you wish to sign a union authorization card or vote for the UAW is completely up to you. It is unlawful for an employer or a union to threaten or coerce any employee in the exercise of these rights.
Workers can learn about their specific legal rights during a strike based on their industry by visiting the Foundation’s webpage: “What if I want to continue working during a strike?”
Call the National Right to Work Foundation at 800-336-3600 if you want to discuss your legal rights, or to request legal assistance. You can also use our free legal request form: https://www.nrtw.org/free-legal-aid
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 about 200 cases nationwide per year.
