**Honolulu, HI (October 30, 2006)** – Challenging actions by union officials to seize compulsory union dues spent for political activities, an employee at the Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii has filed federal unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union.

The charges, filed with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, detail how UNITE-HERE union officials have ignored U.S. Supreme Court precedent by refusing to acknowledge objection letters sent by employees exercising their right to refrain from paying any more forced dues than the amount proven to cover collective bargaining costs.

In the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed employees’ right to object to paying forced union dues not used for collective bargaining, such as politics, lobbying, and organizing. Additionally, the NLRB has outlined a procedure where employees can exercise their Beck rights by sending an objection letter to union officials.

However, instead of recognizing the employees’ Beck objections, the UNITE-HERE Local 5 union hierarchy set up a series of illegal bureaucratic hurdles to discourage workers from exercising these rights. Such hurdles include forcing employees to annually renew their objections during a short window period and refusing to accept Beck objections during periods while a collective bargaining contract was not in place.

“In their rush to line their political coffers, UNITE-HERE union officials are violating the rights of the very employees they claim to ‘represent,’” said Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason. “This bullying highlights how workers are mistreated in states without Right to Work protections that would make union dues-payment strictly voluntary.”

The NLRB Regional Director will now investigate the charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint against the union local.

This is not the first time that UNITE-HERE Local 5 union officials have violated the rights of rank-and-file workers. In March 2005, an electrician at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort filed charges at the NLRB after union officials illegally forced nonunion workers to pay money into a union strike fund that was then used to support UNITE-HERE work stoppages in other industries, including outside of the United States in Guam and Saipan. Foundation attorneys forced UNITE HERE union officials to settle that case in July and stop illegally siphoning nonunion employees’ forced dues into the general strike fund.

“Ultimately, only ending forced unionism will allow workers to hold union officials accountable,” said Gleason.

Read the NLRB charges

**High Point, NC (October 17, 2006)** – Today, a group of Thomas Built Buses employees filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit challenging a District Court decision to dismiss their lawsuit against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for denial of their constitutional due process rights after union representation was forced upon them.

The lawsuit, originally filed in April with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, alleges that the NLRB improperly refused to allow workers to challenge the results of a tainted union election that granted United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials monopoly bargaining power over roughly 1,200 employees at the Thomas Built facility.

The NLRB officials decreed that employees may not intervene to assert their rights and challenge union representation election results because they lack standing. The precedent-setting decision contradicts the notion that the National Labor Relations Act establishes rights for employees, rather than simply empowering union officials. Foundation attorneys point out that the ruling violates workers’ procedural due-process rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The NLRB’s procedural decision whitewashed the illegal eleventh hour intervention of Thomas Built to assist its hand-picked union in winning monopoly bargaining representation over the employees. In June 2005, one day before a union representation election, Thomas Built officials issued a surprise memo to all High Point workers, announcing that employees would have to pay higher health insurance premiums if they remained nonunion.

Working in tandem, UAW union operatives immediately circulated copies of the memo around the facility with “DID YOU SEE THIS” THE COST OF BEING NON-UNION JUST WENT UP!” written at the top. Employees opposing unionization report that this intervention by the company swung a large number of votes in favor of the union.

Under longstanding NLRB practice, such conduct requires that the election be set aside because it taints the employees’ vote. Union and company officials, however, wanted the same election result and did not file objections. When a group of employees tried to object to the tainted vote, NLRB officials refused to recognize them. The UAW union was then certified as the monopoly representative because, according to an NLRB regional director, “no timely objections have been filed.”

“Thomas Built employees must be allowed to challenge this unlawful last-minute intervention that clinched an election victory for the UAW union – or workers’ rights under the law will be sharply undercut,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “When the NLRB becomes a rubberstamp for union-employer collusion, it seriously undermines the credibility of a federal agency that is supposed to protect the rights of rank-and-file workers.”

Facing prosecution by the NLRB in early 2005, UAW union and Thomas Built officials agreed to cancel outright a company-wide sweetheart deal in which union officials had unlawfully bargained to limit workers’ wage demands and made other concessions in exchange for the company’s assistance in organizing the workers. After the union was forced out of the plant, however, UAW union officials petitioned for the election at issue in this case.

**Lexington, KY (October 5, 2006)** – International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 526 union officials have settled a federal civil rights lawsuit against the union for illegally seizing forced union dues from seven nonunion Lexington firefighters. The firefighters brought the lawsuit with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys.

According to the settlement, IAFF union officials have refunded with interest all forced dues seized improperly since the collective bargaining agreement went into effect in June 2005. Each of the firefighters received approximately $150 in refunded dues and interest.

The victory for the nonunion firefighters contradicts earlier denials of any wrongdoing by Local 526 union official Mark Blankenship who was quoted in news reports immediately following the lawsuit’s filing claiming, “we follow all of the federal and state rules.”

“The fact that these firefighters had to file a federal lawsuit to get union officials to stop violating their basic constitutional rights shows how little the union bosses truly care about ‘representing’ workers,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This case demonstrates how vulnerable Kentucky employees are without a Right to Work law on the books making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary.”

The suit, filed June 22 against the IAFF Local 526 by the firefighters in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, also named Lexington Mayor Teresa Isaac, and other top city officials, for signing and enforcing an agreement with the union that resulted in the unconstitutional acts.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before seizing any forced dues, union officials must first provide an independent audited disclosure of the union’s expenses. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities. Unsurprisingly, IAFF union political operatives recently endorsed Isaac’s mayoral campaign.

In addition to the refunds, as a result of the settlement union officials cannot seize any future dues from nonunion firefighters until the union follows constitutionally-required procedures recognized by the Supreme Court in the Foundation-won Hudson decision. However, until Kentucky workers are protected by a Right to Work law, union officials will have the power to force employees to pay union dues or fees just to get or keep their jobs.

**Washington, DC (September 26, 2006)** — A group of teachers receiving free legal help from the National Right to Work Foundation today persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to review a case in which Washington State’s high court struck down a state law intending to limit the misuse of mandatory union dues for certain political activities. The Washington State Attorney General also joined in the appeal.

The voided Washington law required union officials to obtain the prior consent of nonunion public employees before spending their mandatory union dues on a tiny fraction of what the union actually spends on politics. However, in the process of striking down the law, the state Supreme Court fabricated a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend the money of employees who want nothing to do with the union on politics.

If upheld, the Washington State Supreme Court rulings in *Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA) Union* and *Washington v. WEA Union* – which, as Justice Richard B. Sanders’ three-member dissent pointed out, “turns the First Amendment on its head” – open the door for activist court rulings to undermine America’s 22 state Right to Work laws, which make union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary.

Foundation attorneys – working jointly with Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle – originally filed the suit, *Davenport v. WEA*, in 2001 for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but nonetheless are forced to pay union dues or be fired.

A long-awaited ruling in Davenport by the State Supreme Court in mid-March upheld an appellate court’s decision to overturn a trial court – thereby striking down the last remaining union dues provisions in I-134, Washington’s troubled “paycheck protection” law.

“These ineffective ‘paycheck protection’ laws have unfortunately opened a Pandora’s Box, creating an opportunity for activist courts to award new privileges to union bosses and even to jeopardize state Right to Work laws,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “While the underlying law is deeply flawed, the National Right to Work Foundation has a duty to limit the broader collateral damage done to employees’ rights by the court response.”

Though the Foundation believes the State Supreme Court’s decision was wrongheaded, the ruling brought into focus how difficult the paycheck protection regulatory approach is, and how ineffective it has been in protecting employees laboring under forced unionism. Even if Washington’s Supreme Court had reinstated the trial court’s rulings, I-134 would still only result in small individual refunds of $25 per year, on average. This is because the vast majority of union political expenditures are out of reach of the campaign finance regulation.

“Ultimately, Right to Work laws are the way to protect workers from the misuse of their funds. By making membership and the payment of dues entirely voluntary, Right to Work laws allow employees to prevent the theft in the first place,” stated Gleason.

Key Legal Documents:
Foundation’s Cert Petition (Davenport v. WEA)

Foundation’s Reply Brief (Davenport v. WEA)

Davenport v. WEA Cert Petition Appendix

Supreme Court Order Granting Cert

Washington State Cert Petition (Washington v. WEA)

Washington State Reply Brief (Washington v. WEA)

Washington v. WEA Cert Petition Appendix

WEA Brief Opposing Cert

Amicus Brief by 13 Public Policy Groups Supporting Cert
Amicus Brief by Institute for Justice Supporting Cert
Amicus Brief by Pacific Legal Foundation Supporting Cert
Amicus Brief by Campaign Legal Center Supporting Cert

WA State Supreme Court Decision (Majority)
WA State Supreme Court Decision (Dissent)

**Detroit, MI (September 25, 2006)** – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a western Michigan auto worker today hit the United Auto Workers (UAW) union with a federal civil rights lawsuit for religious discrimination. In violation of federal labor law, union officials have applied a discriminatory policy that forces the employee to pay to charity fees in place of union dues that are higher than fees paid by nonmembers who object for secular reasons – or face termination.

Jeffrey Reed, a resident of Bridgman who assembles Hummer H2s for AM General, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan after UAW union officials refused to grant him an adequate religious accommodation to paying dues to a union that conflicts with his religious beliefs.

“By maintaining a discriminatory policy, the UAW hierarchy appears to have little regard for those who have deep moral objections to the union and its activities,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “But this heavy-handed behavior towards workers who dare dissent comes as little surprise given the UAW bosses’ thuggish history.”

Though Reed prompted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to determine that UAW officials had violated federal law and issue him a “right to sue” letter, the union hierarchy has refused to grant him a proper accommodation.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the worker’s sincerely held religious beliefs. To avoid the conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to attempt to accommodate the worker – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to receive the funds.

In spite of the law, UAW officials have forced Reed to pay to charity a $100 premium over the amount that any secular objecting worker is forced to pay. Reed continues to pay the discriminatory amount under protest to prevent UAW officials from ordering him fired.

As a devout Catholic, Reed believes that financially supporting the UAW union violates his sincerely held religious beliefs due to the union hierarchy’s support for special rights for homosexuals and abortion-on-demand.

“UAW officials want to single out Jeffrey Reed to make other employees of faith think twice about refusing to toe the union line,” said Gleason. “Employees should not have to take legal action for union officials to respect their fundamental right to religious freedom.”

Reed points out in his complaint that even full UAW members and secular objectors are allowed to pay an amount less than full dues if they want to cut off the use of their mandatory union dues for political activities.

**Albuquerque, NM (September 22, 2006)** – The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to overturn a District Court ruling ordering union officials to refund all dues seized by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME) Local 624 from nonunion city government employees.

The unanimous 21-page ruling came in Wessel v. Albuquerque, a case brought by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys for city government employees against the City of Albuquerque and the AFSCME Local 624, after the city deducted union dues used for activities unrelated to collective bargaining and without proper procedural protections.

The appeals court agreed with the District Court that union witnesses had failed to prove that the forced dues – seized from nonunion employees – were being spent to the benefit of the city government employees and rejected the union’s position that nonmembers be forced to pay. Union officials could not meet their constitutional burden of proof that the seized money is used for collective bargaining expenses.

The case was originally filed in January 2000 by Rory Wessel of Albuquerque, and twelve other city employees, after the City of Albuquerque heeded the demands of union officials of AFSCME Local 624 to withhold compulsory union dues from employees’ paychecks without observing constitutional due process requirements.

“In their rush to hoard forced dues, union officials showed complete disregard for the constitutional rights of the very employees they claim to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Ultimately, this case illustrates why New Mexico needs to enact a state Right to Work law that would make payment of union dues completely voluntary.”

Like many agreements around the country, the collective bargaining agreement also included an indemnification clause in which the union promised the city that it would pay all legal costs in defending a suit filed by employees whose constitutional rights were violated. On an earlier appeal the court found this contract provision void as against public policy. The appeals court now has remanded to the District Court the issue of whether the city must disgorge the money it received under the illegal clause. Foundation attorneys are confident the District Court will order the money’s return – an action that would serve as a strong deterrent to other government bodies that might consider aiding unions in violating employees’ First Amendment rights.

The thirteen plaintiffs will receive approximately $1,800 in refunded dues, interest and damages to go along with the over $600 already refunded to them. A companion class-action case, also filed with free legal aid from Foundation attorneys, was settled in 2005 resulting in almost 500 nonunion employees receiving nearly $180,000 in refunded dues, interest and damages.

Download the Appeals Court Decision

**Springfield, VA (December 15, 2006)** – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced today that it has hired Matthew C. Muggeridge, a newly sworn in member of the Maryland State Bar and graduate of the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“Matthew C. Muggeridge brings to National Right to Work a real commitment to helping employees fight back against the abuses of compulsory unionism,” said Ray LaJeunesse, vice president and legal director of the National Right to Work Foundation.

As the newest of the Foundation’s ten staff attorneys, Muggeridge will help build on the Foundation’s successful litigation record on behalf of union-abused workers that includes 13 cases at the United States Supreme Court. Currently National Right to Work staff attorneys are representing 4,000 teachers in the case of *Davenport v. WEA*, which is scheduled to be argued before the High Court in January.

As a fluent Spanish speaker, Muggeridge’s addition to the staff increases the Foundation’s ability to aid Spanish speaking workers that have been victimized by compulsory unionism abuses. Additionally, Muggeridge will assist the Foundation’s cutting-edge efforts to curb workers’ rights abuses under coercive “card-check” or “top-down” union organizing schemes.

In recent years, Foundation attorneys have persuaded the National Labor Relations Board to re-evaluate the legality of these increasingly abusive union organizing tactics and have utilized cutting-edge legal strategies to protect employees from these coercive tactics which deny employees basic protections in choosing whether to unionize.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Muggeridge served as a Senior Associate for the High Park Advocacy Group in Toronto, Canada. Muggeridge also spent a year teaching at Dulwich College in London, England.

Muggeridge holds a Bachelors of Philosophy degree from Gregorian University where he graduated summa cum laude. He also holds a Post Graduate Degree in Education from King’s College in London.

**Silver Spring, MD (December 11, 2006)** – Three workers aided by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have filed federal labor board charges against the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 2 and their employer Kaiser Mid-Atlantic (a component of the national Kaiser Permanente health network) after union organizers entered into a pact with the healthcare giant to impose unwanted unionization on healthcare professionals.

The charges, filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), detail an agreement between OPEIU and Kaiser Permanente in which union officials bargained contract provisions for workers they did not legally represent. Such “pre-recognition bargaining” violates the National Labor Relations Act.

In exchange for a premature contract, Kaiser Permanente executives agreed to abandon even the limited protections offered to employees under a NLRB-supervised secret ballot election and instead impose a coercive “card check” procedure, in which union organizers can browbeat employees individually to sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization.

Because of the prevalence of union intimidation tactics directed at employees, card check is controversial for severely curtailing workers’ freedom of choice in deciding whether or not to unionize. Consequently, the organizing scheme has sparked numerous legal cases documenting illegal activities by union organizers, including threats, bribes, and stalking of rank-and-file workers. In this case, OPEIU union officials told employees that raises and benefit increases depended on their signing up for union representation.

The “card check” procedure is part of a larger misnamed “neutrality agreement” designed to assist union organizers in pushing workers into the union’s ranks. Employers agree to give union officials unfettered access to workers on company property, and the home addresses and phone numbers of employees resulting in menacing home visits from groups of union organizers. Also, such agreements usually include a gag rule preventing the employer from commenting on any potential impact of unionization.

Once union officials gain monopoly bargaining power, they can then force all employees to pay dues to the union just to keep their jobs. Union officials hold this power because Maryland is one of 28 states that has not yet passed a Right to Work law, which would mandate that union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

“Union officials want to force unionization on these workers from the top down, like it or not,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union officials’ illegal behavior shows that they do not respect the rights of the workers they claim to represent; it’s all about the money and finding new sources of forced union dues revenues.”

**Washington, DC (November 15, 2006)** – A diverse group of 35 legal foundations, public policy groups, and federal government agencies this week filed supporting briefs asking the nation’s highest court to reverse a novel Washington State Supreme Court decision that found a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend on politics the forced dues extracted from nonunion employees. A failure to overturn the activist Washington ruling might jeopardize America’s 22 state Right to Work laws which ban forced union dues altogether.

The 35 parties from across the country filed 14 amicus (or “friend of the court”) briefs in *Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA)* and *Washington v. WEA*, which are scheduled for oral arguments on January 10, 2007. In the Davenport case, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are representing approximately 4,000 nonunion Washington State teachers. A list of the amici, as well as their underlying briefs, is available on the Foundation’s website.

In addition to asking for a reversal of the Washington State Supreme Court’s novel finding of a constitutional “right” for union officials to spend the compulsory dues of nonunion members, lead counsel Milton Chappell, a 30-year Foundation veteran in assisting union-abused employees, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify that it had never approved a pervasive union procedure designed to force nonunion members to pay full union dues, including hundreds of dollars per employee which are spent for a wide array of activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

While seeking to overturn the Washington State court’s dangerous precedent involving the First Amendment, Foundation attorneys are going on the offensive by asking the High Court to clarify its 45-year-old “dissent is not to be presumed” statement. Union officials have exploited that phrase from a 1961 ruling to force employees who resign union membership to take the additional affirmative step of objecting annually to cut off the use of their forced dues on politics and other non-bargaining functions. A victory on this argument would dramatically increase the impact of previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings won by Foundation attorneys establishing that nonunion employees cannot be lawfully compelled to pay for politics, lobbying, organizing, and a wide array of other non-bargaining activities.

Surprisingly, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation – a longtime proponent of Washington’s well-meant, but ineffective, “paycheck protection” law – argued in its amicus brief that the funds covered by the law were “miniscule… less than ¼ of 1% of the WEA’s total expenditures.” The law only governs a small fraction of union officials’ state and local electioneering expenditures.

“While there may now be nearly universal agreement that the underlying campaign finance statute has been ineffective, all agree that it is indefensible to use it as a springboard to create an even larger problem – a perversion of the long-standing interpretation of the First Amendment,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Washington ruling cannot be allowed to stand because of the collateral damage it is already causing to employee rights nationwide. Only weeks ago, a Colorado court relied on it in a similar ruling.”

Foundation attorneys and Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle filed Davenport in 2001 for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but are still forced to pay dues or be fired. In recent days, Washington Attorney General Robert McKenna also filed arguments for the state in a related case, *Washington v. WEA*.

Key Legal Documents

Merits brief filed by National Right to Work Foundation Staff Attorney Milton Chappell and Steve O’Ban (Davenport v. WEA)

Merits brief filed by Washington State Attorney General Robert McKenna (Washington v. WEA)

*Amicus* Briefs

13 Public Policy Groups (Evergreen Freedom Foundation,Cascade Policy Institute, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy, Excellent Education for Everyone, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Georgia Public Policy Foundation, James Madison Institute, John Locke Foundation, Nevada Policy Research Institute, Pacific Research Institute, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, Small Business Hawaii & Competitive Enterprise Institute)

Association of American Educators

American Legislative Exchange Council

Cato Institute, Reason Foundation & Center for Individual Freedom

States of Colorado, Alabama, Idaho, Ohio, Utah & Virginia

Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Religious Objector Members of the Northwest Professional Educators & Pacific Justice Institute

Pacific Legal Foundation

Institute for Justice

National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation & James Madison Center for Free Speech

United States Solicitor General, US Department of Labor, US Department of Justice & Federal Election Commission

Campaign Legal Center

Mountain States Legal Foundation

**El Paso, TX (February 5, 2007)** – National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) officials have issued a formal complaint and agreed to prosecute a local security guard union and employer for unlawfully suspending a local guard without pay in retaliation for asserting his legal right to refrain from union membership.

The complaint stems from charges Juan Vielma, a local AKAL Security employee, filed against the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) union and his employer with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Vielma’s charge details how the SPFPA union hierarchy holds a monopoly bargaining agreement with his employer that illegally makes financial support for the union a mandatory condition of employment.

AKAL Security, a national contract security provider, capitulated to the union hierarchy’s illegal demands when they indefinitely suspended Vielma without pay in June 2006 for failure to formally join union ranks and pay money to the union. Under protections afforded by Texas’ highly-popular Right to Work law, union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary. While Texas state prosecutors are yet to take action to enforce these clear violations of Texas criminal law, Foundation attorneys persuaded federal officials to pursue the matter to the extent possible under federal law.

AKAL Security and SPFPA union officials are falsely claiming that Vielma and his colleagues work on federal property that is not protected by the Right to Work law – and thus can be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment. NLRB investigators disagreed, and found that the union hierarchy violated federal law by restraining and coercing employees exercising their limited rights under the National Labor Relations Act to refrain from union participation.

“Such blatant violations of the freedom of association are unbecoming of the State of Texas’ long tradition of defending employees’ Right to Work,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The union hierarchy wants Mr. Vielma and his coworkers to just shut up and pay up.”

Foundation attorneys seek reinstatement and back pay for Vielma, as well as a notice to all AKAL Security employees about their rights to refrain from union membership and dues payment. The NLRB has scheduled a hearing for March 13, 2007, before an administrative law judge.