Electric Utility Worker Asks Trump NLRB to Prosecute IBEW’s Restrictive Policies That Compel Workers to Fund Union Politics
Electric utility worker asks NLRB General Counsel to seek Board ruling against union policies that force nonmembers to fund union political spending
Benson, MN (September 23, 2025) – Theresa Klassen, an employee of Agralite Electric Cooperative, is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to expedite consideration of Big Labor schemes that force workers to pay dues for union political activities. Klassen has filed an appeal with the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel, asking him to issue a complaint in her case after an NLRB Regional Director let International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union officials off the hook for violating her rights. Klassen is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Klassen originally filed charges against both the IBEW international union and IBEW Local 160 to defend her rights under Communications Workers of America v. Beck. In this Foundation-won landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Court ruled that union officials cannot force workers who abstain from membership to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s monopoly bargaining functions – including politics.
Even though Klassen successfully resigned her union membership, union bosses continued to demand full dues payments from her – including dues for union political expenditures. When she invoked her Beck rights with assistance from Foundation staff attorneys, union bosses then claimed that she could only opt out of dues payments for politics within a narrow 30-day “window period” each year in the month of November.
Brief: IBEW Union Clearly Violating National Labor Relations Act
Klassen’s appeal argues that it would violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) “for a union to demand payment for any dues beyond what Section 8(a)(3) requires unless that employee affirmatively consented to pay full union dues.” Under the Beck decision, Section 8(a)(3) only permits union bosses to demand dues for union expenses that are directly related to bargaining.
Now, Klassen is asking the NLRB to uphold this interpretation and end all opt-out requirements, so that union officials must obtain explicit permission from employees to take payments for non-bargaining-related functions, including union political and lobbying activities.
Klassen is also asking the NLRB to end window period practices for becoming Beck objectors, as they similarly violate the NLRA by preventing workers from exercising their rights. Window period restrictions on when employees can exercise their Beck rights allow union officials to extract money from workers after they’ve already objected to financially supporting union political activities.
“The IBEW should be respecting my rights, not throwing up roadblocks so they can continue to use my paycheck dollars to fund their own agenda,” said Klassen. “The NLRB needs to recognize that union officials are violating the law; otherwise, these rights are not rights at all.”
Union Officials Use Restrictive Policies to Consolidate Power
Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, IBEW union officials can impose contracts that force Klassen and her coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs, though this amount is limited by the Beck decision. In contrast, in Minnesota’s neighboring Right to Work states, union officials cannot force workers to pay any dues or fees just to keep their jobs.
“Free association is a right of every American, including workers who don’t want to associate with a union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s telling that IBEW officials are using a legally suspect policy to make it needlessly difficult for workers to stop supporting the union’s political activities.
“While the NLRB General Counsel should urge the agency to address these illicit schemes swiftly, ultimately Minnesotans and all Americans deserve Right to Work protections, which would make all union financial support strictly voluntary,” Mix added.
Minnesota Electric Utility Employee Challenges IBEW Nationwide Policy Coercing Worker Contributions to Union’s Political Activity
Worker charges union with blocking her right under CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision to end payments for union politics
Benson, MN (April 8, 2025) – An employee of Agralite Electric Cooperative, an electric utility company in Western Minnesota, has just filed federal charges against the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union, challenging nationwide restrictions union officials impose on workers who wish to cut off financial support for union political activities. The worker, Theresa Klassen, filed charges against both the IBEW international union and IBEW Local 160 at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 18 in Minneapolis. Klassen is represented for free by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law and adjudicating disputes between employers, union officials, and individual employees. In her charges, Klassen is defending her rights under the landmark Foundation-won Communications Workers of America (CWA) v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which forbids union officials from forcing workers who have refrained from formal union membership to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s monopoly bargaining functions. Union political expenditures are one expense employees can opt out of paying by invoking their Beck rights.
Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, IBEW union officials can impose contracts that force Klassen and her coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. However, nonmember workers like Klassen can object to paying full dues and instead pay a reduced amount under Beck. In contrast, in Right to Work states like all of Minnesota’s neighbors, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
“It’s disappointing that IBEW union officials can legally force me to fork over even a little bit of my paycheck to them after I resigned my membership, but refusing to pay for union politics is my right and the IBEW isn’t respecting it,” commented Klassen. “They’ve put a bunch of time limitations on when I can exercise this right, and are also requiring me to contact union bosses in Washington, D.C. who I have never met just to prevent my money from going toward union politicking I oppose. This is wrong.”
Filings: IBEW Officials Illegally Rebuffed Worker Twice After Receiving Requests to Stop Funneling Money to Union Politics
Klassen’s charges state that she first contacted her local union to resign her union membership in October 2024. While Local 160 union officials acknowledged her resignation letter, they claimed that the IBEW’s national policy is to “not allow nonmembers automatic Beck objector status,” and for that reason she would need to send a letter to the union’s international headquarters to opt out of paying for union politics. Local 160’s reply also stated that Beck objections would only be accepted during “window periods” of time comprising only 8-16% of the year, according to her charges.
Klassen’s charges also state that she sent a Beck objection letter to the IBEW international headquarters again in February 2025. IBEW union agents rejected this request as well, alleging that Klassen’s request fell outside the arbitrary time restrictions set by the union. Klassen is charging both IBEW Local 160 and the IBEW international union with enforcing these illicit limits on her Beck rights.
Window period restrictions on when employees can exercise their Beck rights allow union officials to extract money from workers who have already objected to financially supporting union activities. The creation of window periods is not authorized or otherwise mentioned in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal labor law governing the private sector. Foundation attorneys are assisting multiple AT&T workers in Florida battle a similar scheme concocted by CWA officials.
“That IBEW union bosses are enforcing a nationwide policy making it needlessly difficult to stop supporting the union’s political activities should tell workers exactly what the union’s priorities are,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While Beck rights are an important protection for workers in non-Right to Work states, no American worker should be forced to subsidize any union activities that they disagree with, whether political or not.”
Second AT&T BellSouth Worker Hits CWA Union With Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Worker Money
Employee challenges coercive union tactic of restricting when workers can cut off union financial support
Miami, FL (March 17, 2025) – Amanda Marc, an employee of AT&T BellSouth Communications, has filed federal charges against the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and its local affiliates, maintaining that CWA union officials are imposing illegal restrictions on her and her coworkers’ right to opt out of union dues payments. Marc filed her charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practices and administering votes to install or remove unions in workplaces. Marc’s charges challenge the CWA union’s use of “window period” restrictions to limit to just ten days per year the time in which workers can demand that dues deductions cease from their paychecks. Window periods are widely used by union officials as a way to keep money flowing from dissenting workers towards the union’s agenda, and Marc’s charges seek a ruling that this practice is unlawful under federal labor law.
Marc’s charges contend that while federal labor law permits dues deduction authorization documents to be irrevocable for one year after employees initially sign them, any further window periods or other restrictions on workers’ legally-protected right to cut off dues after that period has elapsed violate the National Labor Relations Act:
“It is unlawful to have any window period for revocations after the first year of the payroll deduction authorization form. [Federal labor law] does not contain any reference to ‘window periods’…The unions have no statutory license to create tricky and arbitrary ‘window periods’ to force unwilling employees to keep paying dues.”
Because Marc and her 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 ostensibly trying to cabin 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 completely free a worker from union payments.
AT&T Worker Joins Colleague in Revealing Blatantly Illegal CWA Dues Deduction Practices
Marc’s charges state that she and many of her coworkers resigned their union memberships in August 2024, which was around when CWA union officials ordered AT&T BellSouth workers out on a strike. Despite Marc’s requests to end union membership and stop financial support for the union, the charges read, CWA agents never responded to either demand, and never even informed Marc of the window period dates in which they would consider her requests valid.
In addition to challenging the use of window periods as a whole, Marc’s charges point out several other unlawful aspects of CWA bosses’ union dues collection scheme, including a requirement that dues revocation requests be made “by individual letters sent by certified mail only.” CWA union bosses also failed to inform employees that, by law, they have an opportunity to opt out of union dues deductions on the anniversary date of when they signed the dues checkoff and aren’t just restricted to the arbitrary window period imposed by the union.
Marc’s filing comes just days after Foundation attorneys submitted federal charges against CWA union bosses on behalf of another AT&T BellSouth worker, Sofia Hernaiz. Hernaiz declares in her charges that CWA union officials tried to subject her to internal discipline for not participating in the August 2024 strike, even though she had resigned her union membership beforehand and by law can’t be subject to such proceedings. Similar to Marc, Hernaiz also details that CWA union officials did not acknowledge her attempt to cut off dues deductions to the union, nor informed her of what the union’s window period restrictions were.
“Ms. Marc, in standing up for her and her coworkers’ freedom to stop subsidizing unwanted CWA union officials, is also mounting an unprecedented challenge to the ‘window period’ gambit. This scheme has been manipulated by union officials across the country to yank financial support out of unwilling workers for far too long,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Forthcoming NLRB Trump appointees should use cases like this to rule that such practices that serve only to enrich union boss hierarchies are unlawful.
“It is time to reorient the Board’s mission toward defending the individual right of every American worker to associate or dissociate with a union as he or she pleases,” added Mix. “For too long, NLRB officials have rigged federal law to enhance union boss power at the expense of the rights and freedoms of the very workers the Act purports to protect.”
Foundation Wins Settlement in Case Challenging CWA Union Scheme to Block New Mexico State Employees from Exercising Janus Rights
Union officials to pay back more than $16,000 illegally seized from workers’ paychecks and remove union-imposed restrictions on cutting off dues payments
Albuquerque, N.M. (October 21, 2019) — National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys have won a settlement in a case to protect New Mexico state employees’ rights as recognized in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision last year.
As the result of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union, CWA union officials will refund thousands of dollars taken from state employees and eliminate a union policy that blocked workers from opting out of paying dues. The settlement agreement, executed last Thursday, resolved the class-action lawsuit filed in December by New Mexico Department of Information Technology (DoIT) employee David McCutcheon against CWA union Local 7076 and New Mexico’s State Personnel Director Pamela D. Coleman.
As part of the settlement, the union officials will remove the union-created “escape period” which limited when workers could revoke their dues authorization. The union will also pay back fully, plus interest, all dues taken from McCutcheon and others who had attempted to exercise their First Amendment rights under Janus, but were blocked from doing so because of the “escape period” restrictions.
“Local 7076 and CWA will not enter into any [union contract] with the State of New Mexico that restricts to a yearly window period the time when a bargaining unit member may revoke a previously authorized dues deduction authorization,” the settlement reads.
All told, CWA union officials will refund more than $15,000 taken from 67 state employees, plus an additional $1,000 paid to McCutcheon for dues taken before Janus. The settlement became final today when District Court Judge Martha Vazquez approved a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
McCutcheon works as an IT technician at New Mexico’s DoIT and was forced to pay union dues as a member before the Janus ruling last summer. After the Foundation-won victory, McCutcheon attempted to end the dues payments only to be told he could only do so during a brief two-week period in December.
Public sector union bosses across the country have attempted to enforce such schemes to block workers from exercising their Janus rights, resulting in over a dozen cases brought with National Right to Work Foundation legal aid. In addition to McCutcheon’s lawsuit, union officials in Minnesota, Ohio and California have also rescinded such policies rather than litigate against Foundation staff attorneys in federal court.
“Respecting workers’ Janus rights is not optional, it’s the law. Public sector workers’ First Amendment rights cannot be limited to just a few days a year,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “These union boss created ‘window periods’ clearly infringe on workers’ rights and are being struck down in lawsuits coast-to-coast brought with Foundation legal aid.”
Ventura County Professor Files Class Action Lawsuit Challenging Union “Window Period” Scheme to Unlawfully Seize Dues
Union officials violate hundreds of public workers’ constitutional rights under the Supreme Court’s Janus decision by deducting unauthorized forced dues
Los Angeles, CA (January 15, 2019) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, a math professor from Ventura Country, California, is challenging an illegal “window period” scheme to forcibly seize union membership dues from his paycheck without his consent and in violation of his constitutional rights.
Plaintiff Michael McCain filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against the American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Ventura County Federation of College Teachers, AFT Local 1828, AFL-CIO; and Ventura County Community College School District.
A public employee who works for the Ventura County Community College School District, plaintiff Michael McCain attempted to exercise his First Amendment rights by resigning his union membership following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME, a case Foundation attorneys argued and won.
The High Court ruled on June 27, 2018, that union bosses may not forcibly seize dues from public sector workers. Instead, government employees must knowingly waive their First Amendment right not to subsidize a union and affirmatively authorize deductions before union officials can collect membership dues or fees.
However, AFT union officials never informed McCain of his First Amendment rights, making it impossible for him to have waived them. Union officials continue seizing membership dues from McCain’s hard-earned wages, even after McCain resigned his union membership and made it clear in a letter sent to the union just weeks after the Janus decision that he does not consent to dues deductions. Union officials claim that McCain can only cut off dues deductions during a union-created 15-day “window period” each year.
McCain’s class action lawsuit asks the court to strike down this unlawful “window period” scheme and order union officials to stop deducting unauthorized dues. His complaint also seeks a refund of membership dues that were wrongfully taken from him and hundreds, if not thousands, of other public employees.
“Union officials have a long history of manipulating ‘window period’ schemes, arbitrary union-enacted limitations trapping workers into forced dues, and other obstacles designed to block individuals from exercising their constitutional rights,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Despite what union bosses say, First Amendments rights cannot be limited to just 15 days out of the year.”
“The Supreme Court affirmed the rights of public workers in the Foundation’s victory in Janus, but Michael’s case shows union bosses are determined to defy the High Court and continue their abusive practices,” Mix added.
