30 May 2007

Over 300 Treasure Island Foods Employees Finally Allowed a Vote on Ousting Unpopular Union

Posted in News Releases

**Chicago, IL (May 30, 2007)** – After multiple attempts by United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Locals 881 and 1546 lawyers to block a decertification election, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 13 ruled that over 300 employees of Treasure Island Foods, Inc. at six local stores have a right to vote on whether to oust the unwanted union.

Treasure Island employees originally filed for a union decertification election in 2004, after UFCW officials ordered an unpopular boycott and fell out of favor with the vast majority of employees. Even though the employees’ petition was timely filed, UFCW Local 881 and 1546 officials thwarted it by filing a series of “blocking charges” at the NLRB against Treasure Island Foods for allegedly encouraging employee dissatisfaction with the union.

In 2005, after obtaining signatures from an overwhelming majority of employees at the grocery chain, Dan Schalin and his coworkers filed another decertification election petition at the NLRB. Threatened by the independent-minded employees’ petition, UFCW union officials continued to file multiple unfair labor practice charges against Treasure Island to block the election. UFCW union officials alleged that Treasure Island illegally sent letters to its employees encouraging them to file the petition, but an administrative law judge rejected that claim.

Finally, with help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation, Schalin and his coworkers requested that the petition for decertification be reinstated. Late last week, the NLRB Regional Director ruled in favor of their request, stating that Treasure Islands’ written letters never tainted the employees’ showing of interest in the petition.

“UFCW officials have thrown up every stumbling block possible over three years to block Treasure Island employees from exercising their free choice,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The hostility of the union hierarchy to workers’ interests shows why Illinois needs a Right to Work law that would make union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary.”

A decertification election, an NLRB-supervised secret ballot election to oust a union, is generally an uphill battle for workers to obtain, particularly because union lawyers are adept at gumming up the works by filing baseless charges that often block an election for years. Under the National Labor Relations Act, a decertification election gives employees the opportunity to cast a vote to remove the union as the “exclusive bargaining representative” in a workplace, but one can only be sought during narrowly proscribed periods every few years. If the Treasure Island employees vote to revoke the unwanted UFCW union’s “certification,” employees at all six stores in the Chicago area will become nonunion and free to negotiate over their own wages and working conditions.

Download the Employee’s Request for Review
Download the NLRB’s Order Reinstating the Decertification Petition

29 May 2007

Foundation Letter to the Wall Street Journal: State’s ‘Paycheck Protection’ Law Is Flawed

Posted in News Releases

*This letter to the editor originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal*

***State’s ‘Paycheck Protection’ Law Is Flawed***
**May 25, 2007; Page A13**

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and Washington Education Association (WEA) union officials certainly deserve criticism for their last-ditch effort to tamper with the pending *Davenport v. WEA* Supreme Court case. But your May 17 editorial «Paycheck Protection End Run» grossly inflated the impact of the underlying Washington law at issue in the case.

While well-meaning, Washington’s so-called «paycheck protection» law has not reduced the mandatory dues union officials collect from employees for political activism because it contains fundamental flaws. The law is merely a campaign finance regulation that governs a tiny percentage of union political activity at the state level, so union officials simply adjusted their accounting methods, tweaked their spending practices, and continued business as usual. In fact, analyses of the teachers union’s finances shortly after the «paycheck protection» law took effect showed that union officials spent 60% more dues money on politics. The spending has continued to increase ever since.

Fortunately, the pending Davenport case goes beyond simply defending this hollow law.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys brought Davenport on behalf of 4,000 nonunion teachers and are asking the high court to clarify that employees who resign from union membership are inherently «dissenters» against paying for union activities. This simple clarification would free one million nonunion workers in America of the union requirement to object affirmatively every single year — simply to reclaim hundreds of dollars deducted from their paychecks.

With their «emergency» amendment (which itself happens to be unconstitutional), Gov. Gregoire and her union benefactors hope to give the Supreme Court an excuse not to rule. But their concern is not that the «paycheck protection» law had ever drained the unions’ political coffers. Their real fear is a ruling that strengthens the First Amendment protections available to America’s employees forced to pay union dues.

Stefan Gleason
Vice President
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
Springfield, Va.

14 May 2007

Over 900 SFO Airport Security Screeners to Vote Whether to Eliminate Compulsory Union Dues from Workplace

Posted in News Releases

**San Francisco, CA (May 14, 2007)** — With help from the National Right to Work Foundation, over 900 airport security screeners at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) have successfully petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a deauthorization election to stop Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials from forcing employees to pay union dues as a job condition.

Led by Stephen Burke, a four and a half year employee of Covenant Airport Security at SFO, the workers are upset that SEIU officials became their monopoly bargaining agent — without a secret-ballot election but rather through a coercive “card check” campaign — and almost immediately ordered the security screeners to pay union dues within 30 days or be fired from their jobs.

Hundreds of SFO security screeners apparently object to the mandatory union dues requirement. Over 45 percent of Burke’s coworkers signed the deauthorization petition, far beyond the 30 percent necessary to trigger the NLRB supervised-election.

«Without the ability to withhold union dues, SFO screeners have virtually no leverage to keep union officials from continuing to act in their own self interest,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation, a charitable organization that is assisting the screeners in vindicating their rights.

If a majority of all employees in the bargaining unit vote in favor of deauthorization, union officials will be stripped of their special privilege to compel payment of compulsory dues. The requirement for an absolute majority, set by the National Labor Relations Act, is more difficult for employees to achieve than the standard for certifying a union, which requires only a majority of those voting.

SEIU officials had previously tried to block the employees from obtaining the deauthorization election by challenging signatures collected in opposition to the forced dues clause before it took effect. However, the NLRB in Washington, DC, recently rejected that challenge and ordered the election to proceed.

The election will take place by mail, with the NLRB sending out ballots on June 4, and the results being tallied on June 19. However, even if the deauthorization election succeeds, union officials will still be able to bar the screeners – even those that are not union members – from negotiating over their individual wages and working conditions.

Download the NLRB Order

10 May 2007

13 Former Giant Foods Employees Hit Union with Federal Charges for Unlawful Retaliatory Fines

Posted in News Releases

**Landover, MD (May 10, 2007)** – A group of 13 ex-employees of Giant Foods, Inc. filed federal charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against two Carpenter union affiliates for failing to inform the employees of their rights and fining them $2,500 each after working for a nonunion employer. The employees worked under union monopoly contracts for over 20 years without union officials informing them of their rights.

Led by Clark Bowling, all 13 are former metal workers at Giant’s Landover warehouse where they performed various jobs for the Mid-Atlantic area grocery chain. Attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation helped Bowling and his coworkers file the charges after officials from the Millwrights and Machinery Erectors Local 1548 and Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters (MARCC) unions told the employees they were required to be full union members. Union officials then levied retaliatory fines after the employees went to work for nonunion employers.

Union officials demanded that the workers join the Carpenter union affiliates despite failing to inform the employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and to withhold all forced dues except those spent on union monopoly bargaining.

After the Giant warehouse closed in August 2005, Bowling and his coworkers were unemployed for weeks before securing new employment. Upon learning the workers had chosen a nonunion employer, union officials imposed internal union disciplinary fines against the employees despite the fact that they were not voluntary members of the union.

“It’s despicable for union officials to drive workers towards the poor house, especially after they failed to protect their jobs from being eliminated,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “In states like Maryland, with no Right to Work law that makes payment of union dues strictly voluntary, union officials seem to have a tremendous sense of entitlement to workers’ wages.”

In the Foundation-won *Communication Workers of America v. Beck* decision in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees laboring under the National Labor Relations Act are entitled to resign from formal union membership and withhold forced dues for activities other than union monopoly bargaining such as union political activities and organizing. And only truly voluntary union members can be subjected to internal union discipline, such as fines.

9 May 2007

ESPN/ABC Cameraman Challenges Pervasive Entertainment Industry Practice of Illegally Forcing Daily-Hires into Union Ranks

Posted in News Releases

**Charlotte, NC (May 9, 2007)** – An ESPN television cameraman, occasionally employed as a “daily hire” for the Walt Disney Company (ABC), has filed federal charges against a union challenging the pervasive practice in the entertainment industry of forcing union membership on part-time and freelance independent contractors. The cameraman also alleges union officials unlawfully threatened to have him fired for refusing to pay thousands of dollars in compulsory union dues.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys helped Michael Duke filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after demands from National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) Local 31 officials that he join the union, pay a $2,905 “initiation fee,” pay back dues, and authorize union officials to automatically deduct union dues from future paychecks. If Duke refused, union officials stated in a February 20 letter that they would have him barred from working again for ABC.

The NLRB charges detail how NABET officials are illegally trying to force Duke into their dues-paying ranks. As a daily hire, Duke is not subject to compulsory union membership because he is never employed for thirty consecutive days, as required by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Yet the contract that NABET union officials reached with ABC is illegal on its face because it requires employees to pay forced dues after only 20 non-continuous days of employment in any year or 30 days within two consecutive calendar years – a standard that has no basis in federal labor law.

Despite being facially invalid, requirements of this nature are commonplace in the entertainment industry. Often union officials use threats of blacklisting such workers from future work to press them into paying union dues in violation of federal law.

“By maintaining this blatantly illegal forced unionism policy, NABET officials have been thumbing their noses at employee rights for years while extorting thousands of dollars in illegal union dues and bogus initiation fees,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Foundation attorneys intend to root out this pervasive practice in the entertainment industry.”

3 May 2007

Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Union for Illegal Firing of Catholic University Grounds Keeper

Posted in News Releases

**Washington, DC (May 3, 2007)** – Following unfair labor practice charges filed by Catholic University employee Jerry Evans, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to prosecute the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) for forcing Evans’ firing.

Evans, a grounds keeper/landscape technician at Catholic, originally filed charges against the union and the university in January 2007 with help from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Now, after investigating those charges, the NLRB Region 5 Director in Baltimore has issued a complaint against the union for initiating the illegal firing and violating Evans’ due process rights.

In early November 2006, union officials demanded that Evans pay a $100 “initiation fee” and then pay $259 in dues. When Evans did not immediately pay, IUOE union officials sent a letter to Catholic University demanding that Evans be terminated, despite the fact that union officials failed to notify him of his right to refrain from formal union membership and failed to provide an adequate breakdown of how they would be spending Evans’ forced dues.

In 1988, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys argued and won *Communication Workers of America v. Beck*, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees are entitled to resign or refrain from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities or organizing. The decision also requires union officials to provide employees with verified financial disclosure of union expenditures, so that employees can cut off the seizure of forced union dues used for such activities.

Despite the long-standing *Beck* ruling, union agents sent Catholic University a letter demanding that Evans be fired only a few days after they had demanded that he pay the unsubstantiated forced dues. Because of union officials’ illegal termination request, Evans has been out of work for nearly 5 months.

“Time and time again, union officials send workers to the poorhouse unless they fork over money to the union,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “It is sickening for union officials to threaten the livelihood of employees who refuse to toe the union line.”

In the wake of the NLRB charges, union officials backtracked and sent a letter to Catholic asking that Evans be rehired – presumably to limit the amount of back wages that union officials would be liable for due to the illegal firing. However, Evans is not yet back on the job, and the NLRB has set a hearing date for July 23 to prosecute the union.

Download the NLRB Complaint

2 May 2007

Acura Employees Hit Union with Federal Charges for Threatening Firings for Refusal to Pay Fines

Posted in News Releases

**Pleasanton, CA (May 2, 2007)** – Two employees of Acura of Pleasanton filed a new round of federal unfair labor practice charges today to protect themselves from repeated threats against their jobs and hundreds of dollars in unlawful retaliatory union fines.

Rachel Warner of Livermore and Marco Llamas of Modesto, both parts technicians at the auto dealership, filed the charges with help from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys against the International Union of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Local 1546. Warner and Llamas filed the charges after union officials threatened them with the fines and termination simply for exercising their limited legal rights to refrain from formal union membership. The employees filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which will now investigate and decide whether to prosecute the union.

Warner and Llamas detail in their charge how union officials sent letters threatening them with termination and the fines despite the fact that they are not bound by internal union rules as nonmembers. (Both letters are viewable at: www.nrtw.org/pdfs/warner-llamas.pdf)

Warner and Llamas also allege that the union has violated its so-called “duty of fair representation” through the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of the fines.

“Union officials are trampling the very rights of the employees they claim to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Such union abuse of employee rights is rampant in California because there is no Right to Work law which would prohibit forced unionism.”

Warner and Llamas filed similar unfair labor practice charges in early January, after union officials unlawfully rejected their letters resigning formal union membership, in violation of the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court *Communication Workers of America v. Beck* decision.

In the *Beck* decision, the High Court ruled that employees laboring under compulsory unionism contracts are entitled to resign from formal union membership and withhold forced dues for everything except the documented cost of monopoly bargaining. Such workers have the right to cut off the use of their forced dues by union officials for activities such as union political activities and organizing.

Download the threatening letters

1 May 2007

Hilton Employee Hits Recalcitrant Union with Federal Charges for Continued Misuse of Forced Union Dues

Posted in News Releases

**Honolulu, HI (May 1, 2007)** – With help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Grant Suzuki, an employee at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, filed federal charges after union officials failed to provide proper financial expenditures disclosure – an employee’s right to safeguard his forced union dues against political use.

Suzuki, an electrician for Hilton (NYSE: HLT), sent his annual objection to the collection of his forced dues for politics to UNITE-HERE union officials in November 2006. In his letter, Suzuki also reiterated his request for a legally mandated financial disclosure of the union’s expenditures. Because union officials never responded to Suzuki’s request and failed to produce any financial records disclosing the use of his forced dues, Foundation attorneys filed unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

“In states like Hawaii were there is no Right to Work law making union affiliation strictly voluntary, union officials expect employees to shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “UNITE-HERE union officials are undermining the rights of the very employees they claim to represent.”

In the Foundation-won *Communications Workers v. Beck* case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees are entitled to resign from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activity or organizing. The precedent also requires union officials to provide employees with verified financial disclosure of union expenditures, so that employees can intelligently decide to cut off the seizure of their forced union dues for such activities.

Hilton employees who have refrained from formal union membership have been subject to the UNITE-HERE union officials’ monopoly bargaining agreement in the past, which included a compulsory unionism clause requiring the employees to pay into strike funds for strikes in unrelated industries. After Suzuki filed unfair labor practice charges in 2006 for his coworkers, the NLRB agreed to prosecute UNITE-HERE union officials for violating workers’ rights.

In July 2006, Suzuki’s charge forced UNITE-HERE union officials to ink a settlement agreement that prohibited the use of employees’ forced union dues for strikes outside the immediate geographical area. Suzuki also forced UNITE-HERE union officials to post notices in the hotel notifying workers of their legal rights, and to create a separate fund from nonmembers to be used only on strikes in hotel bargaining units in Hawaii. Today, Suzuki is still appealing that settlement to end the collection of all forced dues for strikes, regardless of location.

25 Apr 2007

Safeway Employee Hits Butte-Based UFCW Union with Federal Charges for Illegal Threats and Dues Seizures

Posted in News Releases

**Butte, MT (April 25, 2007)** – A local employee of Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) filed federal charges against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 4 union to protect himself and his coworkers from illegal seizures of forced union dues from their paychecks.

Gerald Rasmussen, a meatcutter at the Polson Safeway, filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with help from attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The charges cite that UFCW Local 4 union officials are attempting to enforce a compulsory unionism clause requiring employees to join or pay dues to the union or be fired from their jobs, despite a formal employee election recently stripping them of their forced unionism privileges.

All 34 Safeway employees participated in the NLRB-supervised deauthorization election – a secret ballot vote that gives employees the right to eliminate the compulsory dues clause from a monopoly bargaining contract. However, emboldened by the fact the Montana is not yet a Right to Work state, UFCW Local 4 union officials are challenging the election results and continue to claim that Rasmussen and his coworkers must join or pay dues to the union or they could be fired.

After learning of his right to resign from formal union membership from sources independent of UFCW Local 4, Rasmussen and other employees sent letters to union officials resigning from formal union membership.

In response, UFCW union officials rejected the employees’ requests and invented their own bogus and illegal rules, claiming that the grocery employees’ letters were unacceptable because they were not notarized, they were not sent by certified mail in separate envelopes, and were not accompanied by copies of the NLRB decisions and Supreme Court rulings. Additionally, union officials never provided any of the legally-mandated financial disclosure statements to the Safeway employees.

“Union officials have demanded that these employees shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “In states like Montana where there is no Right to Work law to ensure that payment of union dues is strictly voluntary, union officials commonly trample the rights of employees to keep their coffers

In 1988, Foundation attorneys argued and won Communication Workers of America v. Beck, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees are entitled to resign from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activity or organizing. The decision also requires union officials to provide employees with verified financial disclosure of union expenditures, so that employees can cut off the seizure of forced union dues used for such activities.

24 Apr 2007

SEIU Union Must Abandon “Card Check” Union Organizing Drives in Pacific Northwest After Finding of Rampant Abuse of Employees’ R

Posted in News Releases

**Portland, OR (April 24, 2007)** – In a symbolic victory for employee free choice, a group of workers aided by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have forced Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49 to abandon the coercive “card check” union organizing process in Oregon and Washington for six months because of repeated and widespread abuses by SEIU officials.

Card check union organizing strips workers of the limited protections of a government-supervised secret ballot election, and substitutes a process in which union agents can browbeat workers one-on-one into signing cards that are then counted as “votes” favoring unionization.

The settlement stems from federal unfair labor practice charges filed by Ryan Canney, a Portland-area Siltronics employee, and removes the unwanted union from his workplace Somers Building Maintenance –Siltronic (SBM). It also requires SEIU union officials to inform workers that the company will not bargain with union officials unless the employees so choose through a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) secret ballot election. The settlement also forbids Siltronics from recognizing a union based on a card check count for at least one year.

In October 2006, SEIU Local 49 union officials allegedly tricked Canney and his coworkers into signing “information flyers” that were later counted as votes favoring unionization. Soon after, SBM recognized the SEIU union as the monopoly bargaining agent despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of SBM employees signed two separate petitions to the NLRB – one prior to the SEIU union’s recognition and one after – stating their wish to remain nonunion. Canney also charged that Siltronics overlooked out of date cards, promised benefits, and otherwise deceived and coerced employees into supporting unionization.

“The NLRB has now recognized that SEIU union officials can’t be trusted with card check. Local 49 officials have become notorious for abusing workers’ rights during organizing drives,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “However, if abusive card check organizing becomes the law of the land, workers will suffer abuse at the hands of union organizers on a massive scale.”

Currently, Congress is considering legislation that would mandate card check as the only legal method by which unions could be recognized as representatives of all employees in bargaining units.

Canney’s settlement follows a similar settlement by Karen Mayhew, a Foundation-assisted employee of Kaiser Permanente. Although Mayhew’s settlement successfully removed the unwanted Local 49 union from her workplace, SEIU officials continued abusing employee rights using the card check scheme at other employers in Oregon and Washington State.

Read the NLRB Settlement