Louisville, Kentucky, and Dayton, Ohio (August 19, 2008)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, three UPS employees in Kentucky and two UPS employees in Ohio filed federal lawsuits Friday and Monday, respectively, against national and local Teamsters officials for illegal extraction of forced union dues. <\/p>\n
\nIn the lawsuits, the nonmember employees claim that the national and local unions breached their duty of fair representation and violated the employees\u2019 First and Fifth Amendment rights by charging and collecting fees used for organizing nonunion workers throughout the United States and financing a members-only \u201cStrike and Defense Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAt UPS facilities in Louisville and Dayton, Teamsters Local 89 and Local 957 had been certified as the respective monopoly bargaining agents. With Teamsters officials in place as \u201cexclusive representatives,\u201d nonmember employees lose the right to negotiate with their employer on their own merits, and a compulsory unionism clause in the contract compels them to pay tribute to the union as a condition of employment.<\/p>\n
\nIn the Foundation-won Communication Workers of America v. Beck (1988), the Supreme Court allowed certain forced dues but established that objecting employees cannot be compelled to subsidize union activities unrelated to collective bargaining. One in a series of decisions in which the High Court ruled certain expenditures non-chargeable, Ellis v. Railway Clerks (1984) prohibits unions from charging and collecting fees from nonmembers for union organizing and member-only benefits.<\/p>\n
\nSince March 2006, the union charged and collected from the nonmembers compulsory fees greater than 80 percent of the full dues and fees paid by union members. Union bosses failed to provide a required notice of Beck rights and disclosure detailing the basis of the fees until this year. The financial disclosure reveals that Teamsters\u2019 compulsory fees include disallowed expenditures for the national union\u2019s efforts to help organize nonunion employees in both the private and public sectors nationwide. The employees have also been forced to contribute to the \u201cStrike and Defense Fund,\u201d which bars benefits flowing to nonmembers.<\/p>\n
\nFoundation attorneys are asking the U.S. District Courts for the Western District of Kentucky and the Southern District of Ohio to enforce the Supreme Court\u2019s rulings in Ellis and Beck. The District Courts should prohibit the union from collecting fees used for these non-bargaining activities and award damages for the nonmember employees including all such illegal fees collected plus interest.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s bad enough that employees who exercise their right to refrain from union membership are forced to pay fees to a union they do not want,\u201d said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. \u201cBut Teamsters bosses are violating the law by compelling nonmembers to fund strikes and organizing activities which seek to corral even more workers into forced unionism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Louisville, Kentucky, and Dayton, Ohio (August 19, 2008)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, three UPS employees in Kentucky and two UPS employees in Ohio filed federal lawsuits Friday and Monday, respectively, against national and local Teamsters officials for illegal extraction of forced union dues. <\/p>\n
\nIn the lawsuits, the nonmember employees claim that the national and local unions breached their duty of fair representation and violated the employees\u2019 First and Fifth Amendment rights by charging and collecting fees used for organizing nonunion workers throughout the United States and financing a members-only \u201cStrike and Defense Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
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