**Honolulu, HI (July 20, 2006)** – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Hilton Hawaiian Village employee faced down a top UNITE-HERE union official and defeated a union policy of coercing non-union workers to pay for activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

Grant Suzuki, an electrician at the hotel, filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in March 2005 after the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union hierarchy violated his rights by requiring him and other similarly situated nonmembers to pay into strike funds that are subject to use in strikes in industries such as health care and entertainment – including some located in Guam and Saipan. In response, the NLRB agreed to prosecute the union for violating workers’ rights and scheduled a formal hearing for Tuesday, July 18.

Defense of the union’s unlawful policy was apparently of particular interest to John Wilhelm, national head of UNITE-HERE’s hospitality division, who came all the way from New York to attend the hearing before an NLRB administrative law judge in Honolulu. In the end, however, UNITE-HERE’s lawyers inked a settlement agreement that forces the union to stop misusing Hilton Hawaiian Village employees’ forced dues, post notices in the hotel describing the workers’ legal rights, and create a separate fund from nonmembers to be used only on strikes in hotel bargaining units in Hawaii.

“This victory is an incremental yet important step toward limiting the power of union officials to shake down workers to support Big Labor’s agenda,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “But as long as Hawaii workers labor under a system of compulsory unionism, such abuses will inevitably continue.”

UNITE-HERE officials are currently in contract negotiations with Hilton Hotels Corporation and are using the strike fund to leverage the chain to agree to a so-called “neutrality agreement” covering other hotels across the country. A neutrality agreement is a contract under which an employer actively supports a union’s attempt to organize its own workforce. Employers often enter into such agreements to stop union officials’ pressure tactics such as publicity stunts, frivolous litigation, and boycotts. The National Right to Work Foundation is the vanguard opponent of neutrality agreements in the courts and at the NLRB, providing free legal aid to employees across the country who are victimized by these pacts that severely undermine worker free choice.

Because UNITE-HERE does not currently have a contract with Hilton, any hotel employee who resigns his or her formal membership now can end all unwanted union dues seizures from their paychecks.

Although the settlement was an incremental victory for employees’ rights, it does not offer broad enough relief to workers under UNITE-HERE’s coercive monopoly bargaining agreements. Suzuki, with free legal assistance from the Foundation, plans to appeal the union and NLRB-signed settlement to end the collection of all forced dues for strikes.

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.