The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2026 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Jose Ramos, a University of Puerto Rico maintenance employee, isn’t going to let union bosses maintain their flimsy defense that they are entitled to keep his hard-earned money in violation of the First Amendment.
As 2025 waned, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys brought their expertise to bear as government employees in Washington State and Puerto Rico continued legal battles to get back money that union bosses never should have seized from their paychecks.
These workers are invoking their rights under the Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME decision, which the Supreme Court handed down in 2018. In Janus, the Justices ruled that all American public sector workers have a First Amendment right to abstain from paying dues to union officials they don’t support.
Despite Janus’ commonsense protections, many union bosses, intent on keeping their coffers stocked with dues money seized from unwilling public employees, are still trying to skirt the Court’s ruling.
AFSCME Bosses Refuse to Return Illegally-Seized Money to Worker
That includes AFSCME union officials in Washington State, whom City of Everett employee Xenia Davidsen is fighting at the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC). Davidsen charged AFSCME chiefs with accepting money that City officials had illicitly funneled from her paycheck to the union.
Davidsen had requested dues deductions to stop in 2024 in accordance with Janus, but City officials failed to monitor the email address through which AFSCME directed the City to stop the deductions. This incompetence led to the City seizing dues money from Davidsen at least 12 times without her authorization — and AFSCME union officials have stubbornly refused to admit they must post a notice stating they were wrong to accept the deductions.
“On none of those… instances did the Union stop to question why it was accepting dues that it knew were unauthorized to it,” argue Foundation attorneys in Davidsen’s latest brief before the PERC.
Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys also defended the Janus rights of two groups of Puerto Rico public employees in oral arguments before the First Circuit Court of Appeals last October.
Foundation Challenges Puerto Rico Court’s Refusal to Nix Anti-Janus Statute
In one case, Cruz v. UIA, Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) employee Reynaldo Cruz is trying to reclaim union dues money that officials of the Authentic Independent Union of Water and Sewer Authority Employees (UIA) took in violation of his First Amendment rights.
Cruz’s lawsuit challenges both union bosses’ demands that he pay union dues or lose his job, as well as the Puerto Rico territorial laws that allow such unconstitutional demands. Though UIA union bosses claim they have already deposited the illegally-seized money with a lower federal court, that court confusingly declined to issue a ruling that legally entitles Cruz to collect the funds.
During oral arguments, Cruz’s legal team argued that this legal sleight-of-hand created “a roadmap for civil rights defendants to violate civil rights plaintiffs’ rights.”
Foundation Won’t Let Union Bosses & Bureaucrats Ignore Janus
Also argued before the First Circuit at the end of 2025 was Ramos v. Delgado, in which Foundation attorneys represent Jose Ramos and other University of Puerto Rico maintenance employees who had dues illegally deducted from their paychecks for years.
Ramos and his colleagues are seeking refunds of all dues taken unlawfully since the Janus decision. Puerto Rico continues to be a hotbed for union violations of the Janus decision, but luckily, workers continue to stand up with Foundation legal aid.
Most recently, public employee Luis Rigau filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the Puerto Rico Industrial Commission (PRIC) union’s blatantly illegal reinstatement of automatic forced-dues deductions against nonmembers.
“Despite Janus’ clear constitutional command, union bosses, legislators, and public officials are still trying to do legal gymnastics to end-run the decision,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.
“All public sector workers deserve the free choice that Janus secures, and Foundation attorneys will continue to back them in their court battles for freedom.”
