Full Foundation Action May/June 2022 Newsletter Now Online
All articles from the May/June issue of Foundation Action are available on the website.
In this issue:
- Courageous Tennessean Wins Big in Union Discrimination Suit
- Union Bosses Caught Red-Handed Illegally Taking Dues from Charter School Teacher
- Teamsters Officials ‘Beck’ Down: Must Return Thousands in Dues Seized for Politics
- Indiana US Brick Employees Target ‘Successor Bar’ for Demolition
- Atlantic Aviation Employees Win Freedom from Unwanted Union
- General Motors Worker Forces UAW Bosses to Stop Seizing Dues for Politics
Recent articles can be found here. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of this page.
Courageous Tennessean Wins Big in Union Discrimination Suit
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
LIUNA union official disparaged faith of employee and sent her priest ‘remedial church readings’
“This is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done in my life,” Frame said of her victory over LIUNA officials. For more on her case watch our video with Frame’s Foundation attorney at the bottom of this page.
CLARKSVILLE, TN – Workers who seek free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation often stand up for their rights despite real threats union bosses make on their livelihoods and their ability to provide for their families. For Tennessee employee Dorothy Frame, who just won a major settlement against Laborers International Union (LIUNA) officials with Foundation aid, all that and more was at risk. She believed LIUNA officials’ forced-dues demands violated her religion.
Frame filed a complaint against LIUNA in November 2021, asserting that union officials illegally discriminated against her by forcing her, in violation of her Catholic beliefs, to fund the union’s activities through mandatory union dues payments. Frame voiced her religious objections to the union’s political activities, but union officials repeatedly rejected and ridiculed her request for a religious accommodation.
Under the settlement, as a condition of dismissing the lawsuit against LIUNA, union officials paid Frame $10,000 in damages. The settlement also required the LIUNA officials’ attorney to send an apology letter to Frame for the union’s inappropriate conduct.
Frame first requested a religious accommodation in 2019, when she sent “a letter informing [LIUNA] of the conflict between her religious beliefs and the requirement that she join or pay the Union.”
Tennessee has a Right to Work law ensuring that private sector workers in the state cannot be compelled to pay dues as a condition of employment. But Fort Campbell, the location of Blanchfield Army Community Hospital where Frame worked, may be an exclusive “federal enclave” not subject the state’s Right to Work law.
LIUNA Officials: Worker’s Religious Objections to Forced Dues ‘Illegitimate’
Frame’s former employer, J&J Worldwide Service, maintains a union monopoly contract with LIUNA union bosses that forces employees to pay union dues or fees to keep their jobs.
Frame’s July 2019 letter included a message from her parish priest supporting her request for a religious accommodation. Federal law prohibits unions from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion, and requires unions to provide accommodations to workers who oppose dues payment on religious grounds.
Instead, LIUNA officials denigrated her beliefs. In addition to demanding she provide a “legitimate justification” for why her conflict with the union’s activity warranted a religious accommodation, a union lawyer claimed in a letter to Frame that her understanding of her faith was inferior to his own understanding of her faith. He even closed the letter by sending Ms. Frame and her priest remedial church readings.
Frame subsequently filed a discrimination charge against LIUNA with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in December 2019. Even after EEOC proceedings continued and Frame’s attorneys sent letters showing the conflict between the union’s stance and her religious views, union officials still refused to accommodate her beliefs and refused to return money they took from her paycheck after she requested an accommodation.
Ultimately, the EEOC issued Frame a “right to sue” letter leading to her federal anti-discrimination lawsuit, filed by Foundation staff attorneys, resulting in her victory.
“Despite being targeted with years of bullying and discrimination by LIUNA officials, Ms. Frame refused to forsake her religious beliefs and stood firm for her rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “She has now prevailed decisively against LIUNA’s illegal attempt to force her to choose between remaining true to her beliefs and staying employed.”
Forced-Dues Privileges Open Door for Union Discrimination against Workers
“The National Right to Work Foundation is proud to stand with principled workers like Ms. Frame. Big Labor’s government-granted privilege to force rank-and-file workers to support union boss activities creates a breeding ground for malfeasance and anti-worker abuse,” Mix continued. “No American worker should have to pay tribute to a union they oppose just to keep their job, whether their objections are religious or otherwise.”
Full Foundation Action March/April 2022 Newsletter Now Online
All articles from the March/April issue of Foundation Action are now on the website.
In this issue:
- NYC University Professors Take Aim at Forced Union ‘Representation’
- Casino Worker Challenges Order Installing Unwanted Union via ‘Card Check’
- After 18 Months, Mountaire Farms Workers Finally Oust Union
- CUNY Professors’ Lawsuit Shows Injustice of Forced Union Representation
- Nurses at Massachusetts Hospital Move to Boot Union After Divisive Strike
Recent articles can be found here. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of this page.
After 18 Months, Mountaire Farms Workers Finally Oust Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Overwhelming vote against UFCW follows NLRB shredding of first ballots
Employees at Mountaire Farms in Delaware fought “contract bar” delays from tyrannical UFCW union officials for almost two years. Finally, they’ve overwhelmingly voted out the union.
SELBYVILLE, DE – Almost two years after their initial attempt, Mountaire Farms poultry employees in Delaware have decisively voted to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials from their workplace. The drawn-out ordeal demonstrates how the “contract bar,” a controversial National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) policy, unjustly traps workers in union ranks they oppose.
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute the NLRB implements, workers possess an enumerated statutory right to remove an unwanted union through a decertification election. However, the NLRB has invented out of whole cloth a “contract bar.” The “contract bar” halts workers’ right to hold a decertification election to remove a union they oppose for up to three years after union officials and a company finalize a monopoly bargaining contract.
NLRB Chucks Workers’ Votes Citing ‘Contract Bar’
Mountaire Farms workers voted in an NLRB-supervised decertification election in June 2020, but UFCW lawyers appealed the case to the full Labor Board in Washington, D.C., and were able to get the ballots impounded. After a divided NLRB ruled for the union bosses in April 2021, hundreds of cast ballots were destroyed without being counted.
The June 2020 vote was requested by Mountaire employee Oscar Cruz Sosa, who received free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Cruz Sosa had the support of hundreds of his coworkers when he submitted his petition to the NLRB requesting a vote.
Initially, an NLRB regional official rejected union arguments that the decertification effort was blocked due to the “contract bar,” and the election was held. However, UFCW union lawyers appealed that decision to the full Board, which impounded the ballots while the appeal was considered.
Cruz Sosa’s Foundation attorneys urged the Board to reject the UFCW’s attempt to impose the “contract bar.” More importantly, they urged the Board to eliminate the bar completely because it is not found in the text of the NLRA, and serves only to protect unpopular union bosses from worker accountability. As the brief filed by Foundation staff attorneys pointed out, the only “bar” in the text of the NLRA states that workers must wait one year after an election before holding another vote, making the threeyear “contract bar” particularly egregious.
Nevertheless, in an April 2021 ruling, a divided Board sided with union lawyers, upheld the “contract bar,” and threw out the ballots cast by workers at the 800-employee facility. As a result, the employees were forced to wait almost another year, all the while subjected to forced union dues, for the “contract bar” to expire so they could restart the process for a decertification election.
Finally, without the barrier of the NLRB’s “contract bar” policy the workers submitted another petition to hold a vote to remove the UFCW in October 2021.
Landslide Vote Against Union Highlights Injustice of Anti-Worker ‘Contract Bar’ Policy
In the subsequent vote that concluded in December 2021, the workers overwhelmingly rejected the union with 356 of 436 votes counted for removing the union. The workers are finally free of unwanted union “representation,” nearly two full years after they started their effort to remove the union, which was highly unpopular among rank-and-file Mountaire Farms employees.
“The overwhelming final vote tally emphasizes the injustice of the decision to continue the Board-invented ‘contract bar,’ which resulted in the destruction of hundreds of ballots. From the outset it was clear how little support UFCW officials really had,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “This case is yet another example of how the NLRB has twisted the law to protect union boss power at the expense of the statutory rights of rank-and-file employees.”
“We’re under no illusions that the Biden NLRB, stacked with former union officials, will end this longstanding impediment to workers’ right to free themselves of an unwanted union. But this saga demonstrates why the injustice that is the non-statutory ‘contract bar’ must be ended by a future Board,” LaJeunesse added.
Boeing Technician Files Federal Lawsuit Against Machinists Union Over Illegal Forced Dues Demands
Instead of reducing nonmember worker’s payments in accordance with Supreme Court precedent, union bosses charged him arbitrary higher amount
Seattle, WA (May 24, 2022) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Seattle Boeing technician Don Zueger is suing International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials in federal court for violating his right to refrain from paying for unwanted union activities.
Zueger, who is not a member of the IAM union, is defending his right under the Foundation-won 1988 CWA v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision, in which the Court ruled that union officials cannot charge full union dues to objecting private sector workers who have abstained from formal union membership. Under Beck, union officials can only charge union nonmembers “fees” which exclude expenses for things like union political activities.
Because Washington State lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, nonmembers like Zueger can be forced to pay the reduced amount under Beck as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
IAM Officials Continue to Overcharge Worker in Violation of His Rights
According to Zueger’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, he submitted a request to IAM union officials in February resigning his union membership and asking for his dues payments to be reduced under Beck.
Zueger’s lawsuit reports that IAM officials’ response to his Beck request claimed that, under IAM’s nationwide policy, the portion of union dues he is required to pay is based on averages of selected audits that in each case include nine other local and district IAM affiliates. This means the forced union fee amount is not calculated using the actual amounts determined in the audits of the local and district IAM affiliates that Zueger is required to fund as a condition of employment. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in Zueger’s dues reduction being significantly less than it would have been had union officials only used the audits for the district and local affiliates Zueger is forced to fund.
According to his lawsuit, union officials are still demanding from Zueger dues in excess of the amount Beck permits. The lawsuit seeks to force IAM union bosses to return all money demanded in violation of Beck and to properly reduce his future union payments in accordance with Beck.
Workers Should Be Wary of Illegal Union Dues Schemes as Union Political Activity Increases
Zueger’s lawsuit comes after union bosses spent near-record sums on politics during the 2020 election cycle. A report by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) released in 2021 revealed that union officials’ own Department of Labor filings show about $2 billion in political spending during the 2020 cycle, primarily from dues-stocked union general treasuries. Moreover, other estimates strongly suggest that actual union spending on political and lobbying activities actually topped $12 billion in 2019-2020.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out when union officials are trying to strong-arm employees into subsidizing union activities, including politics, against their will. IAM officials’ nonmember dues scheme doesn’t pass the smell test,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While we’re proud to help Mr. Zueger defend his Beck rights, ultimately no American worker should be forced to pay fees determined by the whims of union officials simply in order to keep their jobs.”
“This case shows why Right to Work laws are needed nationwide to ensure that the decision to join or financially support a union is strictly a matter of each individual worker’s own conscience. Workers should be especially aware of attempts by union officials to force them to fund union activities as union political activity heats up in advance of this year’s elections,” Mix added.
NYC University Professors Take Aim at Forced Union ‘Representation’
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CUNY professors’ lawsuit argues NY law forces them under power of anti-Semitic union
Prof. Avraham Goldstein recalled in a Wall Street Journal piece the anti-Semitism his family faced in the Soviet Union. He and other plaintiffs argue they shouldn’t be forced to associate with a union that subjects them to similar hostility.
NEW YORK, NY – For decades, government sector union bosses have relied on two pillars of coercion — forced dues and forced representation — to maintain their grip on power over America’s public servants and the public services citizens rely on.
While the Supreme Court in the 2018 National Right to Work Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court case recognized that forcing government employees to pay dues to stay employed violates the First Amendment, a new Foundation-assisted civil rights lawsuit from six City University of New York (CUNY) system professors may finally defeat union bosses’ privilege to impose union representation over the objections of public workers.
CUNY professors Jeffrey Lax, Michael Goldstein, Avraham Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, and Maria Pagano sued the AFL-CIO-affiliated Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union, CUNY executives, and New York State officials in January, challenging New York State’s “Taylor Law” that gives unions monopoly bargaining privileges in public sector workplaces like CUNY.
The plaintiffs, most of whom are Jewish, oppose the union’s “representation” on the grounds that union officials and adherents have relentlessly denigrated their religious and cultural identity. Several of the plaintiffs exercised their Janus right to cut off dues after PSC officials rammed through a resolution in June 2021 that they found “anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, and anti-Israel,” according to the lawsuit.
Discrimination Cited in Groundbreaking First Amendment Case
The lawsuit, which was filed with legal aid from both the National Right to Work Foundation and Pennsylvania-based Fairness Center, says: “Despite Plaintiffs’ resignations from membership in PSC, Defendants . . . acting in concert and under color of state law, force all Plaintiffs to continue to utilize PSC as their exclusive bargaining representative.”
The resolution is not nearly the worst example of PSC officials’ anti-Semitism, according to the lawsuit. Prof. Michael Goldstein asserts that adherents of PSC are waging a campaign to get him fired and have targeted him with harassment and threats such that he must have an armed guard accompany him on campus. Prof. Lax cites in the lawsuit a determination he has already received from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that “PSC leaders discriminated against him, retaliated against him, and subjected him to a hostile work environment on the basis of religion.”
While all of the professors take issue with PSC bosses’ radicalism, they also want to break free from internal conflicts within the large and disparate unit, which consists of full-time, part-time, and adjunct teaching employees and others. Prof. Kass-Shraibman states in the lawsuit that “instead of prioritizing the pay of full-time faculty, PSC expended resources advocating on behalf of teachers in Peru, graduate students at various other universities and the so-called ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement.”
On top of all that, Profs. Avraham Goldstein, Kass-Shraibman, and Langbert contend that PSC officials aren’t even respecting their First Amendment Janus rights. Although all three professors clearly indicated they wanted to cut off financial support to the union, the lawsuit explains that “Defendants PSC and the City . . . have taken and continue to take and/or have accepted and continue to accept union dues from [their] wages as a condition of employment . . .” in violation of Janus.
“I had paid thousands of dollars in union dues for workplace representation, not for political statements or attacks on my beliefs and identity,” Prof. Avraham Goldstein wrote in a piece for The Wall Street Journal. “I decided to resign my union membership and naively thought I could leave the union and its politics behind for good.”
“I was wrong,” recounted Prof. Goldstein. “Union officials refused my resignation and continued taking union dues out of my paycheck.”
Suit Seeks Damages and to Overturn NY Law Authorizing Union Control
The lawsuit seeks a declaration from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that the Taylor Law’s imposition of monopoly union control is unconstitutional, and that the defendants cease “certifying or recognizing PSC, or any other union, as Plaintiffs’ exclusive representative without their consent.” The lawsuit also demands the union and university return dues seized in violation of Janus to Profs. Avraham Goldstein, Kass-Shraibman, and Langbert.
“By forcing these professors into a monopoly union collective against their will, the state of New York mandates that they associate with union officials and other union members who take positions that are deeply offensive to these professors’ most fundamental beliefs,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “New York State’s Taylor Law authorizes such unconscionable compulsion. It is time federal courts fully protect the rights of government employees to exercise their freedom to disassociate from an unwanted union, whether their objections are religious, cultural, financial, or otherwise.”
Brockton Visiting Nurse Staff Petition to Remove Unwanted SEIU Officials from Workplace
Mail-in ballots must be returned by close of business on June 2, 2022
Brockton, MA – Home healthcare staff at Brockton Visiting Nurse in Brockton, Massachusetts have filed a petition seeking the removal of Service Employees International Union Local 1199 from their workplace. The workers’ decertification petition was filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 1 with free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Brockton Visiting Nurse employee Ann Pircio filed the decertification petition for her coworkers who want to oust the disliked union. Massachusetts is not a Right to Work state, meaning all workers in a unionized workplace can legally be required to pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of keeping their jobs. If the workers’ vote is upheld by the NLRB, SEIU union officials will be stripped of their monopoly “representation” powers used to impose forced union dues.
Under federal law, when at least 30% of workers in a bargaining unit sign a petition seeking the removal of union officials’ monopoly bargaining powers, an NLRB-conducted secret ballot vote whether to remove the union is triggered. If a majority of workers casting valid ballots do not vote for the union, the union is stripped of its government-granted monopoly “representation” powers. Those powers let union officials impose contracts on all workers in the workplace, even workers who are not union members and oppose the union.
The election for Brockton Visiting Nurse staff is scheduled as a mail-in vote. All ballots will be mailed by the NLRB to eligible voters who must mail back their votes. Workers’ votes must arrive by close of business on June 2, 2022, to be counted.
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have recently assisted workers in numerous successful decertification efforts across the nation, including for workers in Indiana, Illinois, and New Jersey. Foundation-backed reforms to the rules for decertification elections that the NLRB adopted in 2020 have curtailed union officials’ abuse of so-called “blocking charges” used to delay or block workers from exercising their right to decertify a union. Such charges are often based on unproven allegations made against an employer, completely unrelated to workers’ desire to free themselves of the union.
“Workers everywhere should know they can turn to the Foundation for free legal aid to help enforce their right to free themselves from unwanted union so-called ‘representation,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “No matter the outcome of this decertification vote, the many workers at Brockton who are opposed to the union should never have been required to fund the activities of union officials with whom they want nothing to do. That is why Massachusetts workers deserve the protection of a Right to Work law that makes union financial support strictly voluntary.”
Full Foundation Action January/February 2022 Newsletter Now Online
All articles from the January/February issue of Foundation Action are now on the website.
In this issue:
- Case Closed: Nurse Prevails in 11-Year Legal Fight Over Forced Dues
- West Coast Workers Press High Court to Scrutinize Anti-Janus ‘Escape Periods’
- NYC Car Wash Workers Kick Out Unwanted RWDSU
- Tennessee Worker Takes LIUNA Bosses to Federal Court for Religious Discrimination
- UC Irvine Lab Assistant Beats CWA Bosses in Suit Fighting Anti-Janus Schemes
Recent articles can be found here. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of this page.
Nurses at Massachusetts Hospital Move to Boot Union After Divisive Strike
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union bosses caught red-handed illegally demanding dues from workers
Many St. Vincent Hospital nurses reported the MNA union’s 300+ day strike was filled with bullying and division. “Do we want to keep the MNA and continue that same behavior?” asked Nurse Richard Avola on Spectrum News 1.
WORCESTER, MA – Earlier this year, hundreds of nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA, backed a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), demanding a vote to oust Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union officials from the facility. The effort followed a grueling, nearly year-long strike ordered by MNA bosses. As this issue of Foundation Action went to press, nurses were in the process of submitting ballots in the election.
Nurse Richard Avola submitted the petition to the NLRB in January. It contained enough employee signatures to trigger an NLRB-supervised decertification vote at the hospital. Soon after, he sought free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in defending the petition.
“People want change,” Avola told a Spectrum News 1 Worcester reporter in January about the push for a vote. “They want change for our patients.”
Protracted and Political Strike Rife with Intimidation, Many Nurses Report
Avola and his colleagues’ endeavor came after a 300-day strike ordered by MNA chiefs against the hospital — the longest strike in Massachusetts history. In response to inquiries from nurses impacted by the union bosses’ strike order, Foundation staff attorneys in March 2021 issued a legal notice informing St. Vincent nurses of their right to work during the strike and to cut off dues payments to the MNA hierarchy. The notice offered free legal aid to St. Vincent nurses who encountered union pushback in the exercise of their individual rights.
The union boss-ordered strike was intensely acrimonious. Union agents reportedly engaged in many harassing acts against nurses who exercised their right to continue working during the strike, including putting photographs of working nurses on strike paraphernalia and taking illicit pictures of nurses’ license plates. Despite the union-instigated campaign against rank-and-file nurses, high-profile elected officials, including U.S. Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, vocally sided against nurses who continued treating patients while exercising their right to rebuff the union strike demands.
MNA Union Agents Admitted to Illegally Demanding Union Dues During Strike
As the push for a vote to decertify MNA gained momentum, evidence emerged that union officials had demanded dues payments from nurses for periods during the strike when no contract existed between hospital management and the MNA union. Demanding dues during a contract hiatus is forbidden by longstanding federal law.
In response, St. Vincent nurse Regina Renaud hit the MNA union with Foundation-backed federal charges in January, maintaining that MNA agents had sent such illegal demands to her and other nurses. Just one day after Renaud filed her charges, MNA union officials effectively admitted their dues demands had breached federal labor law. They mailed hundreds of “error” letters to nurses dubiously claiming the illegal bills were an “oversight.” The union stated that it needed to “clean up” its records and warned that other similar demands might still go out to nurses.
While Renaud abstains from union membership, she is still forced to pay some dues to the union to keep her job because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections for private sector workers. However, this requirement does not exist in the absence of an active monopoly bargaining contract with a forced-dues clause. In Right to Work states, union membership and financial support are always strictly voluntary.
Ugly Strike and Illegal Dues Divide Nurses and Community
“It’s easy to see why Mr. Avola and so many of his coworkers want to oust MNA operatives from St. Vincent Hospital: Union bosses forced nurses to endure a gruelingly long strike that divided the hospital and the community, while those who went back to work and refused to abandon their patients faced harassment and intimidation tactics,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Ms. Renaud’s charges show that MNA officials ignored even the most basic legal protections for workers who do not wish to financially support a union.”
“Foundation attorneys will continue to fight for St. Vincent nurses’ rights, including the right to dispense with unwanted union representation, and will ensure any MNA union boss legal tactics do not stifle the nurses’ voices,” Semmens added.
