Hampstead, MD (June 29, 2005) – With assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, two local factory workers filed federal unfair labor practice charges today against the so called “UNITEHERE” union for failing to inform roughly 140 employees of their rights to withhold payment of union dues for politics, and refrain from formal union membership. Janice Walsh and Ted Fotiou, on behalf of all similarly situated employees at Joseph A. Bank’s Hampstead distribution facility, charge that “UNITEHERE” officials unlawfully told workers that they must become or remain formal union members in order to keep their jobs. Furthermore, Walsh and Fotiou charge that union officials have been unlawfully deducting forced union dues for politics from their paychecks and refusing to provide legally mandated financial disclosures of union expenditures. “Union officials want these workers to simply shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Rather than respect the rights of workers they claim to represent, union officials are bullying workers into bankrolling union politics.” The actions of “UNITEHERE” union officials violate the rights of employees recognized under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision, Communications Workers v. Beck. Under Beck and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials must inform employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and their right not to be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining, such as politics. Union officials have not simply refused to provide adequate financial audits to objecting non-members while claiming that nonmembers must pay 93% of full dues. The documents that union officials have turned over to Walsh and Fotiou actually prove that “UNITEHERE” officials have been using nonmember dues for legally non-chargeable activities, such as nationwide organizing and “public and international relations.” The workers also accuse “UNITEHERE” officials of unlawfully requiring employees to annually renew their objections and falsely informing them that they must exhaust internal union appeals before instituting any court or administrative actions to protect their rights. “These attempts by union officials to run roughshod over workers’ rights show the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from forced unionism,” said Gleason.

Washington, D.C. (June 21, 2005) - The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today applauded the Department of Labor’s (DOL) announcement yesterday that it will step up enforcement of President Bush’s executive order regarding forced union dues, but warned that far more must be done before employee rights are truly protected. Signed by President Bush on February 17, 2001, Executive Order 13201 affects a small segment of the 12 million American employees compelled to pay union dues as a condition of employment. The order requires companies with federal contracts to inform workers of their rights under the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in Communications Workers v. Beck. Foundation attorneys won the Beck ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988, establishing that objecting employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act may resign their formal union membership, and reclaim all forced union dues spent on activities other than collective bargaining, such as political expenditures. In its announcement, DOL notified federal contractors that it will be spot-checking federal workplaces to assure that they are in compliance with the order. "Though largely symbolic, President Bush’s executive order is a step toward curbing compulsory unionism abuse. Unless the National Labor Relations Board gets more serious about enforcing the law, union officials will continue to shake employees down for political contributions with virtual impunity," said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. Implementation of the executive order’s modest protections was stalled by a spurious lawsuit filed by the United Auto Workers union crafted to deny workers access to information about their rights. Ultimately, with the help of Foundation attorneys, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the executive order. Experts estimate that during the 2004 elections, union officials spent more than $800 million in workers’ dues on electioneering activities, nearly all of it paid for out of union dues collected from employees as a condition of employment. Gleason pointed out that even with full enforcement, the Beck precedent is far from a cure-all. Nevertheless, the Foundation’s free legal aid program has ensured that hundreds of thousands of workers are not paying for union political activities against their will. “No one should be forced to join or pay dues to a union against their will,” stated Gleason. “While the DOL’s announcement is encouraging, the ultimate solution to truly guarantee workers’ rights is to abolish compulsory unionism, not to fashion new regulatory schemes and government bureaucracies to regulate its ill effects.”

Portland, Maine (June 16, 2005) — A group of twenty Maine state employees have filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA) union and several senior State of Maine officials to block the seizure of compulsory union dues from the paychecks of thousands of nonunion state employees. Receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the state workers charge that MSEA union officials are acting in concert with State of Maine officials to seize compulsory union dues from nonunion state employees’ paychecks without first providing them with a legally-mandated audit. The workers’ complaint charges State Controller Edward A. Karrass, among other top state officials, for signing an agreement with the union that threatens the First Amendment rights of thousands of public employees and forces them to subsidize union organizing expenses. The employees filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine Portland Division. The workers allege that MSEA union officials will intentionally seize the forced union dues without first providing the financial disclosure and procedures required by a long-standing U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects public employees from demands to pay for union political activity and other activities they may oppose. Like many similar agreements around the country, the Maine monopoly bargaining agreement includes an “indemnification clause” in which the union promises to pay all legal costs state officials may incur in defending any suit that results from illegal seizures of compulsory dues. These agreements remove any incentive for the employer to ensure the union is not mistreating workers. Most courts have struck such agreements down as void as against public policy. “MSEA union officials simply want nonunion state employees to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union operatives should not be allowed essentially to bribe city officials to do their dirty work by promising to reimburse all legal costs that arise out of violating state employees’ First Amendment rights." The state employees are asking the court to enjoin MSEA officials from seizing forced dues from any nonunion employee represented by the MSEA union until it provides a satisfactory independent audit of union expenditures. The workers also seek class-action status for their case, and restitution to all state employees represented by MSEA union of all past forced dues. Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must first provide an audited disclosure of the union’s expenses. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as politics.

Washington, D.C. (June 1, 2005) — A three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit yesterday unanimously upheld the authority of the Department of Labor to heighten federal union financial disclosure requirements. Agreeing with arguments made in an amicus curiae brief filed by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the panel determined that strengthening the reporting laws was well within the authority of Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Secretary Chao issued the final regulations on October 9, 2003, in response to a national epidemic of union corruption. This revision in the long-standing union disclosure requirements was the first such reform in over four decades. In June 2004, AFL-CIO lawyers filed an appeal after District Court Judge Gladys Kessler upheld the new union financial disclosure requirements. Judge Kessler, who has ruled for Big Labor officials in other cases, called AFL-CIO lawyers’ arguments “unconvincing.” In August 2004, Foundation attorneys filed their “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in opposition to the AFL-CIO’s appeal. “This ruling affirms that not only did Secretary Chao have the authority to do what she did, but she should have gone much further,” said Foundation President Mark Mix. "Much more, such as an independent audit requirement or an itemization requirement for expenses beyond simply incidental expenses, needs to be done before rampant union corruption is deterred.” The National Right to Work Foundation earlier criticized the curious last-minute raising of the threshold for itemization of expenditures in the final disclosure rules. In the last days before the rules were finalized, the itemization threshold was raised to $5,000 from an originally proposed level of $250, allowing the concealment of many union disbursements on the new forms. The AFL-CIO hierarchy claimed the new regulations are “prohibitively expensive,” arguing that unions will be required to keep records in a new way. Contrary to these claims, to comply with several landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, unions already must track expenditures in a fashion that the new forms will require. For example, under the Foundation-won rulings in Communications Workers v. Beck and Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, union officials already must maintain accounting systems, record keeping, and infrastructure to provide forced-dues-paying nonmembers with information about how resources are spent on various union functions. With these reporting mechanisms already in place, Foundation attorneys have asserted that most unions should be able to satisfy the new reporting requirements with little additional financial burden.

Cincinnati, OH (May 19, 2005) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a formal complaint to prosecute a local union for unlawfully coercing local caregivers into paying union dues even though they had voted to ban forced union dues from their workplace. National Right to Work Foundation attorneys last month filed unfair labor practice charges on behalf of ResCare, Inc. (Camelot Lake) employee Larry Richardson and all similarly situated coworkers employed at the company, which provides healthcare to the mentally disabled. The charges pointed out that union officials unlawfully refused to allow caregivers to revoke their “dues check-off cards.” So-called “dues check-off cards” allow the automatic deduction of forced union dues from workers’ paychecks. Camelot Lake is a Fairfield, Ohio-based intermediate healthcare facility providing services to the mentally disabled. “UFCW union officials want employees to simply shut up and pay up,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “Union bosses just want the money.” The health care workers at Camelot Lake voted to deauthorize the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), Local 1099 in an election held by the NLRB in March 2005. A successful deauthorization election simply removes the forced union dues clause from a contract and ensures that no one can be legally forced to pay any dues or fees to the union in order to get or keep their job. A few weeks after the election, UFCW officials misinformed the employees at Camelot Lake that they could not revoke their “dues-check off cards” until the window period stated on the signed card. This window period is unique to each employee and is based on the date they signed their individual card. In the charges filed for Richardson, Foundation attorneys argue that the actions of UFCW officials clearly violate past rulings of the NLRB, that workers can revoke their dues check-off cards at any time after deauthorization, even if the revocation occurs outside a stated window period. Unless union officials cease and desist in their unlawful actions they will face a trial before an administrative law judge in Cincinnati next month.

Fairfield, Calif. (May 17, 2005) — A local employee of Anheuser Busch has filed a fifth round of federal charges against a recalcitrant Teamsters union local for once again failing to properly calculate and disclose how workers’ forced union dues are spent. Catherine Anderson, a part-time employee at Anheuser Busch’s Fairfield facility, filed the unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. For nearly two years, Teamsters Union Local 896 officials refused to provide Ms. Anderson with adequate audited financial disclosures about its spending, and the spending of its affiliates, as required by law and as promised in an earlier settlement with the federal government. As a result of federal charges filed by Anderson and a co-worker in July 2003, September 2004, October 2004, and February 2005, Teamsters union officials settled the cases by agreeing to properly inform workers of their right to refrain from financially supporting the union’s political and ideological causes as required by law. “This Teamsters union hierarchy wants workers simply to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These union officials are scofflaws and repeat offenders. This arrogance, greed, and corruption is encouraged by the existence of the many union special privileges established by federal law.” This April, Ms. Anderson received the most recent attempt by the union hierarchy to skirt around its legal obligations—audit reports that claim 96.06% of union dues money was spent on “collective bargaining” costs. Not only is some of this information hopelessly out of date, but Teamsters officials also continue to claim that 100% of union staff salary and overhead costs are chargeable to nonmembers, even though the disclosure shows that resources were spent on non-chargeable activities. Anderson’s complaint challenges these claims. The actions of Teamsters union officials violated worker protections recognized in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Communications Workers v. Beck, a case argued and won by Foundation attorneys. Under the Beck ruling, workers may not be compelled to pay dues beyond the union’s proven collective bargaining costs, and they are entitled to an independent audit of union expenditures before any forced dues or fees are seized. Union officials also violated Penrod v. NLRB, which requires local union officials to provide financial disclosure for affiliated unions.

Everett, WA (March 31, 2005) – Six local hospital workers filed class-action federal unfair labor practice charges this week against the Service Employees International Union District 1199 NW (SEIU). The charges state that SEIU officials failed to inform over 800 employees of Northwest Hospital and Medical Center of their rights to withhold payment of union dues for politics. The six coworkers, with help from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, filed the charges at the NLRB’s regional office in Seattle. “Union officials want these workers to simply shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Rather than respect the rights of workers they claim to represent, union officials are bullying workers into bankrolling union politics.” The SEIU’s contract with the hospital expired in fall 2004, after which the union ceased collection of involuntary union dues from employees. Since then, the union has used the threat of “back-dues collection” to keep workers in line and preserve the union’s status as monopoly representative. The actions of SEIU officials violate the rights of these six hospital employees recognized under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision, Communications Workers v. Beck. Under Beck and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials must inform employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and the right not to be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining. Foundation attorneys argue that since SEIU officials failed to properly inform workers of these rights as required by law, they have no claim to any of the compulsory “back-dues” that they are currently using to threaten workers. The NLRB will now investigate the charge and decide whether to issue a formal complaint in the case. “The attempts by union officials to run roughshod over workers’ rights show the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from forced unionism,” said Gleason.

Jacksonville, FL (March 30, 2005) – National Right to Work Foundation attorneys today announced they are withdrawing charges in a case brought by local United Parcel Service (UPS) workers against Teamsters Union Local 385, after union officials belatedly refunded dues money unlawfully seized from workers’ paychecks. Upon receiving the reimbursement checks worth more than $2,500 combined, and written notice that union officials had finally accepted their resignations as required by law, the two workers withdrew their charge against the Teamsters union local. Johnny Bass and Kenneth Johnson obtained free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys and filed the charges in November of 2004 with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after union officials repeatedly refused to accept employees’ resignations from the union and continued to deduct full union dues from their paychecks. The employees alleged that the Teamsters union’s practices were part of a pattern of discrimination against similarly situated employees who wish to exercise their rights to refrain from union membership. “Union officials want workers like these simply to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “For the Teamsters officials, it’s all about the money – regardless of whether workers want anything to do with the union.” The actions of Teamsters officials’ actions violated employee rights explicitly recognized under the U.S. Supreme Court Pattern Makers v. NLRB decision. Under Pattern Makers and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials are obligated to honor immediately the resignations of employees from union membership at any time. Additionally, Teamsters officials’ actions violated the spirit of Florida’s highly-popular Right to Work law, on the books since 1968, which prevents workers from having to join or pay dues to an unwanted union. “Unfortunately, even in states like Florida where Right to Work protections exist, workers continue to face the heavy-handed tactics of union officials,” said Gleason.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (March 30, 2005) — More than 97,000 Los Angeles County home care providers will receive checks in the mail this week as part of a civil rights lawsuit settlement that requires union officials to rebate an estimated $7.5-8 million in illegally seized compulsory union dues. The rebates are the result of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 434B officials’ illegal forcing of home care providers to pay for politics and other activities unrelated to collective bargaining, as well as seizing fees in excess of the negotiated amount. Represented by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, the providers began the settlement process in December 2002. The settlement was originally thought to involve only 60,000 rather than over 97,000 individuals. The rebates, originally estimated at $5 million, are now expected to be as much as $8 million. “This settlement is an incremental yet important step towards holding union officials in California accountable for how they collect and spend workers’ compulsory union dues,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “However, the ultimate solution to this sort of abuse is to end union officials’ government-granted privileges to force employees to pay union dues or be fired from their jobs.” In December 2001, Carla West and three other home care providers filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against SEIU Local 434B, the Personal Assistance Services Council (PASC) of Los Angeles County, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, and others. In settling valid constitutional claims, SEIU officials agreed to return forced union dues illegally seized from workers who were not formal union members. During the period for which rebates are being paid, SEIU union officials failed to follow the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in Chicago Teachers v. Hudson. That decision requires unions to provide objecting employees an audited disclosure and advance reduction of forced union dues used for politics and other non-bargaining activities. After months of stonewalling, the SEIU produced an audit showing that a mere 48 percent of union dues are spent for collective bargaining. Objecting nonmember home care providers now pay half of what full union members pay in dues. In 1999, Local 434B officials gained recognition by PASC as the exclusive bargaining agents of home care workers who provide non-medical in-home support services to disabled and elderly clients. Although they are reimbursed through the state, the workers are independently hired, fired, and supervised by individual recipients of home care. The constitutionally suspect agreement brokered between union operatives and government bureaucrats declares that home care providers are “public employees” for collective bargaining purposes only, even though the PASC “employer” has no authority over hiring, firing, work schedules, workplace safety, disputes with the employer-recipient, and the amount the state pays the workers.

Bridgeport, Connecticut (March 29, 2005) — A U.S. District Court Justice has approved a settlement of a case brought by six Bridgeport firefighters in a federal class-action lawsuit against the City of Bridgeport, a union, and top city officials for violations of their First Amendment rights by seizing compulsory union dues from the paychecks of scores of nonunion firefighters. After receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the firefighters’ won a settlement forcing International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) union Local 834 officials to return $45,000 in union dues unlawfully seized between June 2002 and October 2004. Union officials acted in concert with the City of Bridgeport and seized compulsory union dues from the firefighters who are not formal union members without first providing an adequate independent audit of the union’s expenditures, as required by law. The suit also named Bridgeport Mayor John Michael Fabrizi, among other top city officials, for the unconstitutional acts. “IAFF union officials simply want nonunion firefighters to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union operatives should not be allowed trample on firefighters’ constitutional rights by unlawfully seizing dues from their paychecks.” The firefighters filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut in June 2004. They alleged that IAFF Local 834 union officials seized the forced union dues without first providing the financial disclosure and procedures required by a long-standing U.S. Supreme Court ruling interpreting that the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution protect public employees from demands to pay for union political activity and other activities they may oppose. As a result of the case’s class-action status, the settlement provides restitution for all firefighters in the bargaining unit who are not formal members of IAFF Local 834 in the amount of forced dues collected prior to October 2004. At the same time, the settlement forces IAFF officials to cease deducting dues from those who not members until such time as the city and union comply with all of the constitutional requirements to collect dues. Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must first provide an audited disclosure of the union’s expenses. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining.