Jefferson City, MO– With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys three Missouri workers filed legal challenges against ten separate initiative-petitions that would wipe out Missouri’s recently passed Right to Work law and strip away the newly-won Right to Work protections for them and hundreds of thousands of other Missouri workers

If approved and passed the ballot measures would prevent the Missouri General Assembly from prohibiting forced-unionism agreements, essentially rendering the Missouri Right to Work law null-and-void.

National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix commented,“As we have seen in states across the country, union bosses will do anything to preserve their forced dues powers over workers. The fact that these initiative petitions do not even mention Right to Work but would effectively wipe out Right to Work protections in Missouri tell you all you need to know about the union bosses’ true intentions.”

Two of the workers, Michael Briggs and Roger Stickler, are Kansas City police officers and are subject to a monopoly bargaining contract. Briggs and Stickler were nearly forced to pay fees to a union boss for the privilege of working even though they are not members of the union ‘representing’ them until they received free legal aid from the Foundation. The other plaintiff in the case Mary Hill is a nurse employed in the state.

All the plaintiffs would be directly affected by the passage of any of the union boss-backed ballot measures because they would lose their Right to Work without being compelled to subsidize a labor union.

Although required to draft summary statements to inform petition signers and voters of the effect of the proposed amendments, former Secretary of State Kander’ s midnight actions seem designed to hide from Missouri voters the ballot measures would put in Missouri’s constitution. None of the proposals even mention the Right to Work law that they are designed to nullify.

Political Kickback: Outgoing Secretary of State approved Big Labor-backed measures hours before leaving office

With the political climate suggesting that a Right to Work bill would likely to pass the Missouri Legislature in the coming weeks, and Governor Eric Greitens pledging to sign the bill into law, union bosses scrambled to put numerous initiative-petitions to kill the law on Big Labor friendly Jason Kander’s desk for his approval before he left office. Secretary Kander unsuccessfully changed Senator Roy Blunt in the 2016 election

Secretary Kander approved all ten just hours before vacating his office. They would appear on the 2018 general election ballot if they obtain a sufficient number of voter’s signatures.

Mix added, “It is shameful that union bosses who claim to ‘represent’ workers are trying to kill a much needed and popular law before it is even passed by the legislature through a midnight political favor by a big labor-backed candidate.

The right of Missourians to get or keep a job without being forced to pay tribute to a union boss should not be in jeopardy because of insider political deals like this.”