\nPhoenix, Arizona (July 22, 2009)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, five Phoenix-based employees who refrained from formal dues-paying union membership forced a settlement with the defendants in a federal lawsuit laying out how union agents conducted a corrupt scheme to divert sales commissions from the employees to union officials.\n<\/p>\n
\nNational Right to Work Foundation attorneys used the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) anti-corruption statute (establishing new legal precedent in the process) and the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) to attack a scheme allegedly orchestrated by Qwest Communications and Dex Media, publisher of the yellow pages phone books, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1269 union bosses.\n<\/p>\n
\nEvidence discovered in the lawsuit showed that IBEW Local 1269 union officials manipulated company procedures to receive greater compensation at the expense of the nonunion plaintiffs. Some of the methods used to increase the union agents\u2019 compensation included reassigning accounts from nonunion employees to union officials, giving union agents \u201cdouble commissions\u201d for sales made by other workers, and allowing union officials to regularly sell lucrative \u201cgroup ads\u201d while denying similar opportunities to nonmember employees. By knowingly aiding union agents as they manipulated company rules to increase their performance-based pay, Qwest and Dex were accused of bribing union officials to act against workers\u2019 interests in bargaining negotiations.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn April, a United States District Court judge denied significant parts of the defendants\u2019 motions for summary judgment and held that the union officials and company should stand trial for giving preferential treatment to union agents through the distorted performance-based pay system. The judge\u2019s decision and an earlier decision denying motions to dismiss have established a favorable anti-corruption precedent enabling National Right to Work Foundation litigators to target other union schemes under the federal racketeering statute.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBecause IBEW Local 1269 union bosses acquired monopoly bargaining privileges from Qwest and Dex Media, they were emboldened to conjure up a scheme fleecing the very workers they claimed to represent,\u201d said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. \u201cThe only meaningful way to limit union corruption is stripping union officials of their government-granted monopoly bargaining privileges and making union representation truly voluntary.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe Foundation employs cutting-edge legal strategies to take on such compulsory unionism abuses nationwide and forcing corrupt union bosses to be accountable to the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nPhoenix, Arizona (July 22, 2009)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, five Phoenix-based employees who refrained from formal dues-paying union membership forced a settlement with the defendants in a federal lawsuit laying out how union agents conducted a corrupt scheme to divert sales commissions from the employees to union officials.\n<\/p>\n
\nNational Right to Work Foundation attorneys used the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) anti-corruption statute (establishing new legal precedent in the process) and the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) to attack a scheme allegedly orchestrated by Qwest Communications and Dex Media, publisher of the yellow pages phone books, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1269 union bosses.<\/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-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n