National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason made the following statement after the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld union lawyers’ motion to dismiss of the case challenging a corrupt quid-pro-quo organizing agreement reached by Freightliner and UAW union officials in North and South Carolina:
Regrettably, the court severely misread and misinterpreted the statute. "Things of value" as defined under numerous federal statutes have long been held by courts to include intangible or non-monetary benefits.
The Congressional intent of the statute was to prevent employers from inducing union officials to bargain away workers’ interests. That is exactly what was done here. Freightliner gave the UAW union officials organizing assistance that the court concedes is a "benefit" to the union. This benefit included preferred access to the employees, pro-union captive audience meetings on paid company time to solicit union authorization cards, employer silence, and an agreement that only the UAW would be able to recruit new dues payers without a secret ballot election.
These are most certainly "things of value" no matter how that term is defined — subjective value, objective value, monetary value, etc. In fact, unions spend millions of dollars on corporate campaigns to attack companies with the very goal of obtaining these valuable advantages.
In return, the UAW hierarchy agreed to pre-negotiated contract concessions, and even the cancelling of certain employee benefits at other facilities. All of this was done before the employees had shown any interest in having UAW union officials represent them.
At the motion to dismiss phase, the allegations of the complaint must be taken as true. Therefore, even under the appellate court’s holding that an ascertainable monetary value is required under 302, the U.S. District Court’s dismissal of the complaint should have been reversed and case remanded for fact finding as to monetary value, which can easily be established.
Apparently union officials think they are entitled to another exception in federal criminal rules and procedures.
The union-abused employees represented by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are likely to ask for a rehearing en banc or petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to correct this miscarriage of justice.
The decision can be downloaded here. Background on the case can be found here.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
