**Cincinnati, Ohio (May 16, 2006)** – In a dramatic development in a protracted legal battle by a group of nonunion firefighters against International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) union officials, U.S. District Court Judge Walter Herbert Rice has issued a renewed temporary restraining order against the union and city officials to block the seizure of forced union dues from their paychecks.

The ruling stems from a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio by five local members of the Cincinnati African-American Firefighters Association. The firefighters have had ongoing disputes with the union hierarchy, including charges of discrimination that allege racist treatment of minority firefighters by union officials. The decision, handed down this week, notes that the nonunion firefighters – receiving free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys – are likely to win their case on the merits, and that the court will likely protect the constitutional rights of all of the approximately 100 nonunion firefighters in Cincinnati.

The firefighters alleged that IAFF Local 48 union officials acted in concert with the City of Cincinnati and seized compulsory union dues from nonmembers without first providing an adequate independent audit of the union’s expenditures and subjected workers challenging the fee to unlawful appeal procedures. The complaint, filed in summer 2004, also named then-Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken, among other top City officials, for signing the agreement with the union and enforcing the unconstitutional fee seizures.

The firefighters’ suit points out that IAFF Local 48 union officials intentionally seized the forced union dues without first providing the financial disclosure and procedures required by the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson ruling. Under Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must provide an audited disclosure of the union’s expenses. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

After City and union officials renewed their contract again authorizing the unlawful forced union dues seizures without providing adequate notice and procedures, Foundation attorneys filed a renewed request for a temporary restraining order, prompting the Court to grant a restraining order in November 2005. And in the latest ruling, Judge Rice concluded that the new contract still lacks adequate procedures to protect nonmembers’ rights.

“IAFF union officials continue to trample the basic constitutional rights of the very firefighters whose interests they claim to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “So long as Ohio’s workers labor under a system of forced unionism, such abuses will inevitably continue.”

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.