Akron, Ohio (January 13, 2004) – An unprecedented federal court challenge filed by employees objecting to a new unionization method gained momentum today when a United States District Court cleared the path for full discovery into details of a backroom deal intended to unionize the employees without so much as a secret ballot vote.

Obtaining free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Wanda Patterson filed the suit in July 2003 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against Heartland Industrial Partners, LLP, Collins & Aikman Corp., and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union. Patterson is seeking to overturn a sweetheart arrangement that, among other things, requires all companies acquired by Heartland to help impose unionization on their employees and then force those employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

The U.S. District Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss Heartland, Collins & Aikman, and the union. The court ordered the parties to begin pre-trial discovery, in which Wanda Patterson and her coworkers can subpoena documents and investigate the deal.

Patterson’s suit calls into question the legality of a rapidly emerging organizing trend – especially prevalent in the automobile, textile, and hotel industries – in which struggling union organizers abandon traditional grassroots-driven unionization drives and instead elicit assistance from companies to impose compulsory unionism on their own employees through highly coercive “top-down” organizing methods.

“Not only does the backroom deal between Heartland and the Steelworkers union sacrifice workers’ freedom to decide their own representation, it sells them out in the first contract,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The court’s decision to proceed is an important step down the road toward outlawing these coercive, often secret, agreements nationwide.”

Patterson is an employee of the Collins & Aikman Corp., an Ohio-based automotive parts manufacturer recently acquired by Heartland.

Under the pact at issue, Heartland forces acquired companies to operate under a so-called “neutrality agreement” that requires company managers to assist USWA union officials in organizing their employees. In return, union officials pour unsuspecting workers’ trust funds into Heartland, promise to stifle employee rights under federal law, and limit employees’ ability to influence their own wages, benefits, and working conditions.

In 2001, Heartland bought out the Collins & Aikman Corp. and forced the company to accept a “neutrality agreement” with the USWA union.

In denying the motion to dismiss, the court wrote that Heartland “…has apparently selected and contracted with a union of Heartland’s choice.” It is argued that such activity violates provisions of federal law intended to prohibit conflicts of interest, sweetheart deals, and other employer-union coercion.

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.