Houston, PA (July 5, 2011)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a former Coca-Cola employee has filed federal charges against a local Teamster union and the company for discrimination and illegally firing him from his job.<\/p>\n
Keith Smiesko of Saxonburg filed the federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Pittsburgh on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Teamster Local 585 union officials ordered Smiesko \u2013 who had refrained from full union membership and dues payments \u2013 to immediately pay full union dues for the previous three years along with additional union initiation fees without ever notifying him that he was being charged for their so-called \u00abrepresentation.\u00bb Union officials illegally threatened Smiesko with job termination if he did not pay.<\/p>\n
Smiesko refused, exercising his rights under the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck<\/i>, which allows workers to refrain from full-dues-paying union membership. Teamster Local 585 union officials then demanded that Coca-Cola fire Smiesko and Coca-Cola complied with the union bosses’ command.<\/p>\n
Smiesko also seeks to be reinstated immediately to his job with Coca-Cola while the case is pending.<\/p>\n
\u00abNo worker should ever be extorted by union bosses to join or pay dues to a union in order to get or keep a job,\u00bb said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. \u00abPennsylvania desperately needs Right to Work protections for its workers to strip from predatory union bosses the power to compel workers to give up some of their hard-earned money they need to provide for their families.\u00bb<\/p>\n
Despite the Court precedent in Beck<\/i>, union bosses can still force workers who refrain from formal union membership into paying part of union dues because Pennsylvania does not have a Right to Work law. However they cannot compel workers to pay the portion of union dues used for the union\u2019s political, lobbying, and member-only activities.<\/p>\n
If enacted, a Right to Work law would end compulsory union dues by making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary. Polls consistently show that 8 in 10 Americans support the Right to Work principle, that no worker should be compelled to join a union or pay union dues to get or keep a job. Twenty-two states have already passed Right to Work protections for their workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Houston, PA (July 5, 2011)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a former Coca-Cola employee has filed federal charges against a local Teamster union and the company for discrimination and illegally firing him from his job.<\/p>\n
Keith Smiesko of Saxonburg filed the federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Pittsburgh on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Teamster Local 585 union officials ordered Smiesko \u2013 who had refrained from full union membership and dues payments \u2013 to immediately pay full union dues for the previous three years along with additional union initiation fees without ever notifying him that he was being charged for their so-called \u00abrepresentation.\u00bb Union officials illegally threatened Smiesko with job termination if he did not pay.<\/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-2948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n