Seattle, Wash. (January 20, 2004) – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has cleared the path for a Seattle-based mechanic to seek damages from a local union, after its officials ordered his firing from Alaska Airlines for refusal to pay full union dues.

Obtaining free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Bernard Mackay filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington against the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) union. However, the lower court dismissed Mackay’s case, relying on the union’s disputed claim that Mackay had acquiesced to union membership and could be fired for refusal to pay full dues. The appellate court has now overturned that ruling and cleared the path for trial and the calculation of damages.

In issuing its decision, the Ninth Circuit court referred to evidence that union officials had not complied with their own bylaws defining the process for attaining union membership. If Mackay was not a formal member of the union, he was entitled to certain due process rights before he could be compelled to pay dues or fees as a job condition.

“Union officials want workers like Bernard Mackay to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “AFMA union officials put Mr. Mackay in the unemployment line simply because he objected to paying dues to a union he did not support.”

Despite AFMA union officials’ claims that he had acquiesced to union membership, Mackay never applied for union membership, never received a union membership card, never took the union’s “loyalty oath,” and never received a copy of the union constitution. Instead, the union dubbed him a member by fiat and demanded dues.

In 1998, AFMA union officials entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Alaska Airlines, Mackay’s employer, that contained a forced-dues clause. Under this clause, nonmembers may be required to pay dues to cover the union’s proven collective bargaining costs, or face discharge.

However, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as interpreted in the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, union officials must first provide nonmembers audited disclosure of their expenditures justifying the portion that workers who have chosen to refrain from union membership can be forced to pay. Mackay asserts that AFMA union officials failed to provide him with such an audit.

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.