Little Rock, AR (May 29, 2014) – A group of Pulaski County Special School District bus drivers have filed a federal suit against the school district and a local union for violating their rights.

The five Little Rock-area bus drivers filed the federal suit with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

The school bus drivers all sent a letter to the Pulaski Association of Support Staff (PASS) union exercising their right to refrain from union membership and refrain from paying union dues or fees.

Under the U.S. Constitution, workers have the unconditional right to refrain from union membership at any time. Under Arkansas’s popular Right to Work law, nonmember workers can refrain from paying union dues and fees.

PASS union officials denied the bus drivers’ requests to resign union membership and refrain from union dues payments, instead claiming that the drivers can only resign their union membership during a 15-day “window period” in July.

Moreover, the Pulaski County Special School District continues to deduct, and the union hierarchy continues to collect, union dues from the bus drivers’ paychecks.

The bus drivers filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to stop union dues deductions from their paychecks and a refund of all illegally-seized union dues.

“No worker should be forced to jump through hoops to exercise their rights to refrain from union membership and dues payments,” stated Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This case underscores just how even in a long-time Right to Work state like Arkansas, we must be vigilant to ensure that union officials don’t create illegal barriers to workers exercising their right to work without being forced to pay union dues or be fired.”

Twenty-four states have Right to Work protections for employees. Public polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans, including 80 percent of union members support the principle of voluntary unionism.

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.