Sacramento, California (November 4, 2005) – Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation, made the following statement in response to this morning’s U.S. District Court ruling not to extend previous injunctive relief to protect roughly 27,000 California government employees from financing union political activities.
At the same time, to avoid a preliminary injunction as to the 8 named plaintiffs, union officials agreed in court today to give the entire forced dues increase back to those individuals.
“In declining to take swift action to protect 27,000 forced-dues-paying nonmembers of the California State Employees Association (CSEA) union, the ruling will, for now, permit union officials to spend those workers’ forced dues on politics over their objections and without their permission.
“In their lust to preserve and expand their power, union officials are thumbing their noses at employee rights and basic fairness. No employee should have to get a lawyer simply to protect their freedom of speech.
“Unfortunately, current California law stacks the deck against individual employees objecting to union activities. As a matter of practice, union officials force employees to jump over a series of hurdles designed to discourage employees from objecting.
“Today’s ruling forces roughly 27,000 California state employees to endure an ongoing violation of their most basic constitutional rights while their class action suit winds through the legal system.
“While the Court has chosen not to immediately stop the ongoing violation of CSEA nonmembers’ constitutional rights, we are confident that the public servants fighting for their rights will ultimately win their legal case. Supreme Court precedents are on their side.
“No one should have to pay dues to an unwanted union, especially when union officials continually abuse that government-granted special privilege.”
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.
