National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Foundation Action Newsletter Archives - National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

3 Mar 2026

Public Servants Across Country Stand Strong in Defending Janus Rights

Posted in Newsletter Articles

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.”

14 Oct 2025

AT&T-BellSouth Workers Challenge Union-Concocted ‘Window Period’ Restrictions on Ending Dues

Posted in Newsletter Articles

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.

CWA officials trap dissenting workers, but case asks NLRB to declare ‘window period’ restrictions illegal

Jennifer Abruzzo went straight from being a top CWA union lawyer to being General Counsel of the Biden NLRB. Though President Trump fired her, that doesn’t mean that workers don’t still have to battle the anti-freedom policies she advanced.

MIAMI, FL – In August 2024, Communications Workers of America (CWA) union bosses ordered thousands of AT&T employees across the Southeast to abandon their jobs and go on strike. Unsurprisingly, despite union officials’ propaganda surrounding the strike, many workers disagreed with the decision.

“CWA union officials ordered us to abandon our jobs when many of us just wanted to keep working and supporting ourselves and our families,” commented Amanda Marc, a Miami-based worker for AT&T-BellSouth. “That’s bad enough, but now they’re putting up all these roadblocks to try to prevent those of us who don’t like the union’s agenda from stopping our money from flowing to them.”

Marc is referring to a situation that South Florida AT&T-BellSouth workers have been increasingly dealing with in the aftermath of the strike, which came to an end in September 2024. With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, Marc and her coworker Sofia Hernaiz filed unfair labor practice charges against CWA union officials, detailing that the union hierarchy has ignored their requests to cut off dues payments and has continued to siphon money from their paychecks illegally. Additional charges for other AT&T-BellSouth workers are also being filed.

Dues Kept Flowing to Union After Workers Requested Stop

Marc and Hernaiz’s charges point out that CWA officials are imposing a “window period” scheme on workers who want to end financial support, limiting to just ten days per year the time in which workers can demand that dues deductions cease from their paychecks.

“This kind of behavior makes me feel like they’re really just interested in having control over us and taking our money,” Marc added. Marc and Hernaiz filed their charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law.

Marc’s charge in particular challenges the practice of imposing “window periods” as violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): While the NLRA unfortunately allows union officials to prevent a worker from revoking his or her dues authorization card for the first year after it is initially signed, Marc’s charge notes that any further restrictions are unlawful.

“The unions have no statutory license to create tricky and arbitrary ‘window periods’ to force unwilling employees to keep paying dues,” Marc’s charges say.

Because Marc, Hernaiz, and their colleagues work in the Right to Work state of Florida, CWA union bosses are forbidden from forcing workers to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs, though CWA union officials are trying to limit the exercise of this freedom with their window period scheme. In states that lack Right to Work protections, in contrast, union officials can force employees to pay fees to the union or be terminated, meaning even perfect “compliance” with a union boss’s arbitrary window period restriction would not get a worker out of forced union payments.

Marc and Hernaiz’s charges state that they, and many of their coworkers, resigned their union memberships in August 2024, which was around when CWA union officials ordered AT&T-BellSouth workers out on the strike. Despite the women’s requests to end union membership and stop financial support for the union, the charges read, CWA agents never responded to their requests to stop dues deductions, and never even informed them of the window period dates in which they would consider their requests valid.

Even worse, Hernaiz details in her charge that union officials tried to subject her to internal union discipline for not participating in the strike. Under federal law, union bosses cannot impose union proceedings on workers who are not union members. Foundation attorneys are in the process of aiding other AT&T-BellSouth workers targeted by such illegal discipline.

No Legal Justification for ‘Window Periods,’ New NLRB Should Toss Policy

“Federal labor law is supposed to protect the right of workers to decide freely whether they want to join or financially support a union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “So-called ‘window periods’ exist only to restrict this freedom just so union officials can continue to funnel dues money from workers’ pockets straight into union agendas.

“The NLRB under the new Administration should recognize that this practice contradicts both worker freedom and federal law, and end it accordingly,” Mix added.

13 Oct 2025

Cincinnati-Area Kroger Worker Secures Victory Against Illegal Union Dues Deductions

Posted in Newsletter Articles

After legal win, grocery employee based near Cincinnati finds job in nearby Right to Work Kentucky to escape forced dues

Northern Kentucky (foreground) might be just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, OH, but the difference in worker freedom is stark. Without Right to Work, forced dues abuses are rampant compared to Right to Work Kentucky.

CINCINNATI, OH – In a win for employee freedom, James Carroll, a Kroger employee based near Cincinnati, has secured victory in his federal case against United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 75 and Kroger. The win comes after Carroll challenged the union and his employer for unlawfully deducting union dues from his paycheck and threatening him with termination for refusing to sign an illegal dues deduction form.

Carroll, with free legal support from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 9 in Cincinnati. His case exposed the UFCW’s use of an unlawful “dual-purpose” membership form, which combines union membership and dues deduction authorization into a single signature. Under established Supreme Court legal precedents, workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership, and any dues deduction authorizations must be voluntary and separate from membership agreements.

In order to avoid further prosecution, Kroger and UFCW entered into a settlement that requires them to reimburse Carroll for the illegally seized dues and publicly post a notice informing other employees of their rights.

But Carroll didn’t stop there. To protect himself from future union coercion, he secured a transfer to a Kroger store in Right to Work Kentucky. Unlike Ohio, where workers can be forced to pay union fees even as non-members, Kentucky’s Right to Work law ensures that all union payments are voluntary, shielding Carroll from further threats that he pay up or face termination.

This case challenging the UFCW’s forced dues abuse of grocery employees isn’t an isolated incident. In 2023, Houston-area Kroger employee Jessica Haefner, also aided by Foundation attorneys, filed charges against UFCW for using a dual-purpose form and altering her response to falsely indicate consent for dues deductions.

More recently, in 2024, Portland grocery worker Reegin Schaffer won a case against UFCW after union officials ignored her resignation request during a strike and retaliated by attempting to fine her for working.

Another Worker Flees to the Freedom of Right to Work

“We are pleased with this legal win for Mr. Carroll, and that he is now completely free of union bosses’ forced-dues demands in Right to Work Kentucky,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.

“Unfortunately most workers employed in forced dues states don’t have the option to commute to a job in a Right to Work state, which is why workers everywhere need the protection of Right to Work laws.”

30 Sep 2025

Full Foundation Action March/April Newsletter Now Online

Posted in Newsletter Articles

All articles from the March/April 2025 issue of Foundation Action are now online.

In this issue:

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 the page.

15 Sep 2025

Vanderbilt Grad Students Free From Aggressive UAW Campaign

Posted in Newsletter Articles

The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.

Foundation-assisted students challenged union-backed NLRB demand for private info

Notorious UAW President Shawn Fain saw his union rebuffed by many Vanderbilt students concerned about the union’s intrusive organizing methods. Facing legal and political headwinds, UAW bosses dropped their campaign.

NASHVILLE, TN – Union monopoly bargaining creates barriers to freedom for people across the country. It requires workers to accept self-motivated union bosses as their sole “voice” on issues in their workplace. But, in the private sector, it’s unfortunately the law of the land.

That’s not as clear when it comes to colleges and universities. Although the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under President Obama upended existing precedent to dubiously let union officials impose monopoly arrangements on graduate students — a ruling continued by the Biden NLRB — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) generally bans universities from sharing student information without student permission. This puts FERPA and federal labor law at odds, as such information is something employers are required by the NLRB to produce during a unionization campaign.

After the United Auto Workers (UAW) union launched a campaign in late 2024 to sweep Vanderbilt University’s graduate students under their monopoly power, NLRB officials required the college to fork over the info of thousands of students. But three courageous students stood up with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, arguing that disclosure without any procedure violated their privacy rights under FERPA.

Now, union officials have backed down and withdrawn the entire union campaign at the college. The three students and others are free from being forced into UAW union monopoly ranks and from the disclosure of their FERPA-protected information.

“The withdrawal of UAW organizers’ petition seeking a vote to unionize us against our will is a welcome victory for us in our defense of our rights and the rights of our fellow graduate students,” commented one of the Foundation-assisted Vanderbilt graduate students, identified as Jane Doe 1 in legal filings to protect her identity.

Students: FERPA Lets Us Protect Private Info From Unionization Scheme

The students’ effort to protect their privacy began in October 2024, when two students identified in filings as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 moved to intervene in the NLRB case. They argued that FERPA’s language permits students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as Vanderbilt had from the NLRB. A regional NLRB official denied their motion to intervene. Foundation attorneys submitted an emergency appeal for John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 to the NLRB in Washington, DC, emphasizing that the students needed an opportunity to “address the serious privacy issues raised by the Region’s subpoena.”

Foundation attorneys additionally filed an updated motion to intervene that included Jane Doe 1 as another student seeking to intervene in the case. Several other graduate students also submitted less-formal objections urging the agency not to enforce a subpoena divulging their private information. The District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a ruling on November 22, 2024, temporarily releasing Vanderbilt from its obligation to comply with the NLRB subpoenas. A few weeks later, UAW union officials announced they were withdrawing their petition to unionize Vanderbilt graduate students, meaning the subpoenas seeking student information are effectively null and void.

Foundation Fights Union Malfeasance at Colleges Nationwide

Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys are assisting graduate students at Dartmouth and MIT with fighting attempts by United Electrical (UE)- affiliated unions to demand dues payments from students against their will and in violation of their rights. Kara Rzasa, a Dartmouth graduate student, and Michael Fernandez, an MIT graduate student, have each hit UE local and national affiliates with charges for illegal polices UE officials are utilizing nationwide when demanding forced dues payments.

“While we’re happy that the private information of Vanderbilt grad students is now secure, it’s clearer than ever that the biased NLRB decisions granting union bosses the ability to foist union monopolies over graduate students were wrong,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “In Foundation cases, we’ve seen union bosses put students’ academic freedom, religious freedom, and privacy protections all at risk, which is why the new appointees to the NLRB need to clarify that students are off-limits to union monopoly power schemes.”

15 Sep 2025

More Minnesota Nurses Send MNA Union Bosses Packing

Posted in Newsletter Articles

Politics-motivated union faces string of successful decertification votes in Minnesota

Brittany Burgess (front, center) and her coworkers at Mayo Clinic’s Mankato, Minnesota, branch sparked a wave of Foundation-backed efforts across Minnesota to declare independence from union bosses, with the most recent success in Fairmont, Minnesota.

FAIRMONT, MN – In 2022, then-President of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) union Mary Turner expressed to the Minnesota Reformer her ambition to continue pushing the MNA’s political agenda in the Minnesota state legislature and eventually vie for the presidency of the National Nurses United (NNU) union, MNA’s parent.

The NNU is also known for its ardent political activity — in 2016, the union’s super PAC spent roughly $1 million on promoting self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders for president.

When asked whether the union’s politics played a role in the fact hundreds of nurses, backed by the National Right to Work Foundation, had just voted MNA union bosses out of power at Mayo Clinic in Mankato, Minnesota, Turner had this to say: “They’re going to have to prove to us that they want the union because they lost it.”

Fast-forward to 2025, and the MNA’s obsession with politics hasn’t changed — and neither has nurses’ opposition to the alienating nature of the union. This January, with free Foundation legal aid, nurses at Mayo Clinic’s Fairmont, Minnesota, location voted by over 60% to remove MNA union officials from their facility.

“The MNA was a very divisive force in our workplace, and I think we’ll be able to better serve our patients and the community without the union,” commented nurse Jamie Campbell on the vote.

Foundation Backs Another Grassroots Effort to Nix MNA

Campbell kick-started the union removal effort by submitting a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in December 2024 requesting a union decertification vote.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Campbell’s union decertification petition contained well over the number of employee signatures needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules.

Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, MNA union officials had the legal power to require all the Fairmont Mayo nurses to pay at least a portion of union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work jurisdictions, union membership and all union financial support are voluntary and the choice of each individual worker.

However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials are able to impose one-size-fits-all contracts on all employees in a work unit, even those who voted against or otherwise oppose the union.

Fairmont Victory Follows Others in Mankato, St. James

The election took place in January, and within a week, the NLRB certified the nurses’ successful ouster of the union.

Since 2022, several sizable units of healthcare workers in Minnesota have sought out Foundation legal aid to obtain removal votes against the MNA and other unions, and have often been successful in freeing themselves. After Mankato Mayo Clinic nurses voted MNA out, nurses at Mayo’s St. James branch did the same with AFSCME Council 65 in August 2022. Support staff at the Mankato facility kicked out American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1856 union officials in 2023.

“MNA union bosses’ influence and political connections did not shield them from suffering another defeat by rank-and-file nurses at the ballot box,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens.

“Ironically, Minnesota’s lack of Right to Work protections — which are vociferously opposed by the MNA — likely removed an important accountability tool from the relationship between the MNA and the nurses they claim to ‘represent.’ It’s no surprise that union bosses who can force workers to pay union dues or fees on pain of termination wind up being far less effective and more out-of-touch than union officials who must earn the voluntary financial support of each worker.”

20 Aug 2025

St. Louis-Area Worker Battles Illegal Union Threats to Get Non-Members Fired

Posted in Newsletter Articles

After divisive strike, IAM bosses demand non-members pay illegal ‘reinstatement fee’ to work

Robert Jacobs, an employee of power management company Eaton, filed federal charges showing IAM bosses clearly can’t manage their power: They are threatening union non-members with hundreds in illegal fees.

TROY, IL – “They’re threatening our jobs and livelihoods.”

This is how Robert Jacobs, an employee for power management company Eaton Corporation, described how International Association of Machinists (IAM) union bosses were treating him and his colleagues who dissented from the union’s agenda in an interview with the St. Louis Business Journal.

IAM officials ordered hundreds of Eaton employees at its St. Louis-area facility to strike in October 2024, which alienated many workers and made them question union bosses’ motives. Jacobs described seeing union agents take photos of his license plate during the strike and how he suspected union agents were following him home.

IAM Anti-Worker Activity Only Increased After Disruptive Strike Order

But for Jacobs and other workers, that was only the beginning of IAM’s coercive conduct. After the strike concluded, many Eaton employees chose to exercise their right to resign their union memberships. Even in states like Illinois that lack Right to Work protections, private sector workers are free to end their union memberships, even if union officials enforce a contract that requires non-members to pay some fees as a condition of employment.

Instead of respecting this right, IAM union officials began retaliating against those who wanted to cut ties with the union. With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, Jacobs slammed the IAM with federal charges for threatening to get him and other employees who resigned union membership fired unless they pay hundreds in “reinstatement fees” concocted by the union. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is now reviewing his charges.

“I and several of my colleagues don’t want to be part of the IAM union, but we are required by law to pay fees to union bosses just to keep our jobs,” commented Jacobs.

“That’s already something that we don’t want to do. But IAM officials are going even further and hitting us with hundreds of dollars in made-up fees just because we exercised our right to not be union members.”

IL Worker: Mandatory ‘Reinstatement Fee’ Not Permitted by Federal Law

Under federal labor law, which the NLRB is charged with enforcing, private sector employees have an absolute right to resign union membership. This right is codified in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and was affirmed by landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as General Motors v. NLRB.

Federal law further spells out that neither employers nor union officials can compel private sector workers to participate in union activities or refrain from such activities.

According to Jacobs’ federal charge, which was filed on the last day of 2024, “the Union is presently threatening Charging Party and [other employees who resigned from the union] with termination if they fail to pay a $306 ‘reinstatement fee’ by January 2025.” The charge argues that the IAM union is violating Eaton employees’ rights under Section 7 of the NLRA, which safeguards employees’ “right to refrain from any or all of ” union activities.

According to the Business Journal, IAM officials’ letter demanding this payment was what prompted him to contact Foundation attorneys. “[I]f you do not remit the total sum indicated in the enclosed letter within 30 days from receipt of this letter, the Union will be required to seek your termination from employment,” the letter read.

“Instead of seeking to win Eaton employees’ voluntary support, IAM union officials have decided to effectively extort the workers they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “Threatening to terminate workers if they don’t pay a fee which is apparently intended to punish those who don’t want union bosses speaking for them tarnishes employee rights and freedom.

“While we’re confident that Foundation attorneys will help Mr. Jacobs prevail in beating this illegal scheme, this case shows what self-interested union bosses will do to demand fealty from workers, and why all American workers deserve the Right to Work freedom to cut off financial support for such union hierarchies,” Messenger added

12 3 ›»