Seattle, Washington (June 5, 2012) – With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, a Sandy, Oregon, bus driver has filed a motion seeking to disqualify President Obama’s purported recess appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from his case.

The legal challenge is part of an ongoing controversy over the constitutionality of Obama’s move to install three NLRB members as “recess appointees” despite the fact that the U.S. Senate was not in recess.

In January 2011, First Student bus driver Richard Harmon resigned from formal union membership in Teamsters Local 206. Because Oregon does not have Right to Work protections making union affiliation completely voluntary, Harmon is still forced to pay part of forced union dues to keep his job.

Despite Harmon’s resignation, Local 206 union officials ignored his resignation and continued to confiscate full union dues from his paychecks, failed to inform workers of their right to refrain from formal union membership, and failed to provide a legally-required independently-audited breakdown of union expenditures informing workers of what union dues and fees they can be forced to pay.

In September 2011, Harmon forced a settlement of his unfair labor practice charge with Local 206 union officials. However, union officials continued to refuse to provide an adequate audited breakdown of local and other affiliate union expenditures. Harmon filed another charge in late December.

As a result, the Seattle NLRB regional office issued a federal complaint on March 30 against Local 206 union officials for violating the settlement’s terms and on April 3 moved for a default judgment against the union. The motion for default judgment is now pending before the NLRB in Washington, D.C.

“Barack Obama’s so-called recess appointments to the Labor Board clearly violate the U.S. Constitution,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Because the Board does not have a legitimate quorum, it must cease hearing all cases until a legitimate quorum is established.”

Foundation attorneys also were among the first to challenge the constitutionality of Obama’s “recess appointments” in federal court. Two Foundation-supported cases in which the appointments are being challenged are pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

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.