SYRACUSE, N.Y. (October 25, 2002) — Attorneys provided by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have filed a third round of charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against a Syracuse-based union for continually seizing union dues unlawfully from employees of the Marsellus Casket Company.

The complaint, the third filed against Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200 in fifteen months, again charges the union hierarchy with failing to provide union dissenters such as Mark L. Miller, Scott Bayer, and David Sprague with an adequate breakdown of the activities their forced union dues are financing.

“The length of time and amount of resources union bosses have spent stonewalling workers’ objections shows how determined they are to keep forced union dues flowing into the union’s political operation,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

As part of a previous settlement, the NLRB required the union to post a notice alerting workers and employees of the Marsellus Casket Company of their right to refrain from formal union membership and obtain a reduction of their forced union dues. The settlement also required SEIU union officials to provide employees with financial disclosure that demonstrates how mandatory dues are spent.

However, when Miller received the union’s disclosure in early August, it again failed to include the required independent audit of the union’s expenditures. Moreover, the union’s procedure continues to authorize it to spend objectors’ monies for lobbying and activities outside of collective bargaining.

The original case against SEIU Local 200 was filed in July 2001 by Foundation attorneys for Miller, Bayer, and Sprague. SEIU officials violated the workers’ rights established by the U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision. Under Beck, a case that Foundation attorneys argued and won, workers may halt and reclaim forced union dues spent on politics and other activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

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.