IBEW Local 16 Folds in Case Concerning Illegal $1.29 Million Retaliatory ‘Fine’ Threat Against Local Electrician
Union bosses imposed illegal limitations on resigning union membership, told electrician he would be fined for starting new business unless he signed with the union
Evansville, IN (September 30, 2025) – Brian Head, an Evansville-based electrician, has vindicated his federal labor rights against the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 16 union. Head filed federal charges after IBEW union officials threatened him with a $1.29 million internal disciplinary fine even though he had validly resigned his union membership. He filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The settlement requires union officials to rescind all fines against Head, expunge all records of them, and refrain from interfering with workers who exercise their right to resign their union membership in the future. The union is also required to notify other workers of their legal right to resign their union membership without restriction, and be free of any attempt to impose internal union fines post-resignation.
Fine Threats Came After Electrician Refused to Hand Over Business to Union Power
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees. Head’s charges document that he had resigned his IBEW union membership on March 27, 2025, in a notarized letter that IBEW officials acknowledged receiving. However, the union’s reply letter claimed that “[i]t is a six-month process before the resignation is finally effective.”
The NLRA forbids restricting the right of workers to resign their union memberships. Section 7 of the NLRA enshrines workers’ right to refrain from union membership. Furthermore, union bosses cannot impose discipline or fines upon nonmember workers.
IBEW Local 16 union officials began retaliating against Head after he resigned his union membership and announced he was purchasing a non-union electrical firm. Head refused to sign an IBEW Letter of Assent, which would have likely forced his employees under union control without any kind of worker vote.
Following Head declining to hand over his business to a union he was no longer legally affiliated with, IBEW Local 16 officials sent Head correspondence on May 1 demanding he appear before a union tribunal. Head later received a letter from IBEW Local 16 bosses on June 9 finding him “guilty” of violating the union’s constitution and imposing a “$1.29 Million dollar fine” as a penalty.
Foundation-Won Settlement Forces IBEW to Inform Workers of Rights
An NLRB Regional Director reviewed Head’s charges against IBEW union officials’ overreach, and made a merit determination in his favor, finding that the IBEW Local 16 union officials violated Head’s rights under the NLRA. IBEW union officials quickly decided to back down and settle rather than go to trial against the NLRB and Head’s Foundation lawyers. In addition to expunging their million-dollar-plus retaliatory fine, the settlement details that IBEW bosses must stop informing workers that there are restrictions on the right to resign one’s union membership. Additionally, they must inform all their members of their rights under the NLRA, and post the settlement on the union’s website.
“The Foundation is pleased to have assisted Mr. Head as he challenged IBEW union bosses’ attempt to illegally extort him after he had followed all legal procedures necessary to break free from the union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “IBEW union bosses’ use of strong-arm tactics demonstrates that they value maintaining control over Indiana electricians far above respecting those electricians’ individual rights.
“Whenever union bosses violate the rights of any American worker, Foundation attorneys are ready to assist in their defense,” Mix added.
Electric Utility Worker Asks Trump NLRB to Prosecute IBEW’s Restrictive Policies That Compel Workers to Fund Union Politics
Electric utility worker asks NLRB General Counsel to seek Board ruling against union policies that force nonmembers to fund union political spending
Benson, MN (September 23, 2025) – Theresa Klassen, an employee of Agralite Electric Cooperative, is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to expedite consideration of Big Labor schemes that force workers to pay dues for union political activities. Klassen has filed an appeal with the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel, asking him to issue a complaint in her case after an NLRB Regional Director let International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union officials off the hook for violating her rights. Klassen is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Klassen originally filed charges against both the IBEW international union and IBEW Local 160 to defend her rights under Communications Workers of America v. Beck. In this Foundation-won landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Court ruled that union officials cannot force workers who abstain from membership to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s monopoly bargaining functions – including politics.
Even though Klassen successfully resigned her union membership, union bosses continued to demand full dues payments from her – including dues for union political expenditures. When she invoked her Beck rights with assistance from Foundation staff attorneys, union bosses then claimed that she could only opt out of dues payments for politics within a narrow 30-day “window period” each year in the month of November.
Brief: IBEW Union Clearly Violating National Labor Relations Act
Klassen’s appeal argues that it would violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) “for a union to demand payment for any dues beyond what Section 8(a)(3) requires unless that employee affirmatively consented to pay full union dues.” Under the Beck decision, Section 8(a)(3) only permits union bosses to demand dues for union expenses that are directly related to bargaining.
Now, Klassen is asking the NLRB to uphold this interpretation and end all opt-out requirements, so that union officials must obtain explicit permission from employees to take payments for non-bargaining-related functions, including union political and lobbying activities.
Klassen is also asking the NLRB to end window period practices for becoming Beck objectors, as they similarly violate the NLRA by preventing workers from exercising their rights. Window period restrictions on when employees can exercise their Beck rights allow union officials to extract money from workers after they’ve already objected to financially supporting union political activities.
“The IBEW should be respecting my rights, not throwing up roadblocks so they can continue to use my paycheck dollars to fund their own agenda,” said Klassen. “The NLRB needs to recognize that union officials are violating the law; otherwise, these rights are not rights at all.”
Union Officials Use Restrictive Policies to Consolidate Power
Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, IBEW union officials can impose contracts that force Klassen and her coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs, though this amount is limited by the Beck decision. In contrast, in Minnesota’s neighboring Right to Work states, union officials cannot force workers to pay any dues or fees just to keep their jobs.
“Free association is a right of every American, including workers who don’t want to associate with a union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s telling that IBEW officials are using a legally suspect policy to make it needlessly difficult for workers to stop supporting the union’s political activities.
“While the NLRB General Counsel should urge the agency to address these illicit schemes swiftly, ultimately Minnesotans and all Americans deserve Right to Work protections, which would make all union financial support strictly voluntary,” Mix added.
Columbia GRADS (Graduate Researchers Against Discrimination and Suppression) Hit UAW Union With Federal Labor Board Charges
Graduate student group argues union bosses are illegally using bad faith bargaining to demand political concessions from Columbia administration
New York, NY (September 22, 2025) – The Graduate Researchers Against Discrimination and Suppression (GRADS), a group of graduate students at Columbia University, has just filed federal charges against officials of the Student Workers of Columbia, a union on campus affiliated with the United Auto Workers (UAW). GRADS filed its charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The members of GRADS, who have requested anonymity due to widespread harassment stemming from union agitation on campus, are charging the union with abusing its monopoly bargaining powers. They contend that union officials are bargaining in bad faith to extract concessions from the university on a number of radical policy proposals, instead of focusing on improving graduate students’ academic and research environment.
The NLRB’s controversial 2016 decision in Columbia University categorized graduate students at private universities as “employees” subject to federal labor law. In doing so, the Obama NLRB granted union bosses the ability to launch campus unionization campaigns and gain monopoly bargaining power over graduate students. Under monopoly bargaining, every employee in a work unit must accept the workplace “representation” of union bosses, even if they voted against the union or disagree with its agenda.
While federal law conditions union bosses’ monopoly bargaining powers on a nebulous “duty of fair representation,” union officials often ignore this duty and discriminate against those who oppose the union’s control.
Charges: UAW Union Demands University Take Action Against Israel, Crack Down on Police
GRADS’ charges list a number of outrageous bargaining items from UAW union officials, including: “proposals to force Columbia to limit campus police, security, and NYPD from doing their jobs;” “bargain[ing] over…so-called ‘Boycott, Divest & Sanction’ policies…of the entire university;” “termination of a dual-degree program between Columbia and Tel Aviv University;” and undoing discipline for students who have been suspended for “destroy[ing] campus property and disrupt[ing] the unit’s working conditions for extended periods.”
“These and similar actions constitute bad faith bargaining…and violate the duty of fair representation that respondent union owes to all represented graduate students,” the charges state.
Foundation attorneys are defending a number of other graduate students who seek to resist the radical – and often discriminatory – ways that union officials are wielding their monopoly bargaining powers on campus. Foundation attorneys are currently representing Jewish students at Cornell University in challenging the CGSU-UE union’s failure to respect their rights as religious objectors to union affiliation. Another Cornell student is pursuing a Foundation-backed case attacking union officials’ bargaining powers granted in the questionable 2016 Columbia University ruling.
“Far from facilitating a more harmonious relationship between graduate students and the Columbia administration, UAW union bosses are simply ramping up radical extremism at a university that has already seen more than its share of chaos,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While it’s wrong from the start that any student is forced to accept union boss ‘representation’ they oppose, it’s even less acceptable that UAW union officials are trying to use their monopoly bargaining privileges to enforce their divisive politics on the entire campus, including undergraduate students.”
Kentucky Construction Industry Workers File Petitions to Oust Teamsters Local 89 Union from their Workplaces
IMI – Irving Materials drivers already free of Teamsters officials’ so-called “representation” while Builders FirstSource workers await vote
Scottsville & Louisville, KY (September 22, 2025) – Chris Smith, an employee of IMI Kentucky in Scottsville, KY, and Kenneth Moore, an employee of Builders FirstSource in Louisville, KY, each filed petitions seeking to end Teamsters Local 89 union officials’ “representation” at their respective workplaces. IMI workers already secured victory in their effort to remove the Teamsters, while the effort to remove the Teamsters at Builders FirstSource is still ongoing.
Both Smith and Moore filed their petitions with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. The NLRB is the federal agency tasked with enforcing federal labor law and with adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual workers. Workers are able to initiate an election administered by the NLRB if their petition gathers the signatures of 30% or more of their fellow employees.
Smith and Moore’s respective petitions garnered the necessary signatures from their coworkers to trigger an NLRB-administered secret ballot election to vote on the Local 89’s continued control. After employees demonstrate sufficient support for a decertification, in most cases the NLRB will schedule a secret ballot election. That process is ongoing for the employees of Builders FirstSource in Louisville.
However, in Smith’s case the employee support for removing the union was so overwhelming that Teamsters union bosses decided to save themselves the humiliation of being formally voted out, and instead disclaimed their status as the workers’ “exclusive representative” the very same day Smith’s petition was filed. The next day the NLRB Regional Director certified that the employees are officially free of Teamsters Local 89.
The employees at IMI Kentucky and Builders FirstSource join a long list of workers who have recently banded together to remove the Teamsters from their workplaces. In fact, NLRB statistics for the past 12 months show that over 20% of all decertification cases involved the Teamsters union.
“More and more, American workers across the country are deciding they are better off without Teamsters union bosses who prioritize their own interests over that of the workers they claim to ‘represent,’” stated National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “As Teamsters bosses attempt to cozy up to those in the halls of power, elected officials should remember that despite the claims of dishonest union bosses, union officials do not speak for the workers under their so-called ‘representation,’ many of whom would like to remove the Teamsters if given the choice. In fact, statistics show that over 90% of employees have never had a vote on the union that purports to represent them.
“That one in five decertification petitions filed last year involved the Teamsters only drives home the point that workers are increasingly rejecting union bosses’ coercive agenda,” added Mix.
National Right to Work Foundation Files Appeals Court Brief in Support of Trump Order Cutting Federal Union Bosses’ Coercive Power
Brief emphasizes President’s authority under both Constitution and federal law to reduce scope of union monopoly bargaining control
Washington, DC (September 18, 2025) – The National Right to Work Foundation has filed an amicus brief at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals defending the Trump Administration’s efforts to reduce union bosses’ control within the federal government. The Foundation filed its brief in the case NTEU v. Trump, in which National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) officials are attacking President Trump’s March 2025 executive order titled “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs.” That order ended union officials’ monopoly bargaining privileges over a substantial number of federal agencies, citing union officials’ interference with the President’s national security objectives.
“Since 1968, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc., has been the nation’s leading advocate for employee freedom to choose whether to associate with unions,” the brief says. “To this end, Foundation staff attorneys have represented individual employees before the Supreme Court in groundbreaking free speech and association cases.”
The brief explains that Foundation attorneys have represented many federal employees in resisting union bosses’ attempts to impose their agenda in the workplace. Such workers include Department of Justice employee Jeffrey Morrison, whose ongoing case challenging unionization campaigns in various divisions of the Department has been granted and stayed pending the result of NTEU v. Trump.
Lower Federal Court Used Flawed Interpretations of Federal Law to Rule Against Trump EO
The Foundation’s brief argues that a lower federal court was wrong to enjoin President Trump’s cancellation of monopoly bargaining in certain agencies. The brief explains that Article II of the Constitution grants the President wide authority to preserve national security. Furthermore, the brief says, in the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), Congress granted the president specific powers to exempt entire agencies from the obligation to accept union boss bargaining power if national security concerns require it.
“This statutory provision authorizes the President to exclude ‘any agency or subdivision thereof’ if the President determines [CSRA] Section 7103(b)(1)’s conditions are met,” the brief says. “The President’s determination that certain agencies or their subdivisions satisfy Section 7103(b)’s criteria is not subject to judicial review.”
The amicus brief also contends that the Trump Administration was justified in reconsidering which agencies should be exempt from monopoly bargaining requirements, primarily due to union officials’ unabated attempts to undercut Trump’s policy goals. “The District Court found the President’s exclusions under Section 7103(b) to be invalid because they supposedly were motivated by NTEU’s and other unions’ resistance to the administration’s policies,” the brief explains. “However, this proposition supports a finding that the President acted reasonably when determining that being forced to deal with NTEU as an exclusive bargaining agent at certain federal agencies would interfere with national security considerations.
“[T]he President does not have to tolerate unions abusing their powers under [federal law] to stymie his agenda when it may implicate national security,” the brief states.
Unaccountable Union Bosses Should Not Wield Special Influence Over Government Policies
“President Trump’s executive order rightly stops union officials from using their government-granted monopoly bargaining privileges to undermine the national security objectives that voters put President Trump into office to accomplish,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The DC Circuit Court should not let union bosses commandeer the levers of the executive branch in violation of both the Constitution and longstanding federal law.
“However, Trump’s executive order should be the first step toward eliminating union bosses’ monopoly bargaining privileges throughout the whole federal government,” Mix added. “Such power gives unelected union bosses control over the services that American citizens fund with their taxes and elect representatives to oversee. It also forces federal employees – many of whom have never even voted for the union in their workplace – to accept workplace ‘representation’ from union bosses that they may bitterly disagree with.”
NY Starbucks Barista Asks Federal Labor Board to Restore Employees’ Right to Vote Out SBWU Union Officials
SBWU union bosses prevented worker-requested union removal vote by filing unverified charges, never demonstrated link to worker effort
Niskayuna, NY (September 12, 2025) – Starbucks barista Nadia Kuban is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to overturn federal policies that are preventing her colleagues from having a vote to remove unwanted Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace. Kuban is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Kuban’s effort to remove SBWU from the Niskayuna Starbucks began in February, when she submitted a petition backed by her colleagues asking the NLRB to hold a decertification vote at their store. Despite Kuban’s petition containing enough employee signatures to trigger a vote under NLRB rules, regional NLRB officials dismissed her petition and denied her colleagues their right to vote on the union’s continued control.
Kuban’s latest NLRB filing challenges the dismissal of her decertification petition. Regional NLRB officials issued the dismissal due to alleged unfair labor practice charges that SBWU bosses filed against the Starbucks Corporation at the national level. Her Request for Review argues that the NLRB violated employees’ due process rights by tossing her petition without a hearing into whether the allegations had anything to do with workers’ desire to oust the union at her location. It also contends that the NLRB’s Rieth-Riley precedent – which lets union bosses manipulate such allegations (also known as “blocking charges”) to derail worker-requested decertification votes entirely – is inconsistent with federal law.
Starbucks Employee Challenges NLRB Policy That Lets Union Bosses Block Votes
The NLRB’s Rieth-Riley decision in 2022 permits the agency to make so-called “merit-determination” dismissals of decertification petitions. Such dismissals let NLRB officials stop union decertification elections entirely – and invalidate already-cast ballots – based on union boss-filed “blocking charges” that haven’t even been litigated yet. Kuban’s brief explains that the ruling is at odds with federal labor law, which mandates that the NLRB conduct an election if employees submit a valid decertification petition.
“This is inconsistent with the plain language of [National Labor Relations Act] Section 9(c), which states what the NLRB ‘shall’ do, a nondiscretionary term,” the brief says. “The Board…should overturn Rieth-Riley’s merit-determination [ruling]….”
The Request for Review also explains that even under existing NLRB cases – including Rieth-Riley – the dismissal of Kuban’s decertification petition is not justified. NLRB case law doesn’t allow the dismissal of employees’ decertification petitions unless there is an outright refusal by an employer to negotiate with union officials, the brief says, which is not the case in Kuban’s situation. Furthermore, the NLRB’s Saint Gobain decision, won by Foundation staff attorneys, holds that “an evidentiary hearing is required when a union alleges that an employer’s unfair labor practice caused disaffection with the union.” Kuban never got such a hearing in her case, meaning she “has been significantly disadvantaged in defending her petition, to the point of being denied due process of law,” the brief says.
Trump NLRB Can Use Case to Defend Workers’ Freedom
Earlier this year, Rayalan Kent, a Foundation-backed asphalt worker in Michigan whose union decertification effort was stifled in the Rieth-Riley case, submitted a brief to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This brief defended his employer (Rieth-Riley Construction Company) in a case over its refusal to negotiate with International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) officials. IUOE bosses had dredged up years-old unfair labor practice charges to cancel the counting of Kent and his coworkers’ already-cast election ballots in 2022. Kent is now urging the Sixth Circuit to use the current case against his employer to undo the disastrous “merit-determination” doctrine, and order the NLRB to finally count his colleagues’ ballots.
“The NLRB’s so-called ‘merit-determination’ dismissal policy serves no purpose other than letting union officials block workers’ right to make a free decision on whether they want union monopoly ‘representation’ in their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ms. Kuban is the latest of countless independent-minded workers across the country to seek to eliminate this unfair policy. Upon confirmation, new appointees to the NLRB should prioritize cases like hers, and defend workers’ freedoms from union bosses’ attempts to gain more control over their working lives and pocketbooks.”
King Soopers Employees Hit Union Officials with New Federal Charges for Illegal Strike Fine Threats
Charge: UFCW Local 7 once again violating federal law with fines against non-union employees who wouldn’t abide by a union boss-ordered strike
Denver, CO (September 8, 2025) – Two King Soopers grocery workers have filed federal charges against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 union in response to union officials illegally threatening to fine the workers, who chose to exercise their right to work during a strike. These cases, filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), follow a series of similar charges against UFCW union officials for issuing retaliatory fines against King Soopers employees in 2022. Both employees are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
According to the charges, Local 7 union bosses illegally retaliated against Ryan Lamb and Lucas Martin by assessing presumptive fines and scheduling “trials” for each of them, despite the union having no authority to punish non-members. The charges note that attempts to discipline the workers for post-resignation conduct violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Union-Ordered Strikes Don’t Mean Workers Have to Stop Providing for Their Families
UFCW officials demanded that workers strike against King Soopers grocery stores for more than a week in February 2025, affecting more than 10,000 employees. In response to the high profile strike, the Foundation issued a legal notice informing the impacted workers of their rights that union officials often hide, including the right to continue working to support their families.
“Despite often-misleading language in union contracts, no employee is actually required to be a member of a union,” the notice reads. “And if an employee is not a member of a union, union officials have no power to fine or discipline him or her.”
In the cases of Lamb and Martin, both employees ensured they took the proper actions to avoid being legally subjected to internal “union discipline.” In other cases, union officials illegally attempted to issue ruinous fines against workers who declined to participate in union strike actions, with some fines reaching tens of thousands of dollars per employee.
“Union officials shouldn’t be telling me I can’t earn a living just so they can make a point,” commented Lamb. “We have the right to keep working and not abide by their rules, and it’s ridiculous that the union officials think they can punish us for exercising that right,” added Martin.
Repeat-Offender Union Has a History of Ignoring Workers’ Rights
This isn’t the first time UFCW Local 7 officials are alleged to have violated federal law. In 2022, after the UFCW ordered a strike, several employees filed charges against Local 7 officials for hitting them with fines despite being non-union members.
In two cases where the employees received free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, union enforcers backed down from their fines rather than face discipline from the NLRB.
“Once again UFCW bosses are demonstrating their willingness to steamroll the legal rights of rank-and-file workers, just because those workers won’t toe the union line,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Kings Soopers employees have beaten back these illegal fines in the past, and while it shouldn’t take a team of attorneys to ensure workers can exercise their legal rights, we are dedicated to ensuring all King Soopers workers can freely make the choice that is best for them.”
California Nurse Adds New Claim in Federal Labor Board Case Against United Nurses Association of California
Charge: union officials illegally demanded nurse join union, plus maintain illegal policy that restricts right to cut off funding for political spending
Woodland Hills, CA (September 5, 2025) – Sarah Warthemann, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente, has just filed new charges in her ongoing case against the United Nurses Association of California (UNAC) union challenging union officials’ illegal demands that she pay full union dues or be fired. Warthemann’s charges were filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Her original charges, filed in July, stated that UNAC union bosses illegally threatened her with termination of her employment at the hospital if she did not formally join the union. Now, the amended charges also challenge union policies that require nonmembers to opt-out of paying for union political and ideological activities.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees. The charges allege UNAC union bosses are violating Warthemann and all other nurses’ NLRA Section 7 right to refrain from participating in or supporting union activities.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections, UNAC union bosses can impose union monopoly bargaining contracts that force employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. By comparison, in neighboring Right to Work states like Arizona and Nevada, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
However, under Communications Workers of America v. Beck, a landmark Foundation-won Supreme Court case, even where forced dues are authorized, union officials cannot compel workers to fund activities unrelated to union bargaining, like union political activities. The charges note that UNAC officials have “repeatedly demanded payment from [Warthemann] for non-chargeable political and ideological expenditures without [her] affirmative consent” and argue that these demands represent illegal coercion under the NLRA.
“As the facts of this case demonstrate, the NLRB needs to step up to protect workers from being trapped into paying full union dues, including the portion used for union political activism,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union bosses are not above the law, they cannot be permitted to threaten and bully workers into paying dues that go towards union political activities that many workers find objectionable.”
Employee Advocate Supports Repeal of Biden-Backed Union Power Scheme Over Temporary Agricultural Workers
National Right to Work Foundation comments: Biden DOL lacked authority to impose pro-union boss regulation over temporary agricultural workers
Washington, DC (September 4, 2025) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has submitted comments supporting the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposal to scrap a Biden-era rule that lays the groundwork for giving union bosses monopoly bargaining powers over temporary agricultural employees. The Biden DOL rule, misleadingly titled “Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States,” also contained provisions that would have given union officials nearly unrestricted power to enter farmers’ private property.
The Foundation’s comments argue that the repeal is justified because the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal law that lets union bosses gain monopoly bargaining power over most private sector workplaces, specifically exempts agricultural workers from its strictures. Such workers, who often are in the country on H-2A visas, are subject to state agricultural laws. The Biden Department of Labor’s rule, the comments say, is effectively an attempt to override Congress’ exclusion of agricultural workers from the NLRA.
“As now recognized by DOL and various courts considering the Final Rule’s provisions, DOL not only lacks Congressional authorization to take this action, it is defying Congress’ intent to exclude agricultural employees from the…NLRA,” the comments say.
Biden DOL Rule Gives Workers No Power to Resist Unwanted Union Intrusions
The Foundation’s comments also explain that the Biden DOL rule should be repealed because it grants union officials enormous power to enter private farm property to engage in agitation or other disruptive union activities – even over the objections of both workers and employers. Notably, the Biden rule goes well beyond giving union bosses who are invitees of agricultural workers the power to enter private farms, and opens the door to “nearly unrestricted harassment by ‘potential guests’ or unwanted guests of other employees,” the comments state.
The comments further contend that the Biden-era rule on temporary agricultural workers is impracticable because it lacks any kind of enforcement mechanism, and lacks protections for temporary agricultural workers who want to abstain from union affiliation. “If Congress had intended DOL to regulate the ability of agricultural employees to unionize, it would have created an enforcement mechanism within DOL and provided sufficient funding for enforcement,” the comments detail.
Foundation staff attorneys are providing free legal aid to agricultural workers around the country, especially in efforts to challenge state agricultural labor regimes that deny them basic rights of free choice. Employees in California and New York are engaged in federal lawsuits attacking labor laws that let union officials sweep them into dues-paying union ranks without a vote, impose union monopoly bargaining contracts over worker and employer objections, or deny workers the right to file unfair labor practice charges against union officials.
“The Biden DOL rule was a slapdash attempt by federal bureaucrats to give union officials massive new powers over workers in an area that is solely the domain of state law – the agricultural labor sector,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Of course, while claiming to care about temporary agricultural workers, the Biden Labor Department’s rule denied them any kind of right to resist unwanted union campaigns or to file charges against union officials who violate their rights.
“It’s obvious that this union boss power grab lacks any sort of legal underpinning. But it’s important to remember that, outside the agricultural sector, workers all over the country are subject to the National Labor Relations Act’s broken monopoly bargaining system, where union officials in a unionized workplace can impose their will over dissenting workers and often force those employees to pay them union dues or fees,” Mix added. “American workers in all sectors deserve the right to choose freely whether or not union representation is right for them.”
