Puerto Rico Union Bosses Try to Dodge Consequences of Janus Lawsuit
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.
Worker still battling scofflaw union officials who tried to saddle him with restraining order
PRASA employee Reynaldo Cruz didn’t back down after UIA union officials tried to foist a specious restraining order on him. He isn’t backing down in the face of UIA union officials’ Janus violations either.
SAN JUAN, PR – When Reynaldo Cruz, an employee of the Puerto Rican Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), made a Facebook post referring to a chapter president of the Authentic Independent Union of Water and Sewer Authority Employees (UIA) as “lazy,” the chapter president tried to hit him with a restraining order.
“A UIA union official targeted me with a restraining order for daring to speak out against the union, which is my free speech right,” commented Cruz. “That’s ridiculous coming
from union officials who claim to ‘represent’ me and my coworkers.”
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in October 2023 defeated the UIA official’s specious argument that the court should issue a restraining order against Cruz because he
would have had to “stalk” him to know of his laziness. But Cruz’s battle against the UIA union is far from over.
District Court Refuses to Crack Down on Obvious Janus Violations
Cruz is currently challenging a decision by the District Court of Puerto Rico in his years-long case to reclaim dues money that UIA union officials took unconstitutionally from his paycheck.
The District Court made the puzzling move of dismissing Cruz’s suit as “moot” after UIA officials deposited money due to Cruz with the Clerk of the District Court of Puerto Rico. In his motion to alter and amend the judgment, Cruz argues that because the court has not decided any of his underlying claims or entered a judgment in his favor, he has no entitlement to and cannot seek or obtain that money. Cruz is also appealing the District Court’s dismissal of his suit to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, MA.
“Until the Court enters a declaratory judgment for Cruz, Cruz’s injury-in-fact will persist because Cruz has not received monetary relief and the Court has not entered judgment for Cruz entitling him to the UIA deposit,” Cruz’s motion reads.
Cruz argues in his suit that various provisions of the Puerto Rico Labor Relations Act, which UIA union bosses relied upon to take money from his paycheck, violate the First Amendment. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME case that public employees have a First Amendment right to opt-out of dues payments to
an unwanted union, and that public employees must waive this right before any dues are deducted from their paychecks.
Cruz’s Janus lawsuit began in 2017, after UIA officials responded to his request to end his union membership and stop dues payments by telling him that he could only cut ties with the union if he left his current job. In addition to naming the UIA, Cruz’s lawsuit also names the Governor of Puerto Rico in his official capacity as Cruz is also challenging the constitutionality of Puerto Rico’s laws authorizing mandatory dues and so-called “maintenance of membership” agreements.
The Janus case was decided as Cruz’s case was ongoing. The Justices definitively ruled that requiring public sector employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment violates their First Amendment free association rights.
The Puerto Rico District Court issued its ruling on October 17, 2023. In addition to not entering a judgment for Cruz deciding his entitlement to the unconstitutionally seized money, the Court also didn’t reach a conclusion on the constitutionality of the Puerto Rico law authorizing mandatory dues payment and membership, nor did it require the UIA union to abandon anti-Janus contract provisions.
Union Bosses Must Be Made to Comply with Janus
“The ruling in Mr. Cruz’s case poses serious issues for public employees across Puerto Rico and across the country,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “If allowed to stand, it creates a precedent in which workers get no relief when union bosses seize money unconstitutionally from their hard-earned pay, and in which laws that authorize such illegal dues deductions are allowed to stand despite Janus unambiguously prohibiting them.
“Foundation staff attorneys will continue to fight for Mr. Cruz until his rights are vindicated and he gets a judgment awarding him the money he is constitutionally entitled to,” Semmens added.
Federal Lawsuit Hits Guards Union of America for Illegally Forcing DC-Based Security Guard to Pay for Union Politics
Union officials provided contradictory information on amount a guard must pay the union to keep a job
Washington, DC (April 19, 2024) – Rosa Crawley, a DC-based security guard employed by Master Security, has just hit the International Guards Union of America (IGUA) Local 160 with a federal lawsuit, which maintains that full union dues, including dues for union political activities, are being illegally deducted from her paycheck. Crawley filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Crawley, who with her coworkers provides security services to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Nebraska Avenue Complex,” seeks to enforce her rights under the 1988 Right to Work Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision. The Court held in Beck that union officials cannot force workers who have abstained from union membership to pay union dues or fees for any expenses not directly germane to contract negotiations. Nonmember workers who exercise their Beck rights are also entitled to an independent audit of the union’s finances and a breakdown of how union officials spend forced contributions.
Beck rights are only relevant in non-Right to Work jurisdictions like the District of Columbia, where union officials have the legal prvivilege to force private sector workers to pay dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. In jurisdictions that have Right to Work protections, like neighboring Virginia, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
“I shouldn’t have to pay for the IGUA union’s political activity just so I can continue to do my job,” commented Crawley. “Union officials have a legal obligation to stop charging me for politics and provide me with an accounting of how they are using my money, and so far they have done neither. This isn’t how they should treat the workers they say they ‘represent.’”
Union Officials Haven’t Revealed How They Spend Worker Money
According to the suit, Crawley sent a letter to union officials resigning her union membership back in July 2023. Instead of immediately providing her with her Beck rights, union officials informed her that she would be charged a so-called “agency fee” which “is the same exact cost as what the union members pay.”
“So there will be absolutely no change in a financial sense,” the union’s reply letter stated.
Not satisfied with that explanation, Crawley in September 2023 formally invoked her Beck rights and asked union officials to reduce her dues payments in accordance with the decision. She also asked them to “provide [her] with an accounting, by an independent certified public accountant, that justifies Local 160’s calculation of its agency [forced] fee,” according to her lawsuit. In an October 2023 reply to her Beck request, union officials used a confusing percentage averaging calculation to determine a fee amount that contradicted what they told Crawley when she resigned her membership. An independent audit of the union’s finances was nowhere to be found.
Crawley’s lawsuit recounts that, since October 2023, union officials have made her reiterate her request for an accounting, pay an initiation fee equal to the initiation fee paid by full members, and “[have] collected and [continue] to collect from Crawley amounts equal to full union dues.”
“Federal labor law’s default position is that union officials are empowered to demand workers’ hard-earned money as a condition of employment. This is problematic because there are any number of reasons workers may not want to support the union, including religious, political, or financial reasons,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While the Beck decision provides important protections, a Right to Work environment is ultimately better because workers are completely free to decide whether or not union officials deserve any of their hard-earned money.”
Jewish MIT Graduate Students Slam BDS-Linked Union with Federal Discrimination Charges
Students assert their rights under Civil Rights Act by requesting religious exemptions from funding union, but union officials continue to demand dues payments
Boston, MA (March 21, 2024) – Graduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have filed federal discrimination charges against the United Electrical Workers (UE) and MIT Graduate Students Union (GSU), stating that union officials have illegally denied their requests for religious accommodations to the forced payment of union dues. The students submitted their charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The students, William Sussman, Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky, and Adina Bechhofer, are Jewish and conduct various research activities for professors at MIT. For example, Sussman is earning his PhD in Computer Science at MIT. He is also President of MIT Graduate Hillel, is a member of the MIT Israel Alliance, and has family in Israel.
The university students object to the union’s anti-Semitic advocacy, including the union’s endorsement of the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement. Each of the EEOC charges state that the union is “discriminating against me based on a failure to accommodate my religious beliefs and cultural heritage” and “discriminating against me based on national origin, race, cultural heritage & identity.”
The students sent individual letters asserting their religious objections to supporting the union and asserting their rights to religious accommodations, but union officials brazenly rejected each request and continue to demand dues from the students.
Union officials’ form letter denying the students’ requested religious accommodations explained Judaism to these Jewish students, callously claiming “no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.” The union also attempted to justify its position on the grounds that a founder of GSU’s parent union was himself Jewish.
“Jewish graduate students are a minority. We cannot remove our union, and we cannot talk them out of their antisemitic position — we’ve tried,” said Sussman. “That is why many of us asked for a religious accommodation. But instead of respecting our rights, the union told me they understand my faith better than I do.”
Religious Accommodations Are Required Under Title VII
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections, union officials in the private sector (which includes private educational institutions like MIT) generally have the power to compel those under their monopoly bargaining power to pay union dues or fees. However, as per Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, religious accommodations to payment of dues or fees must be provided to those with sincere religious objections.
For decades, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have successfully represented religious objectors in cases opposing forced dues. While religious accommodations in these cases have varied, all of them forbid union bosses from demanding the worker pay any more money to the union.
If the EEOC finds merit to the students’ charges of discrimination, the agency will either take legal action against the union itself, or will issue a “right to sue” letter to the students, which will entitle them to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the union in federal court. Because MIT has a contract with this union and is also involved in enforcing the union’s dues demands on the students, Foundation attorneys sent a letter to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, notifying her of the EEOC charges and warning that the university will face similar charges if it does not promptly remedy the situation. MIT is already under fire in Congress and elsewhere due to its treatment of Jewish students in the face of widespread harassment.
Jewish Grad Student Already Won Federal Labor Board Case Against GSU Union Related to Dues
Sussman already dealt a blow against GSU officials in late February, when he forced union officials to settle federal charges he filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concerning the union’s dues demands. In those charges, Sussman invoked his right under the Right to Work Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which prevents union officials from forcing those under their control to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s core bargaining functions.
While the settlement required GSU union officials to send an email to all students under their control stating that they would now follow Beck, Sussman and his fellow students’ current EEOC case seeks to cut off all financial support to the union, as is their right under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“GSU union officials appear blinded by their political agenda and their desire to extract forced dues,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Their idea of ‘representation’ apparently includes forcing Jewish graduate students to pay money to a union the students believe has relentlessly denigrated their religious and cultural identity, all during a time when anti-Semitism is ripping across our nation and world.
“GSU union bosses’ refusal to grant these students religious accommodations is as illegal as it is unconscionable, and Foundation attorneys will fight for their freedom from this tyrannical union hierarchy,” Mix added.
Albany Starbucks Employees Seek Vote to Kick Out SBWU Union
“This isn’t what we signed up for” says NY worker who joins Starbucks partners across the country in demanding union ousters
Albany, NY (March 1, 2024) – A partner of the Stuyvesant Plaza Starbucks in Albany has filed a petition with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 3, asking the federal agency to hold a vote at her workplace to remove (or “decertify”) the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union. The employee, Rayghan Dowey, received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in submitting her petition.
“This isn’t what we signed up for, a new team has started to come in [to the Stuyvesant Plaza Starbucks] and we want to make sure that the voice that was once heard is still being heard two years later,” commented Dowey regarding the union. “We want to bring the inclusivity, community, and culture back. The culture we once had, that we were promised to get back, we never got to see.”
Dowey’s petition contains signatures from enough coworkers at her store to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. Because New York lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, SBWU union bosses can enter into contracts that compel Dowey and her coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials in a unionized workplace are empowered by federal law to impose a union contract on all employees in a work unit, including those who oppose the union. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of that power.
Amid Growing Requests to Remove SBWU, Starbucks Workers Also Challenge NLRB Authority
Dowey and her colleagues join Starbucks partners and other coffee company employees across the country in banding together to vote out SBWU union officials. In the past year, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; two Buffalo, NY locations; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; Greenville, SC; Oklahoma City, OK; San Antonio, TX; and Philadelphia, PA, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in filing or defending decertification petitions at the NLRB. Foundation attorneys have helped employees at independent Philadelphia coffee shops Good Karma Café and Ultimo Coffee successfully oust Workers United union officials, who are affiliated with SBWU.
Many employees of Starbucks or other coffee establishments are requesting decertification votes from the NLRB roughly one year after union bosses attained power in their workplaces, which is the earliest opportunity afforded by federal law to do so. Starbucks employees in particular were the targets of a multi-year, aggressive unionization campaign by SBWU, in which the union spent millions on paid union agents – including “salts” who obtained jobs at Starbucks locations with the covert mission of installing union power.
However, rather than respect the choice of workers opposed to the union, SBWU union officials are attempting to prevent Starbucks workers nationwide from exercising their right to decertify the union with charges against Starbucks management that are currently holding up the elections. Currently, Foundation staff attorneys are representing workers in about a dozen Starbucks stores seeking decertification votes.
NLRB Request for Review: Region Violating Starbucks Workers’ Rights by Blocking Vote
In fact, Foundation attorneys just filed a request for review with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC, for Indya Fiessinger, a Starbucks employee at a Salt Lake City-area location who filed a petition for a decertification vote. The brief argues an NLRB Regional Director incorrectly applied federal law to block the decertification election requested by the workers at the store, and refused to even hold a hearing on the matter.
Foundation attorneys are also representing Buffalo, NY, and San Antonio, TX, Starbucks workers in challenging the NLRB as an unconstitutionally-structured federal agency. In two federal lawsuits now at the district court level, Starbucks employees argue that NLRB bureaucrats’ removal protections shield them from accountability in violation of separation of powers doctrines in the Constitution.
“Despite the wave of Starbucks workers who want to exercise their right to free themselves from unwanted union representation, SBWU union officials are twisting the law to trap workers under the union’s influence against their will,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Federal labor law should protect workers who want to exercise their free choice rights, not power-hungry union bosses, and Foundation attorneys are proud to represent Ms. Dowey and other Starbucks workers who oppose SBWU officials’ coercive reign.”
Brooklyn Electrical Workers Win Year-Long Legal Battle to Remove Unwanted Union from Workplace
After Horsepower Electric employees voted to remove IUJAT union, Labor Board refused to count ballots for months based on empty union charges of misconduct
New York, NY (January 10, 2024) – Following a year-long legal battle, Brooklyn-based Horsepower Electric employee Shloime Spira and his colleagues are finally free of unwanted IUJAT (International Union of Journeymen and Allied Trades) representation. IUJAT union officials worked with the NLRB to manipulate the legal process with unproven claims against Horsepower Electric management to avoid the results of the workers’ union decertification vote. However, union officials have now chosen to renounce their so-called “representation” of the unit instead of facing a likely losing vote tally.
Spira received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in defending his coworkers’ right under federal law to remove the union, both before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York. On December 31, 2023, IUJAT union officials’ “disclaimer of interest” became effective, and the union is no longer in the workplace. As a result, a federal case to demand the NLRB stop delaying the decertification effort has been voluntarily dismissed as moot.
“While my colleagues and I are pleased with this result, it’s simply ridiculous that the NLRB sat on our ballots for so long over union charges that were apparently meritless,” Spira commented. “The NLRB is supposed to protect employees’ right to choose whether or not they want a union, not delay that process indefinitely to maintain union officials’ power.”
NLRB Bureaucrats Sat On Case to Delay Counting Worker Votes, Necessitating Lawsuit
Spira first submitted a petition to the NLRB seeking an employee vote to remove the union in December 2022. Under NLRB rules, a petition requesting a union decertification vote must contain the signatures of at least 30 percent of the employees in a work unit to trigger a vote, a threshold which Spira’s petition met. The election took place in March 2023, but the NLRB ruled that the ballots could not be tallied because it had issued a complaint against Horsepower Electric based on allegations of employer misconduct (or “blocking charges”) filed by IUJAT union officials.
Union “blocking charges” contain claims of employer misconduct that are usually unverified and often have no connection to employees’ desire to vote out the union. NLRB officials inexplicably refused to hold a hearing or otherwise advance the “blocking charge” case for months, effectively using it as a pretense for delaying the vote count.
This delay meant Spira and his colleagues were trapped under the power of IUJAT union bosses without knowing the results of their vote. Because New York lacks Right to Work protections that make union affiliation and financial support strictly voluntary, IUJAT union bosses continued to collect forced dues from the workers, paid under threat of termination, while the vote count was indefinitely delayed.
No Witnesses Could Back Up Union’s Allegations Meant to Stymie Election
Pressure increased on the NLRB after the agency faced a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York alleging due process violations. To defend his and his coworkers’ right to have their votes counted, Spira joined Horsepower Electric’s suit in the District Court and also intervened in the NLRB case to challenge the “blocking charges.”
Faced with this threat of federal litigation, including a “show cause” order from the judge in the federal case against the NLRB, Board officials finally moved forward on the NLRB “blocking charge” case and scheduled a hearing to take place on December 5, 2023. This was nearly a year after Spira had requested the vote to remove the union.
Spira’s legal team traveled to New York to defend his rights against the union’s allegations in the NLRB case. Minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin before an NLRB Administrative Law Judge, NLRB lawyers conceded they could produce no witnesses to testify in favor of the union’s charges against Horsepower Electric. Soon after, the NLRB formally dropped its complaint against Horsepower Electric, thus clearing the way for the ballots to be counted.
Finally, on December 12, 2023, IUJAT union officials issued a disclaimer of interest effectively announcing they were departing the workplace. This was presumably done to avoid a vote count the union figured it would lose. The NLRB case ended on January 2, 2024, and the District Court declared the federal case dismissed on January 5, 2024.
“That union officials were so easily able to manipulate NLRB processes to block Mr. Spira and his colleagues from exercising their basic right to choose whether they want union representation shows that the agency is desperately in need of reform,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It is outrageous that it took a federal court case to force the NLRB to admit that it had no evidence to back up union officials’ allegations that were being used to trap workers in a union they opposed.”
“Worker free choice is supposed to be the center of the National Labor Relations Act, but as this case shows, too often the Board has contorted the law into a shield to insulate union bosses from workers’ choices,” added Mix. “The Biden Labor Board is taking this bias to more and more extreme levels every day, granting union officials sweeping new powers to coerce workers into union ranks, while systematically undermining the rights of workers opposed to union affiliation.”
Buena Park Medieval Times Employees Request Vote to Banish AGVA Union Bosses from Castle
Performer’s petition contains support from majority of employees at Buena Park location; National Labor Relations Board will now review
Los Angeles, CA (November 27, 2023) – Michelle Dean, a performer at dinner theater concept Medieval Times’ Buena Park location, today filed a petition at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requesting a vote to remove American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA) union officials from power at her workplace. Her petition, which she filed with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, contains the signatures of a majority of her fellow performers at the “castle.”
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. Under NLRB rules, a union decertification petition must contain the signatures of 30 percent or more of the employees at a workplace to trigger a decertification election. If a majority of employees vote against the union, it is removed from the workplace.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, AGVA union bosses have the power to enter into contracts with Medieval Times management that force Dean and her coworkers to pay union dues or fees just to keep their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work states like neighboring Nevada and Arizona, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
However, in both non-Right to Work states and Right to Work states, union bosses have the power over the work conditions of every employee in a unionized workplace, including those who don’t support or voted against the union. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of that monopoly bargaining power.
AGVA Officials Abruptly End Strike Order Just Ahead of Decertification Effort
Just last week, AGVA union officials unconditionally called off a long-running strike order at the Buena Park Medieval Times, meaning a number of employees will return to work after being ordered off the job for roughly nine months. Protracted and divisive strike orders are often a factor workers cite as reasons to send union officials packing.
The performers at the Buena Park Medieval Times are the second group of Medieval Times workers that Foundation staff attorneys are aiding in removing the AGVA union. Lyndhurst, NJ, Medieval Times employee Artemesia Morley submitted a decertification petition earlier this year that also contained signatures from a majority of her coworkers, but NLRB Region 22 in Newark, NJ, blocked the petition based on unproven charges of misconduct AGVA made against Medieval Times management. Foundation attorneys are now defending Morley’s petition before the NLRB in Washington, DC; Morley’s Request for Review notes that AGVA union officials were “secretive, self-interested, and divisive,” and “regularly advocated that the [Medieval Times] employees go on strike, something that had no support among the unit employees.”
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the AGVA union’s reign over Medieval Times performers resembles a ruthless tyrant more interested in promoting union bosses’ power than what is best for rank-and-file employees,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “If AGVA union bosses really do have the support they claim they do among Medieval Times employees, they should simply let them exercise their right to vote as opposed to engaging in legal maneuvers to stop it from happening.”
NJ Medieval Times Employees Appeal to National Labor Relations Board in Ongoing Joust with Union Officials
Majority of Lyndhurst Medieval Times cast members signed petition asking Labor Board for election to remove union, but union is stalling vote
Newark, NJ (September 21, 2023) – Artemisia Morley, a cast member at the Lyndhurst, NJ, location of Medieval Times, has submitted a Request for Review to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., defending her and her coworkers’ right to vote unwanted officials of the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA) union out of the workplace. Morley is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Morley’s Request for Review challenges NLRB Region 22’s hurried dismissal of a petition she filed on behalf of her coworkers seeking an election to remove the AGVA union (also known as a “decertification election”). Her petition contained the signatures of a strong majority of her coworkers, but the Regional Director dismissed it “without any hearing, and without citing any evidence that there was a ‘causal nexus’ between the Employees’ disaffection from the Union” and unproven allegations that union officials had levied against the employer.
Because New Jersey lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, AGVA union officials have the power to force Morley and her coworkers to pay union fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In contrast, in states with Right to Work laws, union bosses can’t enter agreements with employers that force employees to fork over a portion of their paychecks to the union just to get or keep a job.
“Secretive” and “Self-Interested” AGVA Union Officials Tried to Stifle Worker-Requested Vote
The Request for Review notes that AGVA union officials were “secretive, self-interested, and divisive,” and “regularly advocated that the [Medieval Times] employees go on strike, something that had no support among the unit employees.” After waiting out the statutory one-year bar on union elections that follows a union’s certification, Morley filed the petition requesting a union decertification vote.
According to the Request for Review, instead of processing the petition as NLRB rules dictate, NLRB Region 22 issued a complaint against the employer and dismissed Morley’s petition based on unproven “blocking charges” AGVA union officials filed against Medieval Times management. The Request for Review argues that the hasty dismissal violated NLRB election rules, the Administrative Procedure Act, and well-established NLRB precedent requiring a hearing to demonstrate whether union allegations of employer misconduct actually caused employee discontent with the union.
“None of the alleged unfair labor practice allegations…concern the Employees’ collection of the decertification signatures or the Employer’s domination of the Union. Thus…an election should be held and the votes immediately counted,” the Request for Review contends. “Even if the Board determined the allegations warranted consideration under [NLRB rules], its plain terms prohibit dismissing a petition prior to an election.”
Case May Be Used to Push Radical Agenda of Biden-Appointed NLRB General Counsel
In 2020, the NLRB adopted Foundation-backed reforms that made it less difficult for workers to eliminate an unwanted union. One reform pared back union officials’ ability to use “blocking charges” to stop worker-requested decertification elections from happening. The reform instead created a process in which charges surrounding an election are litigated after employees have gotten to exercise their right to vote. Instead of applying this rule, NLRB Region 22 dismissed Morley and her coworkers’ requested election.
The Request for Review notes that NLRB Region 22’s complaint, which incorporated AGVA union officials’ unproven allegations against the employer, does not appear designed to help workers “but rather to twist the law and facts beyond recognition in order to aid the current [NLRB] General Counsel’s ideological crusade to overturn decades of settled Board law about bargaining obligations and employer free speech.” Biden-appointed NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a former union lawyer, has thrown her weight behind other recent cases to uproot longstanding NLRB precedent, often to give more power to union bosses at the expense of workers’ freedom.
“Aided by regional NLRB officials, AGVA union officials seem determined to send the individual rights of Medieval Times workers back to the Dark Ages,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “NLRB election rules clearly forbid union officials from using completely unproven charges of employer misconduct to derail workers’ ability to have a vote on whether they want continued union representation.”
“Federal labor law is supposed to protect the fundamental right of workers to freely decide who will speak for them in workplace matters, and Foundation staff attorneys will fight for Morley and her coworkers as AGVA bosses try to turn this commonsense principle on its head,” Mix added.
Employee Advocate Blasts Fourth Circuit Decision Giving ILA Union Power to Force Out Nonunion Workers at Charleston’s Leatherman Terminal
National Right to Work Foundation offers free legal aid to union-free workers whose jobs are threatened as the result of Biden NLRB ruling
Washington, DC (July 28, 2023) – The National Right to Work Foundation today blasted the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision in South Carolina Ports Authority v. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The decision upheld an NLRB reversal of an Administrative Law Judge’s ruling that the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) union’s actions violated federal law.
By embracing the Biden NLRB’s nearly limitless definition of “work preservation,” the Court of Appeals decision has greenlighted the ILA union’s scheme to sue any carrier that attempts to utilize Charleston, SC’s Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal until the union gains control of every job at the port.
Foundation President Mark Mix issued the following statement criticizing the ruling:
“By accepting the NLRB’s contorted definition of ‘work preservation’ to allow ILA union officials to gain control over port jobs that have never been under union control, the 2-1 Fourth Circuit decision has put the jobs of hundreds of union-free South Carolina state employees at Charleston’s Leatherman Terminal on the chopping block. It is outrageous that these jobs, created with the investment of over $1 billion in South Carolina taxpayer dollars, will now be handed over to ILA union bosses to protect their monopoly on port jobs that stretches from Texas to Maine.
“The South Carolina state port workers at Leatherman Terminal, whose jobs are under attack because of this decision, should reach out to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid so they can explore their full legal options to defend their jobs and work opportunities.”
Union’s Aggressive Pursuit of Monopoly Power Will Lead to Hundreds Losing Their Jobs
In South Carolina Ports Authority v. NLRB, the Port Authority is challenging the Biden NLRB’s ruling (now affirmed by the Fourth Circuit’s split decision) that approved the ILA’s gambit to gain control of the Leatherman Terminal’s crane lift equipment jobs. That work is currently performed by state employees free from the union’s control, and those state employees have performed this work for the Port Authority for many years.
The Foundation, a nonprofit legal organization that provides free legal aid to employees facing compulsory unionism abuses, submitted a legal brief in the case in April, noting that “the inevitable result of the National Labor Relations Board’s erroneous 2-1 decision will be devastating to Charleston, South Carolina port workers who have chosen to work as non-union employees for the State of South Carolina or its Port Authority.”
The brief spelled out the consequences of the ILA union’s maneuver for Leatherman’s 270 state employees, who are protected by state law from monopoly union control. It explains that South Carolina spent over $1 billion to develop the terminal, but because of the ILA’s aggressive attempts to enforce its alleged monopoly at the port, “the only way for South Carolina’s $1 billion Leatherman Terminal to be usable would be for the State to turn the facility over to a private employer with an ILA contract and discharge the 270 State employees.”
The devastating effects for current employees wouldn’t stop there if the ILA is victorious in the case, the brief argued. The brief pointed out that, even if fired state workers were to seek new employment at Leatherman with a private contractor under the union’s control, the ILA would prioritize those workers far below existing union members because of union seniority provisions and hiring hall referral rules.
As the brief noted, the ILA union has an extensive history of exploitation. The New York Daily News reported in 2022 that ILA chiefs negotiated deals by which mob-linked longshoremen in the New York/New Jersey area could get paid for 27 hours of “work” per day. The ILA hierarchy organized such arrangements while trying to shut down ports like Leatherman which allow both unionized and union-free workers to work side-by-side.
San Diego Gompers Preparatory Academy Charter School Educators Vote Out SDEA Union
Gompers teachers sought to remove union as early as 2019, but union bosses stymied last attempt with unproven allegations and pressure from elected officials
San Diego, CA (June 8, 2023) – Teachers at Gompers Preparatory Academy, a public charter school in the Chollas View neighborhood of San Diego, have successfully voted to remove San Diego Education Association (SDEA) union bosses from the school. The educators received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
While Gompers teachers have been seeking to exercise their right to free themselves from the SDEA union’s control as early as 2019, the current effort began in March 2023 after a majority of Gompers educators signed a petition asking the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to hold an employee vote on whether to oust the union (known as a “union decertification vote”). After collecting ballots from Gompers educators from May 10 to June 6, PERB yesterday announced a majority of teachers voted to remove the union.
Union Tactics Delayed Earlier Efforts to Vote Out Unwanted Union
The initial union decertification effort took place not long after SDEA officials gained power at the school in January 2019 via “card check,” a process that bypasses the traditional secret-ballot vote system to install a union. Gompers made an impressive transition to being a union-free charter school in 2005 after years of being plagued by unresponsive union bureaucracies, violence, and poor academic achievement, so many teachers and parents viewed the reinstallation of union monopoly power at the school with suspicion. Some accused SDEA agents of actively sowing division at the school, including by supporting anti-charter school legislation and needlessly disparaging the school’s leadership.
Gompers teachers’ first effort to eliminate the SDEA union stemmed from an October 2019 petition that had the backing of the requisite number of teachers to prompt the PERB to hold a decertification vote. However, SDEA union bosses attempted to avert the election by filing so-called “blocking charges” containing allegations of employer misconduct.
Union officials often manipulate “blocking charges” at the PERB and other state and federal labor relations agencies to stifle worker attempts to eliminate unpopular union “representation.” Despite the PERB never holding a hearing into whether SDEA union bosses’ claims had any merit or whether they were related to the workers’ dissatisfaction with the union, PERB officials denied a decertification election to Gompers educators in October 2020.
Foundation attorneys’ case defending the first petition to remove SDEA union agents from the school also sought to overturn PERB Regulation 32752, which requires PERB agents and attorneys to accept union bosses’ “blocking charge” allegations as true – a stipulation almost guaranteeing union defeat of any worker attempt to vote a union out.
“I chose to work at a school that didn’t have a union and now they’ve come in and they’re running everything about my contract and my work,” Kristie Chiscano, then a Gompers chemistry teacher and proponent of the decertification effort, said at the time.
Union Agents Targeted Teachers Who Led Effort to Vote Out Union
Even worse, shortly after the PERB’s ruling halting the original decertification effort, Chiscano and another Gompers educator filed charges maintaining that SDEA agents targeted them on social media for opposing the union hierarchy. California law makes it illegal for union officials to intimidate or retaliate against employees who exercise their right to refrain from union membership.
Union boss-aligned state legislators even chimed in to pressure Gompers management to give in to union demands. In a letter to Gompers management, then-Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (now an AFL-CIO president) attacked the National Right to Work Foundation for simply providing legal aid to Gompers educators as they sought to exercise their right to hold a decertification election. Gonzalez was best known during her tenure for authoring AB5, a California law that drastically reduced opportunities for freelance workers and independent contractors across the state.
Teachers’ Union Decertification Efforts Expose Massive Power of California Public Sector Unions
Gompers educators submitted the March 2023 petition at the earliest time permitted by California labor regulations, which immunize union officials from employee-led decertification efforts for all but a tiny window while union contracts are active. Now, nearly four years after their original effort began, Gompers educators have finally voted to free themselves from union control. Gompers teachers and Foundation attorneys are still prepared to fight any objections the union files in an attempt to throw out the result.
“Gompers educators witnessed that SDEA union officials were not acting in the best interests of the students or the school community at large, and fought courageously for years to bring back the independent environment that made Gompers a success,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While we at the Foundation are proud to have helped them win the fight, the hardship these teachers faced just to vote out a union they disapproved of should raise serious questions about union officials’ privileges under California law.”
“Gompers teachers endured years of legal roadblocks just to exercise their rights, and that’s to say nothing of the retaliation they faced from union officials and even pressure from union-label policymakers,” Mix added. “No special interest group in California, or in America, should wield this kind of power over teachers and the public education system.”
