Prattville, AL (January 6, 2015) – With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, an International Paper Company instrument electrician has filed federal charges against a local union and the company for violating his rights.

Clanton resident James Smith filed the unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Steelworkers of America (USW) Local 1458 union and International Paper Co. for ignoring his right to refrain from paying union dues. Under Alabama’s popular Right to Work law, no worker can be required to join or pay fees to a union as a condition of employment.

When Smith was hired in September 2004, he signed a Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) International Union dues deduction authorization – a document union officials use to automatically collect dues from workers’ paychecks. Later, PACE merged with the USW.

In October 2014, Smith delivered a letter to the USW union and its Local 1458 affiliate resigning his union membership and revoking his PACE union dues deduction authorization. In response, a Local 1458 union official told Smith that a USW dues deduction authorization, which Smith never signed, required that he wait until November 2 to resign his union membership and submit a revocation.

Smith sent another letter confirming his resignation and revocation on November 3. He was then told that the union would not get around to stopping dues deductions until it was “feasible.”

Despite Smith’s repeated requests to resign his union membership and stop dues payments, International Paper continues to confiscate full union dues from his paychecks at USW union officials’ behest.

“USW union bosses are stonewalling this worker’s attempts to exercise his rights under Alabama’s Right to Work law to refrain from union membership and dues payments,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Schemes like this show that the ultimate goal of union officials is more forced dues collected from workers, even when rank-and-file employees want nothing to do with a union.”

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.