Chicago 911 Operators Notch Another Janus Victory Over IBEW
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation attorneys stopped deceptive cycle that kept illegal dues flowing for months
Patricia Whittaker heard ridiculous excuses from IBEW union officials about how they couldn’t honor her Janus rights. But after teaming up with Foundation attorneys, she’s cut off dues to IBEW bosses.
CHICAGO, IL – Another 911 operator employed by the City of Chicago has successfully defended her First Amendment rights under the National Right to Work Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. Late last year, Operator Patricia Whittaker sought free Foundation legal aid after facing months of stonewalling from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 21 union officials, who refused to stop taking dues from her paycheck against her will.
Whittaker fought these dues seizures by invoking her First Amendment rights under Janus. Foundation attorneys argued and won the Janus case before the Supreme Court in 2018. The Supreme Court agreed with Foundation attorneys and ruled that union officials could not force public sector employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, and that union officials must obtain affirmative employee consent before deducting union dues from any public worker’s paycheck.
In October, following unfair labor practice filings by Foundation attorneys at the Illinois Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), IBEW union bosses abandoned their unconstitutional dues demands — and other outrageous behavior they had subjected Whittaker to.
IBEW Union Outrageously Claimed They Had No Power to Stop Dues Deductions
Whittaker faced much more than just illegal dues deductions during her ordeal. IBEW officials engaged in a deceptive cycle in which Whittaker was told to resolve the matter with her employer, while the employer directed her back to the union, resulting in continued dues deductions for over 10 months. In doing so, the charges maintained, union officials misrepresented the law by making it appear as if they were the “good guys” by remitting dues deducted by the City of Chicago through checks back to her and claimed that only the employer — not the union — had the power to end dues deductions.
This isn’t the first time IBEW 21 union officials have been caught imposing illegal dues practices on Chicago 911 employees. In June 2024, Rhonda Younkins also triumphed in her months-long legal battle to exercise her First Amendment right to stop all union dues payments to IBEW Local 21. IBEW Local 21 union officials stopped their violation of Younkins’ Janus rights only after Foundation attorneys filed charges at PERB on Younkins’ behalf.
Independent-Minded Workers Continue to Defend Freedom with Janus
The Janus decision’s impact continues to grow. Immediately following the ruling, nearly a half a million public employees stopped paying union dues, with many others following in subsequent years as litigation backed by Foundation attorneys continues to defend their rights.
“The behavior of IBEW Local 21 union officials highlight just how crucial it is for public employees to be aware of, and assert, their Janus rights,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
“While we at the Foundation are proud to help more workers protect their hard-earned money from funding union bosses and union agendas they don’t support, it is unacceptable that it takes aggressive legal action just to force union officials to respect workers’ constitutional freedoms.”
Dartmouth, MIT, Vanderbilt Graduate Students Challenge Forced Unionism
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation-backed students defend rights as union bosses seek more power at universities
Ben Logsdon is a Ph.D. student in mathematics at Dartmouth College. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that union officials’ refusals to accommodate his religious objections just don’t add up.
HANOVER, NH – Just weeks after National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys triumphed in anti-discrimination cases for Jewish Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate students who sought to stop forced dues payments to a radically anti-Israel union, union officials began creating other problems for university students.
In nearby New Hampshire, Dartmouth graduate student Benjamin Logsdon sought free Foundation legal aid against Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth (GOLD-UE) union officials. The GOLD union — which is an affiliate of the same United Electrical (UE) union involved in the Foundation’s MIT cases — is forcing Logsdon to accept the union’s monopoly “representation” powers against his will, even after he voiced his religious objections to the union’s radical stances on the conflict against Israel.
Grad Students Exposed to Union Coercion & Privacy Violations
Meanwhile, several graduate students at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, are pushing back against an attempt by Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United (VGWU, an affiliate of United Auto Workers) union bosses to impose union control over them and their colleagues. Specifically, three students are seeking to intervene in a federal case in which VGWU union officials are illegally demanding the university hand over the students’ private information to aid in their unionization campaign. Foundation staff attorneys filed motions for intervention for these students in October 2024.
Foundation attorneys are arguing that union officials severely violate students’ rights in both of these cases. However, the reason that union officials are in power on college campuses at all traces back to flawed rulings from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under both the Obama Administration and Biden Administration. These rulings subject graduate students to pro-Big Labor provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which create issues for students’ freedom both inside and outside the classroom.
Logsdon, a Christian Ph.D. student in mathematics at Dartmouth, slammed the GOLD union with federal anti-discrimination charges in September 2024 at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). According to those charges, shortly after the GOLD union finalized its first monopoly bargaining contract with the Dartmouth administration, he sent a letter to United Electrical General Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker explaining that he objected to being affiliated with GOLD on religious grounds and needed an accommodation.
“I sought to be removed from the UE and GOLD-UE bargaining unit as a reasonable accommodation,” Logsdon’s Foundation-backed charges say.
Dinkelaker refused to offer Logsdon an accommodation that “satisf[ied] [his] religious conscience or beliefs,” according to the charges, which violated his rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Courts have recognized a variety of Title VII religious accommodations over the years for men and women who have religious objections to union affiliation, including paying an amount equivalent to union dues to a charity instead of union bosses. However, Logsdon seeks a different accommodation: to remove himself from union bosses’ control entirely.
At Vanderbilt, three students who identify themselves in legal documents as “John Doe 1,” “John Doe 2,” and “Jane Doe 1” are contending in their Foundation-backed motions for intervention that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) forbids the Vanderbilt administration from disclosing their personal information to any third parties without their permission, including the VGWU union.
At the union’s behest, NLRB Region 10 has already hit the Vanderbilt administration with a pair of subpoenas demanding personal student info, while ignoring objections from several students expressing concern at the disclosure.
So far Vanderbilt has resisted the NLRB’s subpoenas, and fortunately a federal court has temporarily allowed the university to refuse to comply with them.
The Foundation-backed students’ motions to intervene argue that the subpoenas “are an attempt to violate FERPA’s protections, privileging union interests over the graduate students[’] privacy rights.” It also points out that FERPA allows students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as in this case.
The Vanderbilt students and their Foundation attorneys are demanding an opportunity to properly defend their privacy interests under FERPA. Foundation attorneys have already filed Requests for Review asking the NLRB in Washington, DC, to weigh in on the matter.
Union Monopoly Power Has No Place at Universities
“Graduate students around the country are discovering that union bosses don’t respect their individual rights and would rather use students as pawns to force their demands on a university administration, or advance an extreme political agenda,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.
“Union monopoly bargaining is a system particularly ill-suited to an academic environment. Indeed, it is wrong for anyone to have a union monopoly imposed on them against their will and then be forced to pay union dues under threat of termination.”
Full Foundation Action November/December 2024 Newsletter Now Online
All articles from the November/December 2024 issue of Foundation Action are now online.
In this issue:
- MIT Graduate Students Defeat Discriminatory Dues Demands From Radical Campus Union
- Puerto Rico Police Bureau Employees Foil Anti-Janus Scheme
- Massachusetts Trader Joe’s Employees Battle Divisive Union Organizing Campaign
- Labor Day 2024: National Right to Work in the News
- AT&T Workers Nationwide Win Challenges to Unionization Imposed Through Card Check
- Update on First Amendment Challenge to Union Representation at SCOTUS
Recent articles can be found here. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of this page.
AT&T Workers Nationwide Win Challenges to Unionization Imposed Through Card Check
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Victories by AT&T workers in five states preceded Biden-Harris NLRB rule change to block secret ballot votes
See You, CWA: Marquita Jones (left), Samantha Cain (middle), and Matthew Gonzalez rallied their fellow AT&T workers to escape unwanted CWA unions.
WASHINGTON, DC – While the Biden-Harris National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sought to upend NLRB rules designed to protect workers’ ability to vote out unwanted unions, AT&T workers across the country won a series of victories highlighting the importance of allowing workers to challenge coercive union card check unionization with secret ballot votes. The decertification victories all relied on the National Right to Work Foundation-backed 2020 NLRB “Election Protection Rule” (EPR), which was formally eliminated by the Biden-Harris Labor Board in September.
In five separate cases covering well over 1,000 workers, AT&T Mobility employees have successfully overturned Communications Workers of America (CWA) unionization imposed through the notorious “card check” process.
Under card check, union organizers bypass the secret ballot election process and instead collect cards face-to-face from employees that are then counted as “votes” for the union. Without the privacy of a secret ballot vote, many workers report being pressured, bullied, or threatened into signing, which is among the reasons why card check has long been recognized as inherently unreliable and abuse-prone.
Foundation-Backed 2020 Rule Let Over 1,000 AT&T Workers Nix Union Card Checks
The 2020 Election Protection Rule reformed several rules that union officials manipulate to trap workers under monopoly “representation,” including by giving employees a way to challenge card check unionization with a secret ballot election. Foundation staff attorneys assisted AT&T employees in five states to do that in advance of the Biden-Harris Labor Board’s cynical repeal of the rule.
First, in Tennessee, AT&T employee Denis Hodzic filed a petition signed by two-thirds of his coworkers in the unit seeking a secret-ballot vote to remove the CWA union, after CWA agents installed themselves over 100 AT&T In-Home Experts by card check. Initially CWA union officials argued the election should be permanently blocked because the union had already merged the workers into a larger bargaining unit with thousands of other AT&T workers.
CWA Bosses Capitulated to AT&T Workers
However, citing the Election Protection Rule, which gives workers at least 45 days to challenge a card check with a decertification petition, Foundation staff attorneys were able to win a ruling with the NLRB allowing the vote to proceed. At that point CWA officials chose not to even contest the vote, instead filing paperwork with the NLRB freeing the employees from CWA ranks apparently to avoid an overwhelming final vote against the union.
“The Election Protection Rule was essential for us to rely on as we went through the process of seeking resolution to our tricky situation,” Hodzic said of his situation. “The 45-day petition window needs to remain regardless of which group holds the majority position in Washington.”
Since then, with legal aid, around 1,000 additional AT&T Mobility employees in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas have all also successfully removed the CWA union following installation through card check. In all four states, once the decertification vote became inevitable, CWA officials simply conceded defeat rather than wait for the results of a formal decertification vote.
NLRB Repeal of Election Protection Rule Traps Workers in Union Ranks
Despite these efforts from independent-minded employees, the Biden-Harris NLRB formally repealed the Election Protection Rule in September, dramatically expanding union bosses’ ability to block employee-requested decertification votes.
As a result, now, when workers in Hodzic’s situation attempt to challenge a card check with a secret ballot decertification, the NLRB will automatically block their vote for up to one year after a card check, which opens the door to countless other union delay tactics.
“If these AT&T employees had filed their five decertification petitions after September 30th, they would have been trapped in a union they oppose for years and likely forever,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens.
“This is yet another example of the Biden-Harris NLRB steamrolling the rights of independent-minded employees, so union bosses can expand their forced dues ranks. “Despite this setback for employee freedom, Foundation staff attorneys remain committed to helping workers trapped in union ranks they oppose,” added Semmens. “That includes helping them navigate the increasingly rigged NLRB system.”
Massachusetts Trader Joe’s Employees Battle Divisive Union Organizing Campaign
Trader Joe’s workers demand vote to oust union, blast union bosses in Congress and media
Trader Joe’s employees Les Stratford (left) and Michael Alcorn want to restore the fun and independent work environment that existed in the store before union officials sowed discord.
HADLEY, MA – Union bosses and Big Labor-allied media cheered when the Hadley, MA, branch of supermarket chain Trader Joe’s became the first unionized location in the country in 2022. But what all their celebration concealed was the fact that union officials had swept to power at the location through a deeply deceptive campaign that demonized both the company and many employees. Now many of the Hadley-based Trader Joe’s employees are fighting to kick the union out.
“Officials of this union have sowed division and smeared both our workplace and anyone who dissents from the union’s agenda pretty much from the time the campaign began to unionize the store,” Trader Joe’s employee Les Stratford told Supermarket News about the situation.
Michael Alcorn, another Hadley Trader Joe’s worker who simply wanted to have a conversation with his coworkers about the ramifications of unionizing, said that union militants “weren’t going to have a meeting with us…immediately it was like ‘you either accept the union, or you don’t, and we’re not going to talk about it all together because if you don’t accept it, we don’t trust you.’”
Now, with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Stratford, Alcorn, and many other Hadley Trader Joe’s employees are backing an effort to vote the union out of power at the store. Stratford in August submitted a union decertification petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold an election among his coworkers on whether to remove the union, which contained well over the support needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules.
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, the union has the legal privilege to enforce contracts that require Trader Joe’s employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs.
In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary. A vote by the majority of Hadley Trader Joe’s employees against the union would free them from both the union’s forced-dues and monopoly bargaining powers.
Trader Joe’s Employee Exposes Union Tactics on Capitol Hill
In May, Alcorn brought the concerns many of the Hadley Trader Joe’s employees had directly into the halls of Congress when he was called by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce to testify about coercive tactics union bosses use to gain power and stay in power.
In addition to describing the union’s vilification of any skeptical employee, he noted that union organizers tried to foist union control of the workplace through “card check” — a process that bypasses the NLRB’s secret ballot election system and lets union officials aggressively solicit “cards” that are later counted as votes for the union.
Union organizers also “made inaccurate and incomplete press releases, creating false narratives about our workplace to promote their own agenda and personal vendettas,” Alcorn said.
Workers Need More Freedom to Oust Abrasive Union Bosses
The Hadley Trader Joe’s workers’ efforts come as the Biden-Harris NLRB announced a final rule which will make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. The final rule, among other things, lets union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference.
While the Trader Joe’s employees’ petition will be unaffected by the rule change, the new policy will likely quash or substantially delay similar efforts in the future. “The situation at the Hadley, MA, Trader Joe’s store shows exactly why workers’ right to vote to remove a union they oppose must be protected,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Legal Director and Vice President William Messenger.
“During a union campaign, union officials often employ aggressive tactics and ‘us vs. them’ or hate-the-boss rhetoric that cause division and prioritize union bosses’ agenda over workers’ freedoms and individual choices.
“That the Biden-Harris Administration stripped workers of what few rights they had to challenge union officials that perpetrate these acts shows they are on the side of Big Labor, not individual workers,” Messenger added.
Puerto Rico Police Bureau Employees Foil Anti-Janus Scheme
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Federal court strikes down discrimination against workers at the Puerto Rico Police Bureau who exercised First Amendment rights
Vanessa Carbonell (center) and other employees of the Puerto Rico Police Bureau won big at the Puerto Rico District Court in September 2024. Their Foundation-won decision forces their employer and the union to stop violating their Janus rights.
SAN JUAN, PR – The National Right to Work Foundation’s 2018 victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME opened new horizons for employee freedom across the country. For the first time, the Justices recognized that the First Amendment prohibits union bosses from forcing public sector employees to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment, and that union bosses can only take dues from a worker’s paycheck with their affirmative consent.
Foundation attorneys’ efforts to enforce the landmark decision yielded a big victory this September for a wide swath of civilian employees at the Puerto Rico Police Bureau (PRPB). In a class action federal lawsuit, more than a dozen PRPB employees charged officials of the Union of Organized Civilian Employees with violating their Janus rights by stripping them of an employer-provided health benefit because they refused to join the union.
A recent decision from the District Court of Puerto Rico found in favor of the employees’ arguments, stating that their employer had indeed taken away the health benefit because the employees exercised their right to not join or pay dues to the union.
Scheme Forced Workers to Join Union or Lose Access to Better Healthcare
“This is either retaliation for exercise of non-union members’ post-Janus non-associational rights under the First Amendment under the Constitution or simply discrimination,” said the Court.
According to lead plaintiff Vanessa Carbonell and her colleagues’ original lawsuit, they all exercised their Janus right to opt out of the union at various points after the 2018 Janus decision. They each began noticing that as dues ceased coming out of their paychecks, they also stopped receiving a $25-a-month employer-paid benefit intended to help employees pay for better health insurance.
The lawsuit demonstrated that PRPB officials cut the benefit off to employees who refused union membership — a clear case of discrimination against employees who exercise their First Amendment right to abstain from union affiliation.
Union and Employer Must Stop Discrimination
The District Court’s decision, in addition to declaring that the ploy by PRPB and the Union of Organized Civilian Employees is unconstitutional, orders an injunction to stop PRPB officials from continuing to withhold the benefit from Carbonell and other employees.
“Janus enshrined a very simple First Amendment principle: That union officials need to convince public employees to support their organization and activities voluntarily,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens.
Amicus Briefs Boost Professors’ First Amendment Challenge to Union Monopoly Bargaining Power
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
As reported in the previous issue of Foundation Action, City University of New York (CUNY) professor Avraham Goldstein and several of his colleagues have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their First Amendment challenge to union monopoly power in the public sector.
The professors have had enough of Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union bosses’ attacks on Jewish culture and identity, and argue that New York State’s laws forcing them to associate with PSC and PSC officials’ so-called “representation” violate their constitutional rights.
Already, their petition before the Supreme Court is gaining traction: Since the Foundation-backed petition was filed in July, 11 briefs in support of the professors have rolled in from notable legal foundations, religious freedom advocacy groups, and legal scholars.
Additionally, in September, the Supreme Court took the step of ordering PSC and New York State officials to file a response brief. The Supreme Court will likely make a decision on whether to hear the case by early 2025.
Check out the Foundation’s website for breaking news in cases being litigated by Foundation staff attorneys.
MIT Graduate Students Defeat Discriminatory Dues Demands From Radical Campus Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union must cease forced dues, inform thousands of MIT graduate students of right to defund union politics
Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman, who aided the MIT graduate students in their legal victory, told NTD News his phone is “ringing off the hook” because university students and faculty nationwide are seeking ways to defund radical campus unions.
BOSTON, MA – “Jewish graduate students are a minority at MIT. We can’t remove the [Graduate Student Union (GSU)] or disabuse it of its antisemitism. But we also can’t support an organization that actively works toward the eradication of the Jewish homeland, where I have family living now.”
These were the words MIT Ph.D. student Will Sussman used to describe his, and other graduate students’, battle against radical union bosses at his campus, both in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and in June testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. GSU union officials gained the legal privilege to force MIT graduate students to pay dues or lose their academic work thanks to biased rulings by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under both President Biden and President Obama. Since then, they’ve wasted no time in forcing even Jewish students with strong objections to the union’s anti-Israel agitating to fund their activities.
Students Battle Anti-Israel Sentiment Boosted by GSU Union Bosses
However, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Sussman and his fellow Jewish graduate students Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Adina Bechhofer, and Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky fought back against the GSU’s discriminatory dues demands. They each filed federal charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), charging the GSU with denying them religious accommodations required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now they’ve won full accommodations that allow them to cut off all financial support for the union.
Separately, Foundation attorneys also filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the NLRB for Katerina Boukin, who objected on political grounds to the GSU’s ideological activity. Boukin sought to exercise her rights under the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which lets workers who abstain from union membership opt-out of paying for the union’s political expenses.
In the wake of the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Sussman and his fellow students experienced a massive wave of anti-Israel sentiment on MIT campus, including from GSU union chiefs.
“The blood had not yet dried when my colleagues at MIT declared, ‘Victory is Ours,’” related Sussman at a congressional hearing on anti- Semitism in unions. “The full-time GSU staff organizer told NBC10 Boston, ‘Those who rebel against oppression cannot be blamed for rebelling against that repression.’”
GSU Union Backed Off Unlawful Demands After Foundation Intervention
Sussman, Fried, Gordon, Bechhofer, and Zhitomirsky each requested in early 2024 that GSU union officials provide them with religious accommodations to paying union dues based on their objections to union officials’ extremist beliefs. Under federal law, such accommodations vary, but often take the form of letting the objector divert the dues from the offensive union to a 501(c)(3) charity instead. The GSU union’s brazen response was that “no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union” and that no religious conflict existed because one of the founders of GSU’s parent union was himself Jewish.
The GSU union backed down after Foundation staff attorneys filed EEOC anti-discrimination charges in response to the lack of accommodation. The students have secured full religious accommodations and will pay money to charities of their choice, despite initial pushback from union bosses. The charities include American Friends of Magen David Adom and American Friends of Leket.
Katerina Boukin’s NLRB case was spurred by her disagreements with the union’s political stances on Israel. She stated that she was deeply offended by GSU’s “opposition to Israel and promotion of Leninist- Marxist global revolution” and that “[t]he GSU’s political agenda has nothing to do with my research as a graduate student at MIT, or the relationships I have with my professors and the university administration.”
“[Y]et outrageously they demand I fund their radical ideology,” Boukin said.
Foundation-Won Settlement Informs Students They Can Defund ‘Marxist’ Union
Foundation attorneys won a settlement for Boukin that not only returned illegally-seized dues to Boukin, but also required GSU bosses to inform the entire MIT graduate student body of their rights to invoke the Beck decision.
GSU bosses were forced to declare by email that they will not restrict the ability of those who resign their union memberships to cut off dues payments for political expenses and pay a reduced amount to the union. This email notice went out to approximately 3,000 MIT students.
Legal Protections Should Protect Employees’ Right to Object on Any Grounds
“The Foundation-backed MIT graduate students who fought these legal battles have earned well-deserved victories. But defending basic free association rights shouldn’t require such complicated litigation,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
“This ordeal at MIT should remind lawmakers that all Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason.”
Genesys Nurse Hits Hospital, Teamsters Union with Additional Federal Charges for Illegal Dues Deductions
New charges latest example of how union bosses are violating workers’ rights following repeal of Michigan Right to Work law
Flint, MI (August 20, 2024) – Madrina Wells, a nurse at Ascension Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc Township, MI, has filed additional federal unfair labor practice charges against the Teamsters Local 332 union and her employer for illegally deducting union dues out of her paycheck in violation of federal law. Madrina filed the two new unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Last month, Wells and her coworker filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the Teamsters Local 332 union, where they maintained that union bosses threatened to fire them and other nurses if they didn’t sign forms authorizing union officials to deduct dues straight out of their paychecks. The charges for Wells and her coworker Lynette Doyle, were also filed at the NLRB with National Right to Work Foundation legal aid. NLRB agents will now investigate Wells’ multiple charges in addition to the charge filed by Doyle.
The new charges from Wells are the most recent in a flurry of Foundation-backed cases for Michigan workers who are seeking to challenge or escape union bosses’ coercive power in the wake of Michigan’s repeal of its Right to Work law. Since the repeal became effective this February, union bosses have had the legal power to require workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. In states with Right to Work protections, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
However, even in states like Michigan that lack Right to Work protections and allow for forced-fee requirements, longstanding federal law prohibits union bosses from requiring workers to authorize the direct deduction of union dues from their paychecks. The Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck Supreme Court decision additionally forbids union bosses in non-Right to Work states from forcing workers to pay money for any activities beyond the union’s bargaining functions, such as political expenditures.
“I already had issues with Teamsters bosses’ illegally demanding money from me when Right to Work was in force,” commented Madrina Wells. “Back then, I at least knew that I was defending my right to pay nothing at all to Teamsters bosses I disapprove of. It’s ridiculous that rather than comply with my rights, Teamsters Local 332, now with the assistance of my employer, have violated Federal law once again by deducting dues from my paycheck without my consent.”
Without Right to Work, Michigan Workers Increasingly Having to Take Legal Action Against Union Boss Forced Dues Abuses
In a party-line 2023 vote, Michigan legislators repealed Right to Work at the behest of union special interests, ending workers’ ability to decide for themselves whether or not union officials deserve their dues money. The imposition of union bosses’ power to force employees to “pay up or be fired” came despite polling showing Michiganders, including those in union households, overwhelmingly opposed the elimination of workers’ Right to Work protections.
After the repeal became effective this February, workers from across the Great Lakes State sought help from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in escaping union bosses’ forced-dues demands. The total cases that our attorneys have filed for Michigan workers in 2024 is already more than double the 2023 number.
“Emboldened by the partisan repeal of Right to Work, Michigan union bosses are showing once again that their greed for forced dues is more important than the rights of the very workers they claim to ‘represent,’” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Michigan workers are standing up to defend what rights they still have against union coercion, and the Foundation is proud to assist them.”
“Ultimately though, this flood of legal aid requests from Michigan workers challenging forced dues abuses shows why Michigan workers need the protection of Right to Work, so that union financial support is fully voluntary once again,” added Mix.
IUOE Union Bosses Hit With Federal Charge for Illegal Termination
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Longstanding law protects against mandatory dues deductions, formal union membership
Firestop inspector Alexandra Le isn’t going to let IUOE union bosses snuff out her livelihood over her refusal to join or support the union. She’s filed federal charges with Foundation aid.
PLEASANTON, CA – Sometimes, even the extraordinary power to demand payments from workers under threat of termination isn’t enough for union bosses, who frequently go beyond what is legal to coerce workers into membership and dues payment.
Alexandra Le, an employee of Construction Testing Services (CTS), found herself on the receiving end of such illegal demands from International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) officials in October. But Le is now fighting back, hitting IUOE bosses and her employer with federal charges at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 32 with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation.
Union Misinformed Worker About Rights
Le’s charges state that IUOE bosses got her fired after she rebuffed their demands to formally join the union. Additionally, Le’s charges maintain that union officials unlawfully deducted union dues from her paycheck without her permission and failed to inform her of her right to pay reduced union dues as a non-member — a right secured by the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court victory.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, Le and her coworkers can be forced to pay some fees to the union to keep their jobs, even if they’ve abstained from formal union membership. However, as per Beck, in non-Right to Work states, union officials can’t force nonmember employees to pay for union expenses (such as union politics) that go beyond what the union claims goes to bargaining.
Other Supreme Court precedents require union bosses to seek workers’ express consent before deducting dues directly from their paychecks.
In Right to Work states, all union financial support is voluntary and the choice of each individual worker.
Employee Demands Federal Injunction to Reverse Illegal Union-Ordered Firing
“It’s outrageous that IUOE union officials believe they can get me fired simply because I don’t agree with their organization and don’t want to support or affiliate with them,” Le said. “IUOE union officials have been far more concerned with consolidating power in the workplace and collecting dues than caring about me and my coworkers, and I hope the NLRB will hold them responsible for their illegal actions.”
Le’s charge against the IUOE union states that, after she refused to affiliate with the union, IUOE bosses “caused Charging Party to be removed from the work schedule by her Employer as of October 2nd.” The NLRB v. General Motors Corp. U.S. Supreme Court decision protects the right of workers to refuse formal union membership, even in a non-Right to Work state.
As a remedy, the charge asks the NLRB Regional Director in Oakland to “invoke its authority under Section 10(j)” of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which empowers the Board to seek an injunction from a federal court to stop IUOE and CTS management from committing the unfair labor practices.
Workers Need More Protections Against Union Boss Coercion
“Ms. Le’s case shows why Right to Work protections are important,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.
“Even if IUOE union officials had followed federal labor law in this case, Ms. Le would still be forced to contribute to the activities of an organization she clearly doesn’t want to be part of.
“As Ms. Le’s case demonstrates, union bosses often value workers merely as sources of dues revenue and will go to extraordinary lengths to keep the money flowing,” Messenger added. “Workers deserve more protections against union boss coercion, not fewer.”
