\nPhoenix, Arizona (September 19, 2005)<\/b> \u2013 With the assistance of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, five Arizona employees of Dex Media, the official publisher of the yellow page and white page phone books, have filed a racketeering lawsuit against the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union Local 1269, Qwest Communications subsidiary Dex Media, and two Dex employees who are union officials.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe lawsuit, filed today in U.S. District Court alleges an elaborate scheme in which the employer, the IBEW union Local 1269, and IBEW Local union agents working for Dex, engaged in systematic violations of company policy and collective bargaining agreements in order to give preferential treatment to union officials at the expense of Dex\u2019s advertising sales force.\n<\/p>\n
\nBecause of a complex performance-based pay system used for workers selling advertising in its publications, union agents have not only used their power to create labor strife for their own personal profit, but they have also cheated other workers out of earnings.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn effect, the ill-gotten commissions the union agents improperly received raised the bar against which the other workers\u2019 compensation packages were determined. By knowingly aiding the union agents as they repeatedly broke company rules to increase their performance-based pay, Dex allegedly bribed the union agents to act against the workers\u2019 interests.\n<\/p>\n
\nSome of the methods used to increase the union agents\u2019 compensation include reassigning to the union officials accounts that should have gone to other workers, giving the union agents \u201cdouble commissions\u201d for sales made by other workers, and allowing the union officials to regularly sell \u201cgroup ads\u201d allowing their customers to have better ad placement than would normally be warranted, all practices explicitly forbidden by Dex written policy.\n<\/p>\n
\nBecause of the pattern of illegal activity by Dex, the Local 1269 IBEW union, and the union\u2019s agents, the suit lists five counts for violating the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and two counts for violating the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. The RICO statutes are best known for having been used to prosecute criminals for Mob and gang activities.\n<\/p>\n