**Decatur, AL (May 1, 2006)** – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, eight Boeing employees have filed federal charges against the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union for illegal retaliatory fines levied against them for honoring their commitments to their employer and refusing to walk off the job during a union-ordered strike.

The employees, led by Larry Bonner, filed the federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against IAM union Local Lodge 44. The nonunion workers allege that IAM union officials illegally fined them $4,500 each for continuing to work during a union-mandated strike that lasted from November 2, 2005 to February 1, 2006.

“IAM union officials’ policy of bullying employees who do not toe the union line cannot continue with impunity,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Union officials’ thuggish tactics demonstrate how the union hierarchy‘s interests are at odds with those of the very employees they claim to represent.”

The Boeing employees cannot be lawfully fined because they resigned their union memberships (and thus were no longer subject to internal union rules) before returning to work – their right under the Foundation-supported Patternmakers v. NLRB U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Patternmakers, the High Court ruled workers may resign their full, formal union membership immediately, at any time, and without restrictions.

Once an employee becomes a nonmember, union officials then have no legal basis for enforcing internal union “discipline” against them.

Additionally, IAM union officials’ actions run contrary to Alabama’s highly-popular Right to Work law – on the books since 1953 – which prevents workers from being forced to join or pay dues to an unwanted union as a condition of employment.

The NLRB will now investigate the workers’ charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint and prosecute the IAM 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 more than 250 cases nationwide per year.