Miami, Fla. (April 6, 2004) — Three nonunion security officers at the Miami Federal Courthouse hit United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA) Union Local 131 officials with a lawsuit today for illegally ordering them to pay union dues to keep their jobs in violation of state law.

With free legal aid from attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Cynthia Vitale and two coworkers filed the lawsuit in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Dade County, Florida. The security guards allege UGSOA officials’ actions violated Florida’s Right to Work law, which prohibits the practice of forcing employees to join or pay dues to an unwanted union.

“UGSOA officials’ actions show they are more concerned with stuffing their coffers with union dues than respecting the rights of employees they seek to ‘represent,’” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

Beginning in May 2003, UGSOA union officials posted several notices at the Miami Federal Courthouse claiming all security officers were required to either join the union or pay a non-member agency fee equivalent to 95% of full union dues. Vitale and her coworkers assert that UGSOA officials used the notices in order to pressure nonunion members into the union against their will.

Some of the notices also falsely claimed that the security officers worked on federal property and thus were not protected by Florida’s Right to Work law and could therefore be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment. While it is true that those employed on “exclusive federal property” are not covered by a state Right to Work law, only one such property exists in Miami, and Vitale and her coworkers perform the vast majority of their work on other properties.

“These bully tactics demonstrate why the vast majority of Florida workers are fortunate to labor in freedom and under the protections of a Right to Work Law,” stated Gleason.

Sacramento, Calif. (April 2, 2004) — A United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of California has ruled to allow more than 2,800 California state employees to reclaim money illegally confiscated for politics and other activities by officials from the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) union.

After admittedly spending most of its revenues on politics, PECG union officials must now give all non-union engineers a new opportunity to retroactively object and reclaim the portion of their forced dues spent for union activities unrelated to collective bargaining. Additionally, the court ruled that union officials failed to provide an independent audit of the union’s books and records, and must do so immediately.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys originally filed the class-action suit, Hoirup v. PECG, in March 2002 on behalf of Donald Hoirup, an employee of the California Department of Conservation California Geologic Survey in Sacramento. The U.S. District Court order requires PECG union officials to provide all nonunion workers a notice of their right to object to paying fees equal to membership dues and collect a refund of all past illegally seized dues, with interest, no later than June 21. The amount that each objecting worker will receive will vary according to their length of employment.

“This ruling holds some of California’s government union officials to account for trampling workers’ rights,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “However, as long as the state’s union officials have the government-granted privilege to order workers to ‘pay up or be fired,’ such abuses will inevitably continue.”

The PECG is one of California’s most politically active unions. Union officials have seized compulsory dues from workers and used them to fund ballot initiatives and other political activities. According to the union’s own records, over three-fourths of PECG’s $8.1 million annual budget for the year 2000 was used for political activities.

On April 1, 1999, the newly elected Governor Gray Davis signed the union pact that forced all workers to pay illegally high dues to PECG union officials.

According to the constitutional protections construed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foundation-won decisions of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education and Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association, union officials may not collect compulsory dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining. Politics, lobbying, public relations, and other non-bargaining activities are non-chargeable to employees who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership. Moreover, under the Foundation-won Chicago Teachers v. Hudson decision, union officials must provide an independent audit of the union’s expenditures to all non-union members as a precondition to collecting any compulsory dues.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (March 30, 2004) — Despite a previous vow to appeal, Teamsters Local 377 officials at the Youngstown St. Elizabeth Health Center will not contest an order by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to end pervasive unfair labor practices against local workers. With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the workers originally filed federal charges in 2001 against union officials for refusing to accept their resignations and for failing to properly notify them of their right to refrain from paying dues to subsidize union political activities.

In February, the ALJ of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) effectively granted the case “class-action” status, determining that Teamsters officials had failed to inform all 900 workers in the bargaining unit of their rights. In a surprising reversal, the union hierarchy has officially decided not to appeal, and all such workers are entitled immediately to receive a refund of dues collected for political and other non-collective bargaining activities, with interest. In addition, all workers who paid dues for periods when no contract was in effect are entitled to full reimbursement.

Although the NLRB Office of Compliance will determine the exact amount each individual worker may reclaim, estimates of the total amount of refunded dues and interest range up to $360,000.

“While Teamsters union officials were willing to raid workers’ paychecks unlawfully in private, they have chosen publicly not to defend their actions,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Their blatant disregard for workers’ rights shows the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from a system of forced unionism.”

Officials of the Youngstown-based union illegally refused to accept employees’ written resignations from union membership and told employees that they must pay all “back dues” before the union would even consider their resignations. Union officials also demanded the firing of workers for refusal to pay dues, without first informing them of their right to become objecting nonmembers, and pay a reduced amount of forced dues. Local Teamsters union officials also used payroll deductions unlawfully to collect dues for periods in which there was no valid forced unionism clause.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision, workers may resign from formal union membership at any time and not pay forced dues beyond the union’s proven collective bargaining costs. Under the ALJ’s decision, Teamsters Local 377 officials must inform Health Center workers of these rights, rescind a threatening letter, and allow all employees to collect retroactive refunds.

Goshen, Ind. (March 26, 2004) – A majority of employees at Cequent Towing Product’s Goshen facility have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking that local union officials be stripped of their newly granted “exclusive representation” power over roughly 450 of the company’s employees. The petition was filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.

More than 230 workers signed the petition, which was given to Cequent before it recognized the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union as their “exclusive bargaining representative” earlier this week. As a result of that recognition, employees were denied the opportunity to vote on union status through a secret ballot. If a decertification election is allowed and is successful, all Ceuqent employees then would be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment, and would not be forced to pay union dues.

The workers who signed the petition each declared that they do not want USWA officials bargaining on their behalf, revoked any previously signed union recognition cards, and asked for a secret ballot election on their union status. Under federal labor law, petitioning employees need only obtain signatures from 30 percent in the bargaining unit to trigger a decertification election.

“Workers should have the 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 Cequent struck a backroom deal with USWA officials to deny them so much as a secret ballot vote.”

Earlier this week, the union was chosen by the employer 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 have instead focused on eliciting employer support to corral workers into union collectives through methods that curtail employee free choice in the union recognition process.

Meanwhile, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are currently in U.S. District Court challenging the secret deal between Heartland Industrial Partners (Cequent’s parent company) and the USWA union that forces companies acquired under Heartland’s umbrella actively to help the union organize employees and ultimately force them to pay union dues as a job condition. In return, USWA officials pour unsuspecting workers’ trust funds into Heartland, promise to stifle certain employee rights under federal law, and limit employees’ ability to influence their own wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Puyallup, WA (March 26, 2004) – A Tacoma-area Good Samaritan Hospital employee has filed class-action federal charges after union officials at the hospital unlawfully threatened employees that they would be fired if they failed to join the union, pay full dues, and sign dues deduction cards.

With free legal aid from attorneys with the National Right to Work Foundation, Michelle Washington filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the Hospital and Health Care Employees Union District 1199NW (HCEU), an AFL-CIO affiliate. The NLRB will now investigate the charges and decide whether to prosecute the union for unfair labor practices.

In the charges, Washington states that HCEU officials never informed workers at the hospital of their right to refrain from formal union membership and pay a reduced fee. Once Washington learned from sources independent of the union that she had the right to refrain from formal membership, she submitted a resignation that has been ignored.

“These actions by union officials show they care far more about stuffing their coffers with union dues than representing the interests of rank-and-file employees,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

In her charges, Washington asserts that no worker’s membership in the union can be considered voluntary because HCEU union officials never observed employees’ due process rights. These include compliance with a requirement to inform employees of their limited obligations to the union and provide them with an independent audit of chargeable and non-chargeable expenses. Washington is therefore asking the NLRB to void all workers’ membership and dues authorization cards until they are informed of their rights, and to order union officials to refund dues and fees already collected.

The actions of HCEU union officials violated workers’ rights recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Communications Workers v. Beck and related decisions. Under these Supreme Court rulings, workers wishing to refrain from formal union membership may halt and reclaim all forced union dues used for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union electoral politics.

“No one should be forced to pay dues to an unwanted union, especially when its officials abuse that federally granted special privilege,” stated Gleason.

Oxnard, Calif. (March 23, 2004) — Employees of PictSweet Mushroom Farms today filed class-action charges with the California Agriculture Labor Relations Board (ALRB) against officials from the United Farm Workers (UFW) union for misrepresenting their rights, unlawfully collecting full union dues from their paychecks, and threatening dissenting workers with loss of benefits.

Obtaining free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, Guillermo Virgen and Gerardo Mendoza filed the class-action unfair labor practice charges on behalf of roughly 300 workers at the PictSweet plant in Ventura. Foundation attorneys are seeking full remedies for their clients and all employees similarly situated. The ALRB will investigate the charges and decide whether to prosecute the union hierarchy.

The charges come on the heels of the ALRB’s filing of a complaint in December 2003 against the UFW union for unlawfully ordering the mass firings of more than 150 Oxnard-area Coastal Berry employees who refused to pay full union dues in 2000.

“The UFW union hierarchy wants workers simply to shut up and pay up,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “This union hierarchy’s repeated refusal to respect workers’ freedom shows a clear disdain for the people that they claim to represent and for the rule of law.”

Virgen and Mendoza allege that UFW union officials intentionally misled workers by stating that all workers in the bargaining unit were required to pay full union dues as a condition of employment. UFW union officials also unlawfully failed to inform employees of their rights to object to paying for non-collective bargaining activities (such as union electoral politics), and the right to challenge the union’s fee calculations before an impartial decision maker.

Union officials also demanded that workers sign dues check-off cards authorizing the automatic deduction of full union dues from their paychecks in order to keep their jobs. UFW officials then threatened workers with a loss of pension, medical, and other benefits if they failed to pay full dues, and sign payroll deduction authorization cards.

The actions of UFW union officials not only violated the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, but also unlawfully infringed constitutional rights recognized in several Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

“The actions of the recidivist UFW union hierarchy shows the inevitable greed and corruption that flow from forced unionism,” stated Gleason. “Until California’s workers enjoy the protections of a Right to Work law, its workers will continue to suffer such abuse at the hands of self-serving union officials.”

Central Islip, NY (March 18, 2004) – A New York City-area worker today became the first Cintas Corporation employee to file federal charges alleging that heavy-handed union organizers from the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) have been harassing and intimidating employees in retaliation for their refusal to support the union.

Receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Miguel Sanchez, an employee at Cintas’ Central Islip commercial laundry facility, filed the unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board. Sanchez alleges that UNITE union organizers have gained access to personal employee information such as home addresses and phone numbers, and are systematically and illegally bullying him and his coworkers.

Sanchez asserts that while a majority of the workers in the bargaining unit has signed a petition stating a desire to remain union-free, UNITE organizers continue to deceive, harass, and verbally abuse workers who refuse to sign union recognition cards.

“UNITE union organizers are trampling on those very workers they seek to ‘represent’,” stated Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Instead of resorting to these thuggish tactics, union officials ought to simply let these workers decide their union status free of threats and coercion.”

Currently hundreds of UNITE organizers are involved in a national “top-down” organizing drive, also known as a “corporate campaign,” intended to bully Cintas and its employees into accepting compulsory unionism without so much as a government-supervised secret ballot election. In spite of a growing number of voluntary petitions signed by workers in cities ranging from New York City, to Chicago, to San Francisco demanding that UNITE organizers leave them alone, union agents have stepped up their efforts to pressure Cintas and its employees.

UNITE president Bruce Raynor indicated at the January 2003 AFL-CIO-sponsored “organizing summit” that his multi-million dollar “corporate campaign” against Cintas is designed to destroy the company if it refuses to unionize roughly 17,000 of its employees. The union hierarchy wants to deny workers a secret ballot vote, and Raynor admitted that Cintas employees have voted against unionization in 39 different secret-ballot elections. Instead he has deployed hundreds of union organizers for a coordinated campaign that will involve, according to the Bureau of National Affairs, “putting pressure on the company, suing them, getting sued, picketing them and picketing their customers.” “It’s the right thing to do… to break the back of this employer,” Raynor stated.

Alpena, Mich. (March 17, 2004) — Local officials of the Boilermakers union at the Besser Company factory in Alpena have decided to cease collecting forced union dues from nonunion workers rather than provide such workers with a legally mandated audit of how their forced dues are spent.

The decision by the union hierarchy comes in response to unfair labor practice charges filed by James Martin, a Besser Company employee, at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB) Union Local D-472 in September 2003. Martin alleged that IBB union officials illegally continued to charge him full dues after he resigned his formal union membership. They also failed to provide an adequate breakdown of union expenditures to ensure that his forced dues did not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as electoral politics.

In a settlement agreement finalized late last week, IBB union officials agreed to post notices at the work site informing workers that they would implement a procedure notifying members of the total amount of dues owed, as well as the reduction objecting nonmembers would receive. Rather than perform the required audit of the union’s books and records, IBB union officials decided to abandon altogether their policy requiring nonmembers to pay any union dues as a condition of employment, and they agreed to notify employees to that effect.

“This union hierarchy decided to forgo raiding the paychecks of nonmembers rather than open their books and subject their dealings to public scrutiny,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation.

The actions of IBB union officials had violated the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck and related U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Under Beck, workers may resign from formal union membership and halt and reclaim the portion of forced union dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union politics, lobbying, and public relations. Objecting workers are entitled to an independent audit to verify they are not subsidizing such activities.

“No one should be forced to pay compulsory dues to a union, especially when its officials continually abuse that federally granted special privilege,” stated Gleason. “Until all Michigan workers are freed from forced unionism, workers will continue suffering this type of abuse at the hands of self-serving union officials.”

Jeffersonville, Ind. (March 8, 2004)- Local Teamsters union officials at the Jeffboat company plant outside Louisville, Kentucky, have been forced to cease violating workers’ rights by demanding that employees sign union membership forms and agree to payroll deduction of union dues to keep their jobs.

In a settlement after prosecution for unfair labor practices, union officials also agreed to adopt new policies that cease restrictions on employees’ right to resign their formal union memberships.

With free legal aid from attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation, Jeffboat worker Michael Bell originally filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Teamsters Union Local 89 in the fall of 2003 after union officials retaliated against him for resigning his formal union membership by permanently banning him from the union, but still charging him dues.

“Teamsters union officials have tried to make an example of Michael Bell so that other workers will think twice before defying their edicts,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This kind of abuse is inevitable until Kentucky passes a Right to Work law which would prohibit union officials from forcing employees to pay union dues in order to keep a job.”

In July 2002, Bell asserted his right to pay only a reduced fee to the union for its proven collective bargaining costs by resigning from formal full dues-paying union membership. Teamsters union officials retaliated by enforcing a policy that banned Bell from ever rejoining the union, while continuing to demand that he pay dues and fees. Union officials have now agreed to terminate that policy because it violates the law.

Teamsters Local 89 union officials must now post a notice at the Jeffboat factory notifying employees that no worker must sign a union membership application or dues check-off authorization to keep their job.

The actions of Teamsters Local 89 union officials violated worker protections recognized by the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision. Under Beck, workers are allowed to resign from formal union membership and halt and reclaim the portion of forced union dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as politics, lobbying, and public relations.

Fairfield, Calif. (March 4, 2004) — Responding to unfair labor practice charges brought by
a Fairfield-area resident employed on a part-time basis as a weekend lab technician for Anheuser Busch, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will prosecute the local chapter of the Teamsters union for failing to properly inform employees of their right to refrain from financially supporting the union’s political and ideological causes.

Obtaining free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Catharine Anderson originally filed the unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB in July 2003. Anderson charged that officials of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 896 demanded from her and her coworkers excessive union fees, misrepresented employee rights, and threatened to have employees fired for refusing to comply with the union hierarchy’s illegal demands. Meanwhile, other California-based Anheuser Busch employees in past months have also filed similar charges.

“The bully tactics used by the Teamsters hierarchy are despicable,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Unfortunately, so long as California union officials enjoy compulsory unionism privileges, workers will continue to suffer such abuse.”

In addition, union officials have failed to provide workers refraining from formal union membership with an independent audit of union expenditures to assure their forced dues did not fund activities not directly related to collective bargaining, such as lobbying and electoral politics.

In their complaint, NLRB officials agreed that Teamsters union officials violated worker protections recognized in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck, a case argued and won by Foundation attorneys. Under the Beck ruling, workers may not be compelled to pay dues beyond the union’s proven collective bargaining costs, and they are entitled to an independent audit of union expenditures before any forced dues or fees are seized.