Paramedic Files Appeal after NLRB Disregards Illegal Union Retaliation
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2020 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Appeal to NLRB General Counsel comes just months after Region 14 was reversed in similar case
Paramedic Jarod Aubuchon is appealing his case against Teamsters officials after they punished him for informing his coworkers of their rights to resign union membership and pay reduced dues.
St. LOUIS, MO – Jarod Aubuchon, a St. Louis-area paramedic who charged Teamsters Local 610 union officials with illegal retaliation after he tried to inform his coworkers of their right to pay reduced union dues, is filing an appeal in his case to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel in Washington, D.C. He is represented free of charge by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Aubuchon’s appeal comes after the October 2019 dismissal of his case by NLRB Region 14 officials in St. Louis. Region 14 was reversed by the NLRB General Counsel in a similar union retaliation case this summer, which was also brought by Foundation staff attorneys.
Union Officials Vow Punishments after Worker Posted Rights Notices
Aubuchon discovered the right of private sector workers under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision to resign union membership and pay a reduced portion of union dues. Because Missouri is not a Right to Work state, private sector workers can still be compelled to pay part of union dues as a condition of employment.
Beck, won by Foundation staff attorneys in 1988, guarantees that employees who are not union members can only be required to pay fees to a union for expenses that are directly germane to bargaining, such as contract administration.
Armed with this new knowledge, Aubuchon posted flyers in common areas of his workplace informing his coworkers of their Beck rights. According to his charge, Teamsters agents responded by tearing down these notices and later demanding that his employer, Medic One, discipline him for the postings. Actions by union officials that cause an employer to discriminate against workers on such grounds are prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Aubuchon resigned his own union membership and asserted his Beck rights. Aubuchon’s charge states that neither his resignation nor his Beck rights have been acknowledged by Teamsters bosses, and full dues are still being seized from his paychecks.
Employee Appeals to NLRB General Counsel with Free Foundation Legal Aid
After NLRB Region 14 officials rejected his case, Aubuchon petitioned the NLRB General Counsel to overturn the decision and order remedies for the retaliation he experienced from Teamsters officials.
“They spend union money on political activism without consideration of its members,” Aubuchon said of Teamsters officials to the St. Louis Record after his appeal was filed. “We have a right to not have our money used in that manner and in the end I hope employees are better educated on their rights and how to exercise them.”
In July 2019, the General Counsel reversed Region 14 officials’ dismissal of a similar case brought by Foundation staff attorneys for Kansas City-area hospital worker Kacy Warner. Warner charged officials of the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) union with illegally interfering with a petition she was circulating for a vote to remove the union. That included tearing down flyers she had hung in bathrooms and other common areas in her workplace informing employees of the petition. In her case the NLRB General Counsel reversed Region 14’s dismissal and ordered region officials to prosecute the charge.
Region 14 officials were also overturned by the full Labor Board in October 2019 after the Region dismissed a petition for a vote to remove the union from St. Elmo, Illinois-based ConAgra Foods worker Robert Gentry’s workplace. United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union bosses had attempted multiple times to stop workers at the plant from exercising the right to vote out the union.
“The NLRB is charged with enforcing workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act, yet there is a disturbing pattern of Region 14 failing to enforce the rights of rank-and-file workers when doing so advances the interests of union bosses,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “It should not take an appeal to Washington, D.C., for workers to have their rights fully protected against union boss abuses.”
Foundation Winning Protections Against Forced Unionism at Trump NLRB
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2019 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Series of victories adds protections against illegal forced dues, being trapped in union ranks
Staff attorney Glenn Taubman testified before Congress in July that existing NLRB rules wrongly favor union bosses over workers.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a series of recent victories, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in favor of workers challenging coercive union official practices, with free legal aid provided by the National Right to Work Foundation. The rulings are a stark departure from the Obama NLRB, which regularly stymied the rights of independent-minded employees opposed to associating with union bosses.
Foundation Wins Appeals in Dues Checkoff Cases
In separate cases brought by Foundation staff attorneys for Kacy Warner, a hospital worker, and Shelby Krocker, a Kroger grocery employee, the NLRB General Counsel ruled for the workers and ordered Regional Directors to prosecute union officials’ actions related to language in union dues checkoff forms.
The General Counsel’s decision to sustain Warner’s appeal concerning the checkoff authorized even more additions to the charges, saying the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) union violated the NLRA by “maintaining confusing and ambiguous dual-purpose authorization forms that unlawfully restrained employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights.”
The General Counsel noted that the union’s forms failed to tell workers they can revoke authorizations for dues deductions after the union’s contract expires, failed to give workers adequate time to revoke authorizations, unlawfully required workers to use certified mail to send revocation requests, and failed to give “any indication to employees that payroll deduction authorization is voluntary.”
This came just a week after the General Counsel sustained another Foundation-led appeal for Krocker, who charged United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials with illegally forcing her to sign a dues checkoff authorization. In both cases, the NLRB General Counsel authorized even more charges against union officials for misleading and confusing language regarding union dues deductions.
NLRB Regions Instructed to Prosecute Beck Violations
Also in July, the NLRB Division of Advice and General Counsel instructed regional directors to issue complaints against unions when union officials fail to inform employees of the amount of reduced union fees they can pay by objecting under the Communication Workers of America v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The memos instruct NLRB Regional Directors to more stringently enforce workers’ Beck rights which protect workers from being forced to fund nonchargeable union activities such as union political activities. A memo issued to the Director of NLRB Region 32 read in part that “it is difficult for an employee to make an informed decision about whether to become a Beck objector without knowing the amount of savings that would result from the decision.”
“The Foundation is proud to have represented the California employee whose charge against the UFCW resulted in this Advice Memo, as well as necessitating this heightened disclosure standard by winning the Beck decision at the Supreme Court and the Penrod decision at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,” National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse said. Foundation staff attorneys are currently litigating several additional cases to secure and expand workers’ protections under Beck.
Ruling Aids Workers Trapped in Union Ranks They Oppose
In another Foundation victory for independent-minded workers in July, the NLRB issued a decision that limits union officials’ ability to game the NLRB system to trap workers in monopoly union ranks. The ruling allows employers to withdraw recognition from a union when a majority of its workers sign statements opposing unionization.
Foundation staff attorneys represented two workers, Brenda Lynch and Anna Marie Grant, who spearheaded the collection of signatures from a majority of workers opposed to union representation. Their employer complied with their wishes and sent the union bosses packing. After United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials sought to foist the union back onto the workers despite their clear opposition, Foundation staff attorneys persuaded the NLRB to uphold the UAW’s ouster.
“Instead of union lawyers playing legal games for months or even years to block the removal of a union that lacks majority support, the Board majority takes the common sense approach of asking union officials to prove their claim of support in a secret ballot vote of the workers,” said LaJeunesse.
