Hampden, ME (July 24, 2013)<\/b> \u2013 A local United States Postal Service (USPS) worker has filed a federal charge against the agency for failing to timely process his request to refrain from union membership and dues payments, thus forcing him to pay union dues for another year.<\/p>\n
Brett Johnson of Holden, Maine, filed the charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Monday with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.<\/p>\n
On April 30, 2003, Johnson joined the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) union and signed a dues deduction authorization form. Dues deduction authorizations are used by union officials to automatically withhold dues from employee paychecks.<\/p>\n
On April 10, 2013, Johnson sent a letter to the NALC union resigning his membership and refraining from union dues payments. Johnson hand-delivered the same letter to his postal service human resources representative the following day.<\/p>\n
Postal workers have the right to refrain from union membership and union dues payments. However, according to the union\u2019s monopoly bargaining agreement, Johnson has only a ten day period starting on April 10 each year when he can revoke his union dues deduction authorization.<\/p>\n
Despite his requests, the human resources representative failed to forward his letter to the proper human resources department officials for processing until June 10, 2013. As a result, the USPS continues to deduct union dues from Johnson\u2019s paychecks, and he cannot ask again to stop dues payments until next year.<\/p>\n
\u00abDespite this worker going above and beyond what he needs to do to refrain from paying union dues, those dues will continue to be taken from his paychecks,\u00bb said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. \u00abThis case displays how union officials have the power to make it difficult for workers to exercise their right to refrain from paying union dues, even in situations where workers have Right to Work protections.\u00bb<\/p>\n
Johnson’s charge seeks to stop the confiscation of union dues from his paychecks and a refund of all union dues illegally seized from his paychecks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hampden, ME (July 24, 2013)<\/b> \u2013 A local United States Postal Service (USPS) worker has filed a federal charge against the agency for failing to timely process his request to refrain from union membership and dues payments, thus forcing him to pay union dues for another year.<\/p>\n
Brett Johnson of Holden, Maine, filed the charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Monday with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.<\/p>\n
On April 30, 2003, Johnson joined the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) union and signed a dues deduction authorization form. Dues deduction authorizations are used by union officials to automatically withhold dues from employee paychecks.<\/p>\n
On April 10, 2013, Johnson sent a letter to the NALC union resigning his membership and refraining from union dues payments. Johnson hand-delivered the same letter to his postal service human resources representative the following day.<\/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-3156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n