Seattle, Wash. (January 20, 2004) – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has cleared the path for a Seattle-based mechanic to seek damages from a local union, after its officials ordered his firing from Alaska Airlines for refusal to pay full union dues.

Obtaining free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Bernard Mackay filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington against the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) union. However, the lower court dismissed Mackay’s case, relying on the union’s disputed claim that Mackay had acquiesced to union membership and could be fired for refusal to pay full dues. The appellate court has now overturned that ruling and cleared the path for trial and the calculation of damages.

In issuing its decision, the Ninth Circuit court referred to evidence that union officials had not complied with their own bylaws defining the process for attaining union membership. If Mackay was not a formal member of the union, he was entitled to certain due process rights before he could be compelled to pay dues or fees as a job condition.

“Union officials want workers like Bernard Mackay to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “AFMA union officials put Mr. Mackay in the unemployment line simply because he objected to paying dues to a union he did not support.”

Despite AFMA union officials’ claims that he had acquiesced to union membership, Mackay never applied for union membership, never received a union membership card, never took the union’s “loyalty oath,” and never received a copy of the union constitution. Instead, the union dubbed him a member by fiat and demanded dues.

In 1998, AFMA union officials entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Alaska Airlines, Mackay’s employer, that contained a forced-dues clause. Under this clause, nonmembers may be required to pay dues to cover the union’s proven collective bargaining costs, or face discharge.

However, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as interpreted in the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, union officials must first provide nonmembers audited disclosure of their expenditures justifying the portion that workers who have chosen to refrain from union membership can be forced to pay. Mackay asserts that AFMA union officials failed to provide him with such an audit.

Akron, Ohio (January 13, 2004) – An unprecedented federal court challenge filed by employees objecting to a new unionization method gained momentum today when a United States District Court cleared the path for full discovery into details of a backroom deal intended to unionize the employees without so much as a secret ballot vote.

Obtaining free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Wanda Patterson filed the suit in July 2003 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against Heartland Industrial Partners, LLP, Collins & Aikman Corp., and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union. Patterson is seeking to overturn a sweetheart arrangement that, among other things, requires all companies acquired by Heartland to help impose unionization on their employees and then force those employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

The U.S. District Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss Heartland, Collins & Aikman, and the union. The court ordered the parties to begin pre-trial discovery, in which Wanda Patterson and her coworkers can subpoena documents and investigate the deal.

Patterson’s suit calls into question the legality of a rapidly emerging organizing trend – especially prevalent in the automobile, textile, and hotel industries – in which struggling union organizers abandon traditional grassroots-driven unionization drives and instead elicit assistance from companies to impose compulsory unionism on their own employees through highly coercive “top-down” organizing methods.

“Not only does the backroom deal between Heartland and the Steelworkers union sacrifice workers’ freedom to decide their own representation, it sells them out in the first contract,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The court’s decision to proceed is an important step down the road toward outlawing these coercive, often secret, agreements nationwide.”

Patterson is an employee of the Collins & Aikman Corp., an Ohio-based automotive parts manufacturer recently acquired by Heartland.

Under the pact at issue, Heartland forces acquired companies to operate under a so-called “neutrality agreement” that requires company managers to assist USWA union officials in organizing their employees. In return, union officials pour unsuspecting workers’ trust funds into Heartland, promise to stifle employee rights under federal law, and limit employees’ ability to influence their own wages, benefits, and working conditions.

In 2001, Heartland bought out the Collins & Aikman Corp. and forced the company to accept a “neutrality agreement” with the USWA union.

In denying the motion to dismiss, the court wrote that Heartland “…has apparently selected and contracted with a union of Heartland’s choice.” It is argued that such activity violates provisions of federal law intended to prohibit conflicts of interest, sweetheart deals, and other employer-union coercion.

Upper Sandusky, Ohio (January 12, 2004) – Employees at Dana Corporation’s Upper Sandusky facility have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking that officials of the nation’s largest auto workers union be stripped of their newly granted exclusive representation power over nearly two hundred of the company’s employees.

With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Clarice Atherholt
filed the decertification petition signed by 35 percent of her coworkers after Dana Corp. began bargaining with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union without allowing the employees to cast a secret ballot. Atherholt is challenging the NLRB’s new “voluntary recognition bar” that stipulates generally that employers may bargain with a union for a period of one year after the implementation of a collective bargaining agreement before the agency will allow employees to obtain a decertification election.

The employees were denied the opportunity to decide their union status through the less abusive secret ballot election process, but they are seeking that opportunity to vote now.

If a decertification election is allowed and is successful, the UAW would lose its power to act as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees. All Dana employees then would be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment.

“Workers should have a right to cast off the unwanted monopoly representation of union officials at any time,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “It’s an outrage that Dana Corp. struck a backroom deal with UAW officials to deny them their rights.”

In early December, the collective bargaining agreement was implemented pursuant to a so-called “neutrality” agreement and a “card check” authorization process – a process that bypasses a secret ballot election and allows union officials to bully workers one-on-one into signing union recognition cards. In recent years union organizers have had less success in persuading employees to vote in favor of unionization, and thus have focused on eliciting employer support to corral workers into union collectives through methods that are intended to curtail employee influence over the union recognition process.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have three other cases pending against Dana and the UAW union for abuses under these coercive agreements. Currently, there are two cases on appeal in Virginia and Kentucky, as well as a recently filed round of charges pending in Michigan.

Washington, D.C. (January 2, 2004) – The U.S. District Court ruled on New Year’s Eve to block the implementation of the Bush Administration’s new union financial regulations that were scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2004.

The new disclosure requirements, which National Right to Work Foundation officials have argued should have been much more stringent, would nevertheless have provided more information than in the past to rank-and-file union employees as to how their compulsory union dues are spent.

The Foundation filed as amicus curiae in defense of the regulations, arguing that there is not an undue burden on unions to comply, and that the regulations are greatly needed to help combat rampant union corruption and financial malfeasance.

U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington, DC, granted the AFL-CIO’s motion for a preliminary injunction, thereby effectively halting implementation during the 2004 reporting year. However, the court will decide the ultimate fate of the regulations at a later time.

“Judge Kessler gave the AFL-CIO what it wanted — the ability to conduct an all-out campaign to defeat President Bush and Congressional Republicans without having to reveal to rank-and-file workers the depth and breadth of the political activities funded by their compulsory union dues,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

“For the past two years, the AFL-CIO’s strategy has been to run the clock in order to stall the implementation of this much-needed reform until such time as a new president would be in place to overturn it.”

Hartford, Conn. (December 30, 2003) — A federal administrative law judge today awarded an employee of Colt Manufacturing nearly $31,000 in compensation plus interest for pay lost after he was illegally fired at the request of union officials. The award ends a more than decade-long legal battle that resulted from the worker’s firing for refusal to pay union dues while the union failed to meet its obligation to notify workers of their right to pay less than full dues.

Enjoying free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, George Gally originally filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Auto Workers (UAW) Union Local Lodge 376 for ordering his termination in 1991.

Despite being reinstated after the NLRB issued a complaint in the case, Gally received no restitution from UAW union officials for lost pay during the 18-month gap. His case was later consolidated with dozens of others into a nationwide case against the UAW union, and his claim languished within the NLRB bureaucracy for more than six years.

“UAW union officials made an example of George Gally in order to keep other workers from defying their edicts,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Though long overdue, this award is a small step towards holding UAW officials accountable for trampling the rights of rank-and-file workers.”

The actions of UAW union officials violated workers’ rights recognized in the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision. Under Beck and subsequent rulings, workers have to right to refrain from full dues-paying union membership, pay a reduced fee to cover only the union’s collective bargaining costs, and refuse to pay for union ideological activities — such as politics. Union officials must also notify workers of these rights.

Despite winning back the lost salary, Gally filed another round of unfair labor practice charges against the UAW union earlier this year. Gally is challenging the union’s requirement that he renew his objection to paying for union politics as a nonmember every year.

Gally originally objected to full union membership more than a decade ago, but under rules set by UAW union officials, he is required to renew his objection every single year in order to avoid full dues payment. Though Gally renewed his objection to being a full-dues-paying member in response to a union notice to do so, union officials recently disregarded his objection and demanded that he tender full dues in order to keep his job.

St. Marys, Pa. (December 22, 2003) – A majority of employees of Metaldyne, Inc. in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, today filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking that officials of the nation’s largest autoworkers union be stripped of their newly granted exclusive representation power over hundreds of the company’s employees.

With the help of attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation, the workers filed the decertification petition against the United Auto Workers (UAW) union after Metaldyne agreed to begin bargaining with the union.

Early this month, UAW officials claimed that – pursuant to the implementation of a so-called “neutrality agreement” and a “card check” authorization process – a majority of Metaldyne employees had indicated they supported unionization. Based on this claim, which was not verified by any government official, company officials nevertheless recognized the union as the exclusive representative. This action granted union officials a monopoly on bargaining over wages and working conditions of hundreds of employees, including the power to compel dissenting employees to pay union dues or be fired from their jobs.

“Union organizers bypassed the traditional secret ballot election process and instead cut a deal with Metaldyne endorsing a process whereby employees are shaken down, one by one, into signing union recognition cards,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “By signing the decertification petition, these workers are saying that they want a secret ballot election to determine if employees really want the UAW union to represent them.”

If the decertification election is allowed and is successful, the UAW would lose its power to act as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees, and all Metaldyne employees will be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment.

Metaldyne and UAW officials signed a so-called “neutrality agreement,” denying workers the ability to reject unionization through a secret ballot election, and allowing the union to sign up workers under a “card check” authorization scheme. In recent years union organizers have had less success in persuading employees to vote for unionization, and thus have focused on eliciting employer support to corral workers into union collectives.

Metaldyne’s parent company, Heartland Industrial Partners LLP, currently faces related federal charges filed by another group of Foundation-aided workers. In addition to a U.S. District Court suit alleging an illegal sweetheart arrangement, workers under the Heartland umbrella have filed NLRB charges challenging a “secondary boycott” provision.

Oxnard, Calif. (December 17, 2003) —The General Counsel of California’s Agriculture Labor Relations Board (ALRB) has filed a complaint against the United Farm Workers union for unlawfully ordering mass firings of more than 150 Oxnard Coastal Berry employees who refused to join the union.

With the assistance of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Francisco Alzazar, Bertha Ambriz, Bertha Andrade, Ella Carranza, Alma Rose Arredondo, and Manuel Mena filed the class-action unfair labor practice charges against the UFW union in June 2001. Coastal Berry, which employs approximately 750 workers, is the world’s largest strawberry producer.

“These employees so disdained the notion of joining and supporting the UFW union, that they decided they would rather lose their jobs,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “Though the wheels of justice have moved far too slow, we are encouraged that the ALRB has finally decided to take action to defend these victims.”

In May 2000, by order of an ALRB packed with three one-day appointments by Governor Gray Davis, UFW union officials gained monopoly bargaining power over employees at Coastal Berry. In March 2001, Coastal Berry entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the UFW union. Within days, UFW officials demanded that all Coastal Berry workers join the union and sign payroll deduction cards that would have allowed union officials to seize dues from their paychecks. More than 150 workers refused to comply with the UFW union’s illegal ultimatum and were fired at the union officials’ demand.

The ALRB complaint states that UFW union officials unlawfully demanded that the berry pickers pay full union dues as a condition of employment, violating several Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Chicago Teachers v. Hudson. UFW union officials also unlawfully failed to inform employees of their rights to object to paying for non-collective bargaining activities (such as politics), and the right to challenge the union’s fee calculations before an impartial decision maker.

Foundation attorneys are seeking full remedies (including back pay) for their clients and all employees similarly situated. If the union’s officials do not settle the case, they will now face a trial.

California State Senator Tom McClintock (R-19th District), whose legislative district includes Oxnard, weighed in on behalf of the workers. “The National Right to Work Foundation should be commended for representing the hard-working Californians that have been denied their jobs due to politics. Ironically, the UFW claims to be for workers, yet it turned more than 150 workers away from the fields where they have labored for years.”

Oklahoma City, Okla. (December 16, 2003) – The Supreme Court of Oklahoma today rejected two separate attempts by union lawyers to deny Oklahoma citizens the right to choose whether or not to join or support financially a union, upholding Oklahoma’s constitutional Right to Work amendment which was passed by statewide referendum in September 2001.

With its ruling the state’s supreme court effectively ended a two-year legal battle waged by attorneys for Governor Frank Keating alongside National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys against union lawyers who were bent on reclaiming the special privilege of compulsory unionism they enjoyed prior to that referendum.

“Today is a great day for Oklahoma. No longer will there be a dark cloud over the Right to Work amendment that has already resulted in the creation of new jobs, an increase in wages, and more employee freedom compared to states without such protections,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

In Transport Workers Local 514 et al v. Keating et al, a U.S. Court of Appeals earlier ruled that certain ancillary provisions of the law are preempted by federal law such that the law cannot apply to employees working, for example, on exclusive federal property or in the airline or railroad industry (as is the case with all other state Right to Work laws). However, the federal court accepted a request by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys that the Oklahoma Supreme Court should decide the state law question of whether the federal preemption invalidates the entire Right to Work constitutional amendment.

This afternoon, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ruled that the union lawyers could not prove their assertion that Oklahoma voters would somehow not have approved the Right to Work amendment if they had known that it could not be applied to every single employee in the state.

At the same time, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected arguments in a separate state court challenge to the Right to Work amendment. This summer, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys discovered the existence of a “collusive lawsuit” filed with the apparent intention by both parties (union and employer) of voiding the state’s Right to Work law without serious arguments made by a party that sincerely supports the law. Discovering this, Foundation attorneys intervened in that suit representing Stephen Weese, a Tulsa-area employee, to ensure that the law was vigorously defended.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court today rejected arguments raised by union attorneys in the collusive suit that the Right to Work constitutional amendment violated the due process and equal protections clauses of the Oklahoma constitution. The Oklahoma court followed U.S. Supreme Court precedents dating back to the 1940s that have rejected similar arguments under the U.S. Constitution. Since it took effect, Oklahoma has led the nation in several economic performance categories – despite a struggling American economy.

St. Johns, Mich. (December 16, 2003) – Fighting a highly coercive union organizing drive that embodies an emerging trend in the auto industry, a St. Johns-area worker filed federal charges today. The charges challenge a sweetheart agreement between Dana Corporation and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union intended to corral some 300 workers into union membership regardless of their wishes.

Company and union officials began implementing their so-called “partnership agreement” – which required the company actively to support union organizing efforts – even after a majority of the St. Johns facility workers had signed a petition outlining their explicit opposition to unionization by the UAW union.

Gary Smeltzer, a Dana employee, obtained free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys to file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB will decide whether to issue a formal complaint and prosecute the charges.

The charges seek an NLRB injunction against the UAW and Dana Corporation that would block implementation of the “partnership agreement.” As part of the agreement, company officials handed over employees’ personal information to union organizers and granted union operatives wide access to employees in the plant. Union officials also make it difficult for employees to void previously signed union recognition cards.

As part of their coercive organizing efforts, UAW union officials notified employees that the only way they could rescind prior authorization cards was if UAW operatives visited the home of each worker – an intimidation tactic obviously intended to discourage dissent.

“Since employees nationwide have increasingly rejected unionization through the secret ballot election process, union organizers have bypassed this less abusive process and instead are organizing companies from the top down,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The employees’ wishes are the last thing on the minds of UAW officials. They just want forced union dues. Dana willingly complies in order to get a sweetheart contract.”

In addition to assisting actively union organizers, company officials may not respond to any questions from workers about the union. Company officials also waived a secret ballot NLRB-supervised election in exchange for union officials’ offer to waive future legal rights of organized employees. Union officials even began bargaining with Dana over health benefits despite lacking majority support.

While many workers signed the petition to remain free of union representation before the organizing drive began, Dana and UAW officials completely ignored their wishes. The petition was submitted to UAW and Dana top executives in November, and expressly requested that the union not be granted monopoly representation over the workers, and that personal information not be given to union operatives.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 15, 2003) — Attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today filed as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in opposition to the AFL-CIO’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block implementation of new union financial disclosure requirements.

Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao issued the final regulations on October 9, 2003, in response to a national epidemic of union corruption. This revision in the long-standing union disclosure requirements was the first such reform in over four decades.

As the only amicus curiae so far in the case, Foundation attorneys filed arguments on the deadline in the U.S. District Court for the Department of Labor to respond to the motion for a preliminary injunction. Foundation attorneys argue that Secretary Chao responded to a clear need for union accountability and transparency, and she acted within her authority by issuing the new requirements to disclose more financial information to rank-and-file union members.

“The AFL-CIO hierarchy is going all out to keep rank-and-file workers in the dark about union finances,” said Foundation President Mark Mix. “Not only did Secretary Chao have the authority to do what she did, but she should have gone much further, such as requiring independent audits as well as more functional reporting of union expenditures.”

The National Right to Work Foundation has also been critical of the curious raising of the threshold for itemization of expenditures in the final disclosure rules. At the last minute, the itemization level was set at $5,000 from an originally proposed level of $250, allowing the concealment of many union disbursements on the new forms.

The AFL-CIO union hierarchy claims the new regulations are “prohibitively expensive,” arguing that unions will be required to keep records in a new way. However, contrary to these claims, to comply with several landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, unions are already required to track expenditures in a fashion that the new forms will require.

Under the Foundation-won rulings in Communications Workers v. Beck and Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, union officials already must maintain accounting systems, record keeping, and infrastructure to provide forced-dues-paying nonmembers with information about how resources are spent on various union functions. With these reporting mechanisms already in place, Foundation attorneys assert that most unions should be able to satisfy the new reporting requirements with little additional financial burden.