Philadelphia, PA (May 21, 2010)<\/b> \u2013 Eight public employees have filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the Borough of Ephrata for illegally confiscating union dues payments from their paychecks without following federal requirements.\n<\/p>\n
\nNational Right to Work Foundation attorneys, providing the eight employees with free legal aid, filed the suit today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe borough employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1600 union, are asking the court to protect their Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education<\/i> (1977). The Court ruled in Abood<\/i> that nonmember public employees can be forced to pay some union dues, but not the part used to pay for union politics and other union activities.\n<\/p>\n
\nIBEW Local 1600 union officials are compelling the employees into paying a whopping 99.51 percent of full union membership dues.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe Supreme Court also ruled in the Foundation\u2019s Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson<\/i> (1986) victory that union officials must provide public workers with an independently-audited financial breakdown of all forced-dues union expenditures. IBEW Local 1600 union officials have not provided such a breakdown.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe employees are suing to obtain refunds of the amount of forced union dues payments illegally taken from their paychecks.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIBEW union bosses are deliberately keeping rank-and-file workers in the dark to keep their forced-dues gravy train going,\u201d said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation legal information director. \u201cTo prevent these types of forced unionism abuses, Pennsylvania needs a Right to Work law making union affiliation and dues payments completely voluntary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philadelphia, PA (May 21, 2010)<\/b> \u2013 Eight public employees have filed a federal lawsuit against a local union and the Borough of Ephrata for illegally confiscating union dues payments from their paychecks without following federal requirements.\n<\/p>\n
\nNational Right to Work Foundation attorneys, providing the eight employees with free legal aid, filed the suit today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe borough employees, who have exercised their right to refrain from formal union membership with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1600 union, are asking the court to protect their Right to Work Foundation-won rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education<\/i> (1977). The Court ruled in Abood<\/i> that nonmember public employees can be forced to pay some union dues, but not the part used to pay for union politics and other union activities.<\/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-2881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n