Charge states UFCW union officials deliberately violating protections for workers who want to resign their union membership

Guymon, OK (May 23, 2017) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, a local worker has filed federal unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Food and Commercial Workers District Union Local 2 (UFCW).

Santos Muz Pu is an employee of Seaboard Foods, LLC, in Guymon, Oklahoma. The UFCW Local 2 has a monopoly bargaining contract with Seaboard Foods at the Guymon facility. In early 2017, Muz requested a copy of his union dues check-off authorization from the UFCW union office in Guymon, but officials refused to honor his request.

On February 13, Muz resigned from the UFCW and revoked his dues check-off in a certified letter to the Wichita, KS office after the local union office refused to tell Muz where to send his resignation and dues check-off revocation. However, Muz’s letter was returned due to an undisclosed change in the union’s address.

When Muz contacted the Guymon UFCW office again for assistance, UFCW officials refused to provide any information and threatened him, saying that he would lose his insurance, overtime pay, and paid holidays and vacation days if he left the union.

In late March, Muz was informed in a letter from the Bel-Air, KS, UFCW office that his dues-checkoff revocation was being rejected. That letter alleged that Muz’s check-off revocation was untimely and had not come at the proper time, as well as being submitted to the wrong UFCW office. UFCW bosses continue to seize dues from his paycheck.

In April, Muz reached out to the National Right to Work Foundation for assistance. With free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, Muz has now filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the UFCW for obstructing and interfering with his resignation and revocation attempts. The charges will be investigated by the NLRB Region 14 office in Tulsa, OK.

“In their desire to maintain their forced dues monopoly, union bosses have given this worker the runaround and refused to accept his resignation and check-off revocation,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Rather than attempting to attract the voluntary support of the workers they claim to ‘represent,’ we frequently see union officials attempt to trap workers into dues payments with bureaucratic hurdles and illegal schemes, even in Right to Work states where union membership and financial support are voluntary.”

“Cases like this show that, even in Right to Work states, protections for workers against forced unionism must be vigilantly enforced or else union officials will simply ignore the law and illegally threaten employees,” concluded Mix.

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.