Boston, Mass. (July 30, 2002) — In a long running legal battle that twice made it all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission (MLRC) has ordered the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and National Education Association (NEA) to release $87,000 in union fees that were illegally seized from 350 teachers across the commonwealth.

Under the Commission’s ruling – which ends the teachers’ 13 year case brought with the help of attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation – the MTA and NEA must release from escrow union fees that were illegally demanded from teachers from 1987 to 1992. If the teachers had not filed challenges, then the fees would have been used to pay for union politics and other activities unrelated to collective bargaining. Under Massachusetts law, if a teacher does not want to join the MTA they are still forced to pay a fee that covers collective bargaining activity, or be suspended or fired.

“The decade-long hassle the teachers received in fighting for their rights proves the great problem workers have stopping unions from using their money for politics,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Until Massachusetts’ workers have the protection of a Right to Work law they will continue to be harassed and ripped off by union bosses.”

The case began in 1989, when Springfield teacher Jim Belhumeur refused to join and support the NEA’s ideological activity. Teacher union officials had Belhumeur, a former Springfield representative for the American Federation of Teachers, suspended for refusing to pay full union dues. With the help of Foundation attorneys, Belhumeur was able to challenge the amount union officials demanded in agency fees without continuing to be suspended each year.

According to the constitutional protections construed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foundation-won decisions of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association, a union may not collect compulsory dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining. Politics, lobbying, organizing, public relations, and other non-bargaining activities are explicitly non-chargeable to employees who have exercised their right to refrain from union membership.

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.