Des Moines, Iowa (December 31, 2009)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Bridgestone Corporation employee filed federal charges after his employer illegally diverted a portion of his paycheck to a local union to which the employee does not belong.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe case points out the need for strong and fully enforced Right to Work laws and other protections against forced unionism abuse. A few Iowa legislators have recently tried to repeal the state\u2019s Right to Work law that makes union membership and dues payment voluntary \u2013 even though doing so would lead to employee rights violations on a massive scale.\n<\/p>\n
\nTerry L. Welch of Polk City filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against United Steelworkers Local 310 union bosses and Bridgestone.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn October, Welch resigned from the Steelworkers union and revoked his dues deduction authorization. Dues deduction authorizations are used by union officials to automatically withhold union dues from employee paychecks.\n<\/p>\n
\nUnder Iowa\u2019s popular Right to Work law no worker can be required to join or pay any money to a union as a condition of employment. Additionally, the union\u2019s own dues authorization card allows Welch to revoke his authorization at any time.\n<\/p>\n
\nHowever, union officials are ignoring Welch\u2019s repeated requests to exercise his legal rights. Despite the employee\u2019s best efforts to resign from union membership and halt the dues seizures, Bridgestone continues to illegally deduct union dues from Welch\u2019s paycheck and forward them to the union hierarchy.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe charges will now be investigated by the NLRB regional director in Des Moines who can prosecute the union officials and the company for violating the employee\u2019s legal rights.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDespite repeated requests, Steelworker union bosses are disregarding their own rules and ignoring Mr. Welch\u2019s legitimate attempts to exercise his right to stop paying union dues,\u201d said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. \u201cFortunately, workers in the Hawkeye State have rights under federal law and Iowa\u2019s Right to Work law to help combat the corrupt actions of unaccountable union bosses.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Des Moines, Iowa (December 31, 2009)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Bridgestone Corporation employee filed federal charges after his employer illegally diverted a portion of his paycheck to a local union to which the employee does not belong.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe case points out the need for strong and fully enforced Right to Work laws and other protections against forced unionism abuse. A few Iowa legislators have recently tried to repeal the state\u2019s Right to Work law that makes union membership and dues payment voluntary \u2013 even though doing so would lead to employee rights violations on a massive scale.\n<\/p>\n
\nTerry L. Welch of Polk City filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against United Steelworkers Local 310 union bosses and Bridgestone.<\/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-2852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n