3 Oct 2007

More on Yesterday’s Decision

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Yesterday’s National Labor Relations Board decision continues to grab headlines across the country.

It’s interesting to note that while you have certain members of Congress pressing to mandate the coercive "card check" scheme, the NLRB here has signaled the inferiority of the process in measuring employee support for unionization. In essence, employees now have an out once a union is imposed on them via "card check."

In the underlying Metaldyne case, 50 percent of the employees petitioned to vote the union out immediately following the recognition of the union. How can union officials possibly claim with a straight face that a majority of employees supported unionization” In cruel irony, however, as mentioned previously, yesterday’s decision will not protect the very employees that brought the underlying cases.

2 Oct 2007

Right to Work Wins New Rights for Employees Against “Card Check” Abuse

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In one of the most watched cases at the National Labor Relations Board, Right to Work attorneys today struck a blow for employees nationwide that want to vote out a union recognized under a coercive "card check" organizing drive.

The case involved a controversial "card check" drive by the UAW union, and an accompanying case involved the Steelworkers union.

Comparing secret ballot elections to "card checks," the NLRB majority pointed out:

“Card checks are less reliable because they lack secrecy and procedural safeguards… union card-solicitation campaigns have been accompanied by misinformation… workers sometimes sign union authorization cards…to get the person off their back.”

Though employees can now petition to vote out the unwanted union for 45 days after recognition, the ruling will only take effect prospectively. This means that the very employees that brought the case will not be able to toss out the unwanted union!

2 Oct 2007

Union Officials Use Annual Objection Schemes to Hamstring Employees

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When hard-working employees object to paying forced dues for politics, they mean it.

But despite such opposition, union officials will try to find every way possible to demoralize and hamstring employees so that their forced dues money continues to follow into union political coffers.

Take a look at Robert Prime from Pensacola, Florida. Mr. Prime works at the Naval Air Station. In December 2003, he filed charges with help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation after IAM union officials told him he had to object every single year to paying for union political advocacy.

IAM union officials refused to acknowledge that his objection should apply continuously. And while Mr. Prime fights for his objection to be honored, he and his coworkers are forced to oblige to a burdensome and discriminatory policy until a decision is issued after a hearing scheduled for the end of this year.

It took nearly four years for him just to get that far. But Mr. Prime and his coworkers in Florida are not alone.

Just months ago, the NLRB delayed another ruling where George Gally, a 40-year veteran at Colt Firearms, requested that the federal board rule on his case under similar circumstances.

Right to Work attorneys helped Mr. Gally of Connecticut originally file unfair labor practice charges in 2003. His charges challenged the United Auto Worker (UAW) union’s nationwide policy of requiring employees to object annually in order to receive refunds of forced union dues spent for union political activities.

But the NLRB, with its reputation for dragging its feet, refused to rule on Mr. Gally’s precedent-setting case and punted the decision back to a Regional Director for further review.

As a result, Mr. Gally has no choice, like Mr. Prime, to wait longer for a ruling as union officials continue to enforce bogus hurdles designed solely to keep rank-and-file workers in line.

Union officials do not require the same of their members. So why do they require those employees – who do not want to pay for union political activities – to object every year?

The answer can surely be heard in the “cha-ching” of union bosses’ coffers.

2 Oct 2007

Michigan Union Bosses Rally Against Employee Choice

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In a sometimes vulgar and entirely anti-employee display, Michigan union officials and Big Labor politicians held a “rally” in Lansing last week against efforts by Michigan citizens to promote a much-needed Right to Work law in Michigan.

The union bosses based in the state’s capital city apparently held their “Rapid Response” rally because the National Right to Work Foundation’s Vice President and Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse was speaking to a group of Cooley Law School students in Lansing at the same time.

Sucking up to his union paymasters, one politician blustered: “Right to work: Get your a** back to where you came from! We do not need you in Michigan!”

Despite the cheers and jeers of the paid union officials who make a living by leeching off the hard earned wages of employees, Michigan citizens are increasingly recognizing that their state — perhaps more than any other state in the country — needs a Right to Work law. Aside from protecting the freedom of choice of employees it would help reverse Michigan’s current “one state recession.”

2 Oct 2007

Teamsters Target 15,000 UPS Freight Workers with “Card Check”

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A top ranking Teamsters official boasts today about a recently ratified contract with UPS that:

“Once the national UPS and the local UPS Freight agreements are both ratified by our members, we will have a ‘card check/neutrality agreement’ with UPS Freight."

Let’s hope no dissenting workers targeted with "card check" suffer the same fate as Rod Carter, a former UPS driver who Right to Work attorneys helped file suit after Teamsters operatives viciously attacked him for refusing to walk off the job.

Every week, it seems that union officials target more workers with coercive "card check" organizing.

2 Oct 2007

National Right to Work Secures New Rights for Employees to Protect Against Abusive Union “Card Check” Organizing

Posted in News Releases

**Washington, D.C. (October 2, 2007)** – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) voted 3-2 to overturn its policy of denying employees any access to a secret ballot vote over unionization after a union is recognized pursuant to the controversial “card check” organizing process.

The long-awaited ruling came in two high-profile cases brought by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys for employees at two automotive suppliers (Dana and Metaldyne) who found themselves organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. In the future, the federal agency will give employees notice that they have 45 days after the recognition to file a decertification petition to obtain an election to vote out the unwanted union.

However, in a bizarre move that punishes the very employees who brought these cases, the NLRB majority decreed that its ruling would only apply prospectively. As a result, the forcibly unionized Dana and Metaldyne employees – as well as employees of other employers who had similarly filed decertification petitions after card-check campaigns – will not be allowed to toss out the unions imposed upon them.

The NLRB’s decision prospectively impacts the effect of so-called “neutrality” agreements, contracts between a union and an employer under which the employer agrees not to oppose unionization of its workers. Under these coercive agreements, employers typically also grant union operatives sweeping access to their workplaces, home addresses, and employees’ other personal information. These pacts also strip workers of the opportunity to a secret ballot election and often allow union officials to hold mandatory “captive audience” meetings to browbeat the employees to sign union cards that are counted as “votes” for unionization.

The NLRB majority pointed out, “card checks are less reliable because they lack secrecy and procedural safeguards… union card-solicitation campaigns have been accompanied by misinformation… workers sometimes sign union authorization cards…to get the person off their back.”

The NLRB ruling comes in the consolidated cases of employees at Dana Corporation in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and Metaldyne in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, who filed decertification petitions (with 35 percent and more than 50 percent of employees signing, respectively) seeking elections to decide whether officials of the nation’s largest auto workers union truly enjoyed the support of a majority of employees and could lawfully act as their “exclusive representatives.” The employees filed these petitions after their employers had announced that they would recognize the union on the basis of signed cards. The NLRB Regional Directors dismissed the election petitions, and the employees appealed to the NLRB in Washington, D.C., in 2004.

“This is an encouraging step forward for employee freedom, but the Bush NLRB has been sitting on many other important employee rights cases for several years,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Meanwhile, there is no moral or legal justification for penalizing the very employees who brought these cases by barring them from throwing out these illegally imposed unions.”

Download the NLRB Decision

2 Oct 2007

Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Union for Requiring Annual Objections to Forced Union Dues for Politics

Posted in News Releases

**Pensacola, FL (October 2, 2007)** – After nearly a four year delay, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to prosecute the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union for requiring employees at Vertex Aerospace, LLC to object annually to prevent union officials from spending their compulsory union dues for political activities.

The case puts in the spotlight a common union tactic used to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in forced union dues spent on Big Labor’s political agenda.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys helped Robert Prime, an employee at the Naval Air Station, originally file unfair labor practice charges in December 2003 against the IAM union, as well as District Lodge 75 and Local Lodge 2777. The charges allege that union officials violated his rights by forcing him to renew every single year his objection to funding union political advocacy. The NLRB has scheduled a hearing that will take place before an Administrative Law Judge on December 10.

In November 2003, Prime had filed an objection with IAM union officials to funding their political activities, as the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck decision permits. The Beck decision recognized that workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for activities unrelated to collective bargaining. However, when Prime asked union officials to honor his request as a “continuing objection,” IAM officials refused, claiming that Prime and his coworkers must object annually because they are not subject to the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

In 2000, a U.S. District Court struck down the IAM union’s nationwide policy requiring annual objections from employees seeking a rebate of dues spent for activities unrelated to collective bargaining. However, the ruling technically only applied to employees covered by the RLA. IAM union officials maintain that employees working under the National Labor Relations Act are, therefore, still required to object annually even though the policy is discriminatory and arbitrary, as three federal courts have held.

“Thumbing their noses at a federal court ruling, IAM union officials are forcing employees to jump over hurdles to stymie them from reclaiming their forced union dues,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Florida’s highly-popular Right to Work law, on the books since 1944, is one of 22 state laws that secure the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union. However, because Vertex Aerospace employees work on federal property under “exclusive federal jurisdiction,” the state’s Right to Work law does not protect those workers from being forced to pay union dues in order to keep their jobs.

Read the Complaint

1 Oct 2007

No Middle Ground on Employee Free Choice

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Ray Hogler of Colorado State University, an advocate of forced union dues, recently mischaracterized Colorado as a "modified right to work state." He cites a law that simply makes it just a little less easy for union officials in Colorado to impose forced union dues on employees. That law requires a secret ballot election in which a majority of eligible voters or 75 percent of actual voters must favor firing workers if they refuse to pay union dues.

Make no mistake about it, despite this procedural hurdle, union officials can still order workers across Colorado fired for refusal to pay dues once they clear it. All they have to do is quash employee dissent, and with the laws of 28 states mandating compulsory dues, they have plenty of cash to do it.

Hogler continues:

The rhetorical hyperbole about Colorado’s unions does raise issues of labor law reform that are complicated, contentious and of serious consequence.

Actually, it’s not that complicated, employees are either truly free to choose whether to join or pay dues to a union or they’re not. And in Colorado, despite Hogler’s objections, the law still favors coercion over free choice.

28 Sep 2007

No Tea Party

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The coercive "card check" union organizing scheme became the law of the land for public sector workers in Massachusetts yesterday.

Bay State employees will undoubtedly find out soon that this abuse ridden scheme is no tea party. See all the latest about the National Right to Work Foundation’s efforts to lessen the abuses suffered by workers under such drives here.

27 Sep 2007

…Speaking of Washington

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And speaking of Washington…

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys were instrumental in helping several employees get their jobs back last year after Washington Federation of State Employees union officials unlawfully ordered them fired for refusing to pay union dues without due process. WFSE union spokesman Tim Welch said at the time:

"You can choose to be a member of the union, you can choose to pay a fee. But ultimately, if you do not like that, you can choose to be unemployed."

Despite Welch’s clear hostility to employee rights, he aptly summarizes Washington State law, which authorizes the firing of employees for refusing to pay union dues.

However, several employees did indeed stand on principle and refused to pay dues to the unwanted union, sacrificing their jobs in the process. Among these employees were Pat Woodward and Maxine Dunkelman who decided to file suit against the WFSE union alongside several coworkers with the Foundation’s help. Here is what Pat had to say about being fired for refusing to pay union dues at a press conference announcing the lawsuit: