\n Harrisburg, PA (February 9, 2009)<\/b> \u2013 Three Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) employees filed a federal suit challenging two Pennsylvania laws that unconstitutionally prohibit workers from leaving union ranks.\n<\/p>\n
\nNational Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, providing CATA employees Brenda Hall, Karen Ilgen, and Martha Hoy with free legal aid, filed the suit today in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.\n<\/p>\n
\nUnion officials rebuffed the employees\u2019 repeated requests to resign from formal union membership in the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local affiliate 1203B and District Council 83 unions.\n<\/p>\n
\nLocal 1203B and District Council 83 union officials are using the Pennsylvania Public Employee Forced Unionism Law and the Public Employee Relations Act as justification to compel the employees into continuing formal union membership and require the CATA illegally to extract full union dues from the employees.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs well as challenging the state law, the employees are suing for their right to retroactively object to formal union membership and obtain refunds. The employees are backed by decades of case law and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs a result of the National Right to Work Foundation\u2019s precedent-setting case Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that public employees can be forced to pay some union dues, but cannot be compelled to pay for politics and other union dues beyond the cost of collective bargaining. Abood thus also established that full union membership cannot constitutionally be required as a condition of employment. The Foundation\u2019s Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson Supreme Court victory requires union officials to provide employees with an independently-audited financial breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures. Local 1203B or District 83 union officials did not provide such a breakdown.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThese union bosses know full well what the law requires of them, but they have deliberately kept rank-and-file workers in the dark to keep the forced-dues gravy train going,\u201d said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPennsylvania needs a Right to Work law making union membership and dues payment completely voluntary,\u201d added Gleason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n Harrisburg, PA (February 9, 2009)<\/b> \u2013 Three Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) employees filed a federal suit challenging two Pennsylvania laws that unconstitutionally prohibit workers from leaving union ranks.\n<\/p>\n
\nNational Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, providing CATA employees Brenda Hall, Karen Ilgen, and Martha Hoy with free legal aid, filed the suit today in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.\n<\/p>\n
\nUnion officials rebuffed the employees\u2019 repeated requests to resign from formal union membership in the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local affiliate 1203B and District Council 83 unions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[888],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n