If you are a nonmember paying agency fees to the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union, you may be entitled to demand a refund if you have paid \u201creinstatement fees\u201d to the union.<\/p>\n
The story is this: Anthony Lutz is a customer service agent employed by United Air Lines. He works under a union contract negotiated by the IAM union, but is not a member of the union and pays only reduced agency fees. For three months in the fall of 2001, Mr. Lutz took an unpaid medical leave of absence from United. After he returned from his leave of absence, an IAM union official twice threatened him with discharge unless he paid a \u201creinstatement fee\u201d of more than $100 to the union. One demand letter from the union official specifically noted that if Mr. Lutz had been a full member of the IAM, he would not have had to pay this \u201creinstatement fee\u201d as a condition of employment, because the union would have issued \u201cunemployment stamps\u201d to him. (That would have exempted him from paying this \u201creinstatement fee.\u201d) But, since he was not a union member, Mr. Lutz was told that he could not participate in the \u201cbenefit\u201d of unemployment stamps, and therefore had to \u201cpay up\u201d or be fired. <\/p>\n
When Mr. Lutz informed the union officials that his lawyers at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation were preparing to file a federal court lawsuit against the IAM union, an official of IAM\u2019s \u201cCapital Air Lodge 1759\u201d suddenly retracted her \u201creinstatement fee\u201d demand. The retraction effectively conceded that Mr. Lutz legally could not be charged the fee.<\/p>\n
Did this or something similar happen to you\u00bb If you have paid such \u201creinstatement fees\u201d to the Machinists union under similar circumstances in the past, or are being threatened with having to pay such fees, please contact us so we can discuss with you your legal rights.<\/p>\n