**Washington, DC (June 27, 2006)** — With free legal help from the National Right to Work Foundation, a WTTG-TV (Fox 5) producer filed federal charges against the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) union after its officials threatened to have her fired for refusal to support the union. The union brass violated the producer’s rights by making these threats while failing to inform her and her coworkers of their right to refrain from formal union membership and payment of certain dues.

The Fox 5 production employee filed the class-action charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after AFTRA officials failed to provide her and her coworkers with a legally-mandated audit of the union’s expenditures, demanded that they pay union initiation fees, and insisted that she sign a dues “check off” card authorizing the automatic deduction of forced dues from her paycheck.

However, union officials unlawfully failed first to notify the employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and withhold forced dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities.

After she refused to pay, the union hierarchy – by letter dated April 17, 2006 – unlawfully threatened her that “without tender of initiation and dues, you may not be employed in AFTRA’s jurisdiction.”

“Union officials are unlawfully retaliating against employees for refusing to toe the union line,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These heavy-handed tactics demonstrate how far union officials will go to keep a steady stream of forced union dues flowing into union coffers.”

Under numerous U.S. Supreme Court precedents, including Patternmakers v. NLRB, workers have the right to resign their formal union memberships at any time.

AFTRA union officials’ actions also violated employees’ rights affirmed in the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Communications Workers v. Beck. Under Beck, union officials may not compel workers to pay forced union dues for costs unrelated to collective bargaining, and must specifically inform employees of their right to refrain from full dues-paying union membership before seizing any forced union dues from their paychecks.

*This letter to the editor originally appeared in The Olympian*

**Union should have given back money**

The Washington Federation of State Employees union’s spin doctor Tim Welch lied to The Olympian when he claimed that the state workers represented by the National Right to Work Foundation attorneys «settled for a tiny fraction of what they asked for.»

Perhaps higher-ups at the WFSE realized this, because the false statement was quietly removed from the union’s Web site less than a day after it was posted. The state workers settled their suit against the union only because it had been rendered moot by its own success, and WFSE officials were embarrassed into correcting every single violation of constitutional rights addressed in the suit.

Although victorious on every count, there was only so much that could be accomplished by the foundation’s lawsuit. The real lesson here is that until Washington passes a Right to Work law that would make union membership and dues payment strictly optional, union bosses will continue to bully employees into joining the union – and seek further firings.

Union officials should have given back the estimated $10 million in dues seized under their admittedly illegal threats, because it would have been the right thing to do.

Adding insult to injury, state workers are forced to pay the salary of union officials like Welch, who spews his disdain for employees’ constitutional rights to the press.

Justin Hakes
Legal Information Director
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

**Los Angeles, CA (June 23, 2006)** — With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, hundreds of University of California employees across the state won a major settlement agreement from the University Professional and Technical Employees union, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Local 9119 union. Under the agreement, CWA union officials agreed to stop violating nonmembers’ rights by illegally seizing forced union dues from their paychecks without due process.

The settlement brings to a close a protracted legal battle in which over 200 University of California research professionals, technical employees, and healthcare professionals filed hundreds of individual unfair labor practice charges at all three of the state’s Public Employment Relations Board regional offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento – and also resolves another 200 employees’ challenges filed with an independent arbitrator.

The employees filed the charges and challenges after the CWA union hierarchy unlawfully deducted forced union dues from their paychecks without proper procedural protections to prevent the monies’ use for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities.

After Foundation attorneys agreed to represent the employees, CWA union officials quickly buckled and inked a settlement agreement under which they agree to end their unlawful practices and honor the constitutional rights of nonmember employees. Consequently, the union hierarchy is forced to refund all of the more than 400 nonmembers’ agency fees paid or deducted between July 1, 2004 and June 30, 2005, plus interest – an amount estimated to exceed $175,000.

“This victory is an incremental yet important step toward limiting the power of union officials to shake down workers for political contributions,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “As long as California workers labor under a system of compulsory unionism, however, such abuses will inevitably continue.”

The actions of CWA union officials violated First Amendment protections articulated in the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision in Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson. Under Hudson, union officials must disclose an independent audit of their expenses – justifying the lawfulness of the disbursements charged to nonmembers – before seizing any forced union dues from employees who choose to refrain from formal union membership.

*This letter to the editor originally appeared in the Detroit News.*

Dear Editor,

In a recent self-congratulatory piece, Teamsters chief James Hoffa proclaimed «Unions practice democracy,» yet he and other union officials strongly oppose workers exercising individual free choice («Spreading democracy empowers unions,» June 9).

Not only do Hoffa and the Teamsters hierarchy detest right-to-work laws, which make union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary, but they also impose union affiliation on workers in states where right-to-work protections exist.

This week in Las Vegas, Teamsters officials will hold a training rally called «Organizing to Dominate Industries.» The goal is to train union organizers in more «in your face» organizing tactics that further undermine employee free choice.

Chief among these are «card check» drives, under which union officials strong-arm employers into handing over employees’ personal information, and workers are subjected to menacing home visits until they sign cards that count as «votes» in support of unionization. A call to arms in a flier touting the training event urges: «The time has come to deploy our army to achieve Teamster dominance.»

With such militancy, it’s no wonder that droves of workers have mounted legal challenges to these abusive organizing drives with help from the National Right to Work Foundation, as union organizers have targeted many workers with bribery, stalking, and threats during them.

Rather than give us his happy talk about union democracy, Hoffa could start by ensuring that workers are given a free choice when deciding whether to join. Employees might actually be interested if union officials instead focused their energies on improving the product they’re selling.

Justin Hakes

Director of Legal Information
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
Springfield, Va.

**Lexington, KY (June 22, 2006)** – Seven nonunion Lexington fire fighters filed a federal civil rights lawsuit today to stop International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 526 union officials from violating the First Amendment by illegally confiscating forced union dues from their paychecks without due process.

The suit, filed by the fire fighters in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, also names Lexington Mayor Teresa Isaac, and other top city officials, for signing and enforcing an agreement with the union that resulted in the unconstitutional acts.

The firefighters are asking the court to enjoin IAFF officials from seizing forced dues from any nonunion employee “represented” by Local 526 until they provide the legally required notice and procedures. The suit also seeks restitution for the nonunion firefighters, including refunds of all forced dues seized since the collective bargaining agreement went into effect in June 2005.

This civil rights suit comes on the heels of a similar federal civil rights suit by nonunion fire fighters in Cincinnati. There, a judge – citing the likelihood of the nonunion fire fighters’ legal success – recently issued a temporary restraining order halting the illegal dues seizures by IAFF union officials.

“IAFF union officials are trampling the basic constitutional rights of the very firefighters whose interests they claim to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These cases demonstrate the need for Right to Work protections in Kentucky, Ohio, and other forced-unionism states that would make union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary.»

The workers allege that IAFF Local 526 union officials seized the forced union dues without first providing the financial disclosure and procedures required by long-standing U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must first provide an independent audited disclosure of the union’s expenses. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities.

The suit also challenges an illegal “indemnification clause” in the contract in which the IAFF union Local 526 agrees to bear any expense or liability that the city faces resulting from its deduction of forced dues. Such clauses are designed to encourage city officials to ignore the constitutional rights of nonunion employees and to aid union officials in collecting such illegal forced dues. Some courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over Kentucky, have stuck these agreements down as void against public policy.

**Columbus, OH (June 20, 2006)** — Following a related and unprecedented Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a determination against the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA) union for illegal retaliation against a worker who objects to union affiliation on religious grounds.

Agreeing with National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the EEOC found that OCSEA union officials’ retaliatory suit against Glen Greenwood – a 28-year Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) employee – demanding that he repay the union for all raises and employment benefits he received for the past quarter century was unlawful retaliation for his complaint against the union requesting religious accommodation.

The EEOC found the retaliation to be so severe that it could seek up to $300,000 in punitive damages and ask the state to grant Greenwood a promotion.

An earlier charge, also filed for Greenwood with free legal assistance from the Foundation, had already led to a finding by the EEOC that the OCSEA union and the OEPA were guilty of religious discrimination. Despite the EEOC finding, the state’s agencies and the OCSEA union have maintained their practice of denying religious objections to the payment of forced union dues from employees who are not members of certain state-approved churches.

As a devout Presbyterian, Greenwood believes that supporting the OCSEA union violates his sincerely held religious beliefs because of the union’s support for abortion on demand and special rights for homosexuals.

Previously, recognizing a pattern and practice of civil rights infringement, the DOJ filed an unprecedented lawsuit in federal court against the State of Ohio and several state agencies in September 2005 for systemic religious discrimination. The DOJ suit – filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio – names the State of Ohio, the OEPA, the Ohio State Employment Relations Board, the OCSEA union, and the Ohio Department of Administrative Services as defendants.

“This determination from the EEOC and the unprecedented involvement by the DOJ in a case of this nature demonstrates the seriousness of the abuse that Ohio employees face when objecting to union affiliation on religious grounds,” stated National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason.

The actions of OCSEA union officials and the aforementioned state agencies violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Under Title VII, an employee may not be forced to financially support a union if doing so violates his or her sincerely held religious beliefs. To avoid the conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to attempt to accommodate the employee – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to accept the funds.

Washington, DC (June 16, 2006) — With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a group of 15 United Airlines (UAL) employees filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) union today for discriminating against nonunion pilots. According to the complaint, the ALPA union hierarchy purposefully and illegally failed to inform nonunion employees of their right to sell future United stock shares issued during the airline’s bankruptcy reorganization plan.

The workers filed the class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for all nonmember United pilots – a number estimated to exceed 200.

The airline and ALPA union officials agreed that, prior to the issuance of the new United stock upon its emergence from bankruptcy, each pilot would have the option to sell their future right to receive the stock. Any pilot could exercise that option by authorizing ALPA union officials to sell his or her interest in the claim for the highest price achievable in the market.

As a result of this agreement, employees who participated in the auction profited from the new United stock at a substantially greater amount than what the shares could be sold for when subsequently distributed.

But ALPA union officials informed only union members – not nonmembers – of this option to participate in the auction. Information regarding the option to sell future stock, and the forms required to participate in the auction, were secluded to a remote “members only” portion of the union’s website accessible only with a password not given to nonmembers.

“The ALPA union hierarchy deliberately and unlawfully misled nonmembers in an attempt to retaliate against them for refusing formal union membership,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union officials wanted to send a message to all employees that they had better toe the union line.”

Employees who are not formal members of the ALPA union are still forced to accept the terms of the union’s monopoly bargaining contract and all of its provisions regarding salary, benefits, seniority, and pensions. Under the Railway Labor Act, it is unlawful for employees to negotiate their own, more-favorable contracts with their employer. The Act also stipulates that the ALPA union owes nonmembers in the bargaining unit a so-called “duty of fair representation,” which supposedly prevents union officials from acting against the interests of those refraining from formal union membership.

The United pilots’ lawsuit seeks an order declaring that the ALPA union breached its duty of fair representation, as well as damages for each employee equal to the share difference between the auction sales price for the claims and the actual trade price of the stock at the time it was issued, plus interest.

**Washington, DC (June 14, 2006)** — Responding to a 6-3 Washington State Supreme Court ruling striking down a state law requirement that union officials obtain the prior consent of nonunion public employees before spending mandatory union dues for politics, the National Right to Work Foundation filed an appeal yesterday with the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

Foundation attorneys – working jointly with Steven O’Ban of Ellis, Li, and McKinstry of Seattle – originally filed the suit, *Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA)*, for more than 4,000 Washington teachers who are not union members, but nonetheless forced to pay union dues or fees. Thurston County Superior Court Judge Daniel Berschauer ruled that the teachers had an implied right of action under Initiative-134 to recover the fees the WEA had used – without their authorization – for political purposes. The trial court also certified the case as a class action for the thousands of nonmember teachers.

But a long-awaited ruling in Davenport by the State Supreme Court in mid-March upheld an appellate court’s decision to overturn the trial court – thereby striking down the last remaining union dues provisions in I-134, Washington’s troubled “paycheck protection” law.

The State Supreme Court’s ruling directly conflicts with a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, noted Justice Richard B. Sanders’ three-member dissent. Justice Sanders said: “The majority turns the First Amendment on its head. . . . [T]he suggestion that a legislative choice to protect dissenting nonmembers by requiring affirmative authorization before using their agency shop fees to influence an election . . . violates the First Amendment . . . ‘borders on the frivolous.’”

Though the Foundation believes the decision is wrongheaded, the ruling brings into focus how difficult the paycheck protection regulatory approach is, and how ineffective it has been in protecting employees laboring under forced unionism. Even if the Supreme Court had reinstated the Thurston County court’s rulings, I-134 would still only result in individual refunds of $10 per year, on average. Substantially greater relief is available to teachers under a settlement of a First Amendment lawsuit brought earlier by Foundation attorneys. Under that settlement, nonmember teachers may annually object and reclaim more than $200 each. Ultimately, however, only the passage of a Right to Work law in Washington would ensure that union dues are not misused.

“The real solution is to attack forced unionism at its root, rather than try to regulate its ill effects,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The Foundation has no choice but to help mop up the damage to the First Amendment being caused by courts responding to these ‘paycheck protection’ laws.”

Regarding «Union wants ‘fair share’ on dues» (June 7): There is nothing fair about forcing any American to pay dues to a union just to get or keep a job.

If the American Federation of Teachers union hierarchy gets its way, school employees who already voted against formal union membership would be forced to fork over a total of $2 million each year in forced union dues.

Union officials spend vast sums of these forced dues on causes that many teachers find offensive. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, AFT union officials handed more than $15.7 million of its members’ dues to partisan political organizations in 2004.

While Supreme Court precedents won by the National Right to Work Foundation allow nonunion workers to withhold forced dues not spent on collective bargaining activities, union officials commonly abuse these rights.

The Missouri Legislature is considering a Right to Work bill that would outlaw forced unionism altogether. Until this law is enacted, union officials’ bullying of teachers and other employees will continue virtually unabated.

Patrick Ashby | Springfield, Va.

Spokesman, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

This Letter to the Editor originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

**Olympia, WA (June 6, 2006)** – After union officials realized that they had no choice but to cease their illegal activity, a group of ten Washington State employees agreed today to settle a statewide federal class-action civil rights lawsuit challenging employee firings and union dues seizures in violation of due process protections.

The workers’ lawsuit embarrassed Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) union officials into asking the state to rehire the employees terminated at union officials’ behest, and the union hierarchy agreed to remedy their other violations of workers’ First Amendment rights. Because the union agreed to end all illegal behavior listed in the employees’ complaint, the employees, represented by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, have agreed to settle the case with the WFSE.

“These workers have won the battle, but not the war,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “While an important victory, the fact that the law of the Ninth Circuit does not go the further step of forcing union officials to return the $10 million seized under their admittedly unlawful threats further underscores how vulnerable employees are without the protection of a state Right to Work law. A Right to Work law would make union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary.”

In May 2005, WFSE union officials sent a mailing to state employees informing them that they would be fired if they refused to pay union dues. But this notice failed to provide certain constitutionally-required safeguards of employees’ rights to ensure they are not forced to pay for more than the cost of collective bargaining. These safeguards include a verification or audit of union expenditures, as well as an explanation for the basis of the portions of the workers’ fees claimed to be chargeable. WFSE union officials also unlawfully required employees who wish to object to funding political and other non-collective bargaining activities to sign automatic payroll deduction forms.

The state workers charged that the seizure of forced dues by WFSE union officials without due process is a violation of their constitutional rights articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foundation-won *Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson* decision. Hudson requires union officials to provide an independently-audited disclosure of their books and justify their expenditures before seizing any forced union dues from employees.

“These public servants never should have had to file a lawsuit in the first place in order for WFSE officials not to trample their basic constitutional rights,” concluded Gleason.