20 Wonderful Nurseries Farmworkers Seek to Join Federal Challenge to Biased Pro-Union Boss California Agricultural Labor Law
Filing: UFW union-backed law sweeps workers into union via coercive ‘card check’ scheme and imposes forced dues in violation of First Amendment
Bakersfield, CA (February 5, 2025) – A group of 20 employees of food and drink company Wonderful Nurseries’ Wasco, CA, facility have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that will force them under the control of United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials, to whom they have strenuously objected. The employees, who last year were subject to an aggressive “card check” unionization campaign from the UFW, are receiving free legal aid in their effort to defend their rights from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The federal lawsuit the workers seek to join was filed by Wonderful Nurseries against the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), and challenges the ALRB’s “mandatory mediation and conciliation” (MMC) process, which follows the ALRB’s highly-suspect certification of the UFW as the monopoly bargaining representative of the workers. The workers were denied intervention in Wonderful Nurseries’ state court lawsuit challenging the card check certification last July, one week before the court enjoined further proceedings based upon the certification. That lawsuit contends that UFW union agents claimed majority support by submitting to the ALRB union authorization cards that they had fraudulently obtained from workers.
As part of their motion to intervene in this new federal suit, the workers have also filed a proposed intervenors’ complaint detailing even more rights violations by the ALRB. The employees’ filing points out that the Wonderful Nurseries workers must be allowed to vindicate their own rights, which are inherently impacted by the lawsuit.
California labor law mandates that the ALRB should immediately certify a union as monopoly bargaining agent if it submits union cards from a majority of workers, even if there are objections as to how the cards were collected. “Card check” denies workers their right to vote in secret on whether they want a union, and instead allows union officials to demand union authorization cards directly from workers. Past Foundation-backed legal action by Wonderful Nurseries employees at the ALRB detailed the threats and discriminatory behavior that union agents used to obtain the cards.
The Wonderful Nurseries employees’ complaint and motion to intervene, filed by Foundation staff attorneys, joins Wonderful Nurseries’ challenge to the “mandatory mediation and conciliation” provisions of California labor law. Those provisions would force UFW officials and Wonderful Nurseries management to finalize a union contract that will almost certainly subject the workers to UFW union boss control for three years and payment of forced union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs.
“[T]he Employees seek this Court’s immediate intervention to protect their fundamental liberty interests, especially their freedom of association between and amongst themselves, and with their employer, and their rights to be free from State-compelled monopoly representation by a labor organization not legitimately chosen by a majority of employees, and from State-mandated payment of union dues or fees,” the complaint reads.
Radical CA Labor Law Violates First Amendment Janus Decision by Imposing Government-Mandated Forced-Dues Contracts on Workers
The complaint points out that state imposition of such a contract on the Wonderful Nurseries farmworkers would harm their First Amendment rights, as spelled out in the landmark Foundation-won Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. “[Janus] barred state-mandated and –enforced forced-unionism schemes,” reads the complaint.
In the 2018 Janus decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government-enforced union contracts that required state employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs are a violation of First Amendment free association principles. In this case, Foundation attorneys argue, the State of California would be compelling Wonderful Nurseries and the UFW union to impose a similar contract over farmworkers – one which would require them to subsidize the union or be fired. For that reason, the state government would be violating the First Amendment in the same way as happened in Janus, Foundation attorneys contend.
Employees: UFW Union Created Atmosphere of Intimidation, Discrimination During Union Campaign
Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez, who are part of the current effort, sought to intervene in this case before the ALRB, following the agency’s certification of the UFW’s dubious claims of majority support. In unfair labor practice charges before the ALRB, Chavez and Gutierrez described multiple fabrications – and even discriminatory behavior – that UFW union bosses used to get employees to sign authorization cards, including “representing that certain COVID-19-related public benefits available to farmworkers required signatures on union membership cards…that union membership cards were not, in fact, union membership cards to be used in any UFW organizing efforts…presenting to strictly Spanish-speaking discriminatees union membership cards only in English…[and] presenting to illiterate discriminatees union membership cards and misrepresenting their content and/or significance.”
“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented after filing charges. “Instead of just letting us vote in secret on whether we want a union, they went around lying and threatening to get cards and now are cracking down on anyone who speaks out against the union.”
“Wonderful Nurseries workers, who are desperately trying to defend their freedom from an unwanted UFW union, are finding themselves fighting not only UFW lawyers, but also the full weight of California’s top-down, draconian labor policy,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “By granting union bosses the authority to sweep workers under their control with suspect ‘card check’ campaigns, then having the government impose a forced-dues contract over the objection of both workers and businesses, California legislators have created an environment where workers’ individual rights are being crushed to promote raw, unchecked union boss power.”
Flight Attendant Defends Win Against Union, Southwest, for Illegal Firing
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union and airline seek to overturn District Court ruling & verdict targeting discriminatory union firing
Despite going head-to-head with the well-funded legal teams of Southwest Airlines and the TWU union, Charlene Carter and her Foundation legal team led by staff attorney Matt Gilliam (right) have fought — and won — crucial victories in her case.
NEW ORLEANS, LA – In 2017, Southwest flight attendant Charlene Carter filed her lawsuit against the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and Southwest Airlines for their respective roles in her termination after she spoke out against the TWU’s political activities.
Now, seven years later, despite winning a multimillion dollar jury verdict and a ruling ordering that she get her job back after the company’s and union’s efforts to fire her, Carter’s battle remains ongoing. Recently, Foundation staff attorneys were at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for oral arguments to defend her District Court victory against appeals by TWU and Southwest.
“Southwest and TWU union officials made Ms. Carter pay an unconscionable price just because she decided to speak out against the political activities of union officials in accordance with her deeply held religious beliefs,” stated National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “Yet rather than comply with the jury’s decision and a District Court order, Southwest and TWU union bosses have decided to attempt to defend their blatant retaliation against a vocal union critic.”
Foundation Attorney: Evidence Shows Carter Was Fired Over Religious Exercise
During oral arguments at the Fifth Circuit, which took place before a three-judge panel this June, Foundation staff attorney Matt Gilliam rebutted specious union claims that there was no direct evidence that Carter’s religious beliefs played any role in the decision to fire her.
Gilliam told the panel that a Southwest agent “specifically admitted that he considered Carter’s religious beliefs in his termination decision” and reminded the judges that, under Title VII, an employee’s religious beliefs “can’t be any factor” in making such a decision.
“Southwest just admitted to this court that they fired her because of conduct. Well, what was the conduct? It was religious conduct,” said Gilliam.
Carter’s Story Reveals Pro-Union Boss Bias of Federal Labor Law
Carter resigned from union membership in 2013 but was still forced to pay fees to TWU Local 556 as a condition of her employment. The Railway Labor Act (RLA), the federal law that governs labor relations in the airline and railroad industries, permits firing employees who refuse to pay union fees and preempts the protections that state Right to Work laws provide.
However, the RLA does protect employees’ rights to resign from union membership. It also has free speech protections that cover the right to speak out against a union and its leadership and to advocate for changing the union’s current leadership.
In January 2017, Carter learned that then-TWU Local 556 President Audrey Stone and other Local 556 officials used union dues to attend the Women’s March in Washington, DC, which was sponsored by Planned Parenthood, an activist group she deeply opposed.
Carter, a vocal critic of Stone and the union, sent private Facebook messages to Stone challenging the union’s support for ideological positions that were contrary to Carter’s beliefs and expressing support for a recall effort that would remove Stone from power. Carter also sent Stone a message emphasizing her commitment to a National Right to Work law after the union had sent an email to employees telling them to oppose Right to Work.
After a meeting at which Southwest officials confronted Carter about private Facebook messages protesting the union’s positions, the company fired Carter. In 2017, Carter filed her federal lawsuit challenging the firing as a clear violation of her rights under two federal laws. She maintained that she lost her job because of her religious beliefs and her criticism of union officials’ spending employees’ dues and fees on ideological causes.
Ultimately, after a six-day July 2022 trial, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed with Carter and her Foundation staff attorneys. During the trial, Foundation attorneys unearthed and introduced bombshell email communications showing TWU union militants advocated for “targeted assassinations” of union dissidents.
“We are proud to defend Ms. Carter throughout this prolonged legal case to vindicate her rights,” stated Messenger. “However, her case should prompt policymakers to pare back union bosses’ coercive, government-granted powers over workers. Even if Charlene attains total victory in her case, the RLA will still force her and airline employees across the country to pay money to union officials as a condition of keeping their jobs, which is why policy change is needed.”
Puerto Rico Police Bureau Employees Win at District Court; Beat Union Scheme That Swiped Health Benefit from Dissenting Employees
Employees successfully defend right under Janus v. AFSCME to refrain from supporting unwanted union
Para leer este articulo en Espanol, haga clic aqui.
San Juan, PR (September 26, 2024) – Eleven civilian employees of the Puerto Rico Police Bureau (PRPB) have won a favorable decision in their federal class action lawsuit against their employer and the Union of Organized Civilian Employees. The lawsuit charged both entities with illegally discriminating against employees by stripping them of an employer-provided health benefit because they refused to join the union. The employees, who argued that this union gambit violated their and other PRPB employees’ First Amendment right to abstain from unwanted union affiliation, received free legal aid in their case from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The plaintiffs, Vanessa Carbonell, Roberto Whatts Osorio, Elba Colon Nery, Billy Nieves Hernandez, Nelida Alvarez Febus, Linda Dumont Guzman, Sandra Quinones Pinto, Yomarys Ortiz Gonzalez, Janet Cruz Berrios, Carmen Berlingeri Pabon, and Merab Ortiz Rivera, filed their lawsuit at the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico in 2022. They invoked their rights under the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, in which the Justices held that compelling public employees to join or fund a union violates the First Amendment. Janus also established that union officials can only take union dues from a public employee who has waived his or her First Amendment right not to pay.
The District Court agreed with the plaintiffs in a September 19 decision. It found that the PRPB had indeed taken away a health benefit from the employees after they exercised their Janus right not to join or pay dues to the Union of Organized Civilian Employees, a union they didn’t want and never asked for. “This is either retaliation for exercise of non-union members’ post-Janus non-associational rights under the First Amendment under the Constitution or simply discrimination,” said the Court.
“The [PRPB] may neither retaliate for disassociation or non-support of the public sector union, nor can it adopt — or as here interpret — a [union contract] in a manner that permits discrimination against non-union members,” the Court continued.
Police Bureau Limited Access to Healthcare Based on Employee Dissent from Union
According to the plaintiff’s original lawsuit, they all exercised their Janus right to opt out of the union at various points after the 2018 Janus decision. They each began noticing that as dues ceased coming out of their paychecks, they also stopped receiving a $25-a-month employer-paid benefit intended to help employees pay for health insurance.
“[T]he Union, through its president, Jorge Méndez Cotto, asked PRPB to stop awarding the $25 monthly additional employer contribution to any bargaining unit member who objected to [forced] membership…,” the complaint said.
“Plaintiffs are ready, willing, and able to purchase additional and higher quality health insurance benefits with the additional employer contribution that is being denied to them,” read the complaint. “But for the above-described discriminatory policy, they would purchase better quality health insurance.”
District Court Decision Orders Union and Employer to Stop Discriminatory Scheme
The District Court’s decision, in addition to declaring that the gambit by PRPB and the Union of Organized Civilian Employees is unconstitutional, orders an injunction to stop PRPB officials from continuing to withhold the benefit from Carbonell and the other employees.
“Janus enshrined a very simple principle: That union officials need to convince public employees to support their organization and activities voluntarily, and using government power to force such support is an obvious infringement of First Amendment free association principles,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Diminishing Ms. Carbonell and her coworkers’ access to healthcare just because they disagreed with the union’s agenda is a heinous violation of that principle, and Foundation attorneys were happy to assist them in their victory over that scheme.”
Long Beach Worker Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging Structure of Biden Labor Board as Unconstitutional
New lawsuit challenges that National Labor Relations Board’s structure unconstitutionally shields both board members and judges from accountability
Washington, DC (August 22, 2024) – Nelson Medina, a Long Beach, CA-based employee of transportation company Savage Services, has just filed a federal lawsuit against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) challenging the Board’s makeup as unconstitutional. Medina, who is represented for free by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, argues that the composition of the NLRB violates separation of powers doctrines enshrined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution because it shields NLRB bureaucrats from being removed by the President.
Medina’s case now joins three other constitutional challenges to the NLRB’s structure from Foundation-backed rank-and-file workers, including the first ever such lawsuit which Foundation attorneys filed on behalf of Buffalo, NY-based Starbucks employees Ariana Cortes and Logan Karam.
Medina’s lawsuit points to recent Supreme Court rulings, including Seila Law LLC v. CFPB and Collins v. Yellen, which emphasized that the President should have direct authority to remove executive officials who exercise significant authority. Medina argues that the NLRB’s structure, as defined by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), places unlawful limitations on the President’s power to oust NLRB officials even though they exercise significant executive authority.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, joins a similar suit at the same court from Medina’s colleague, Victor Avila. Both Avila’s and Medina’s lawsuits stem from unfair labor practice charges they each filed with Foundation aid against Teamsters union officials in their workplace, which dealt with illegal threats of violence against workers for not supporting the union and unlawful demands for dues payment, respectively. Both Avila and Medina argue they are entitled to have their cases heard by Board officials whose appointment complies with the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.
Challenge to Constitutionality of Federal Labor Board Targets Board Members and Administrative Law Judges
Medina’s lawsuit is unique in that it contests the NLRB’s removal protections on both Board members and Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). The suit argues that Board members exercise significant executive branch authority, yet are unconstitutionally protected from at-will presidential removal. ALJs, the suit argues, are subject to a removal process controlled by multiple layers of federal bureaucrats whom the President can’t remove at will, a structure prohibited by the Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB Supreme Court decision.
Board members are responsible for both creating NLRB policy and reviewing federal labor cases decided by regional NLRB offices, while ALJs conduct hearings in cases where the NLRB has chosen to prosecute a union or employer for violating the law.
Similar Lawsuits Crop Up Among Workers Nationwide
Beyond Savage Services, Foundation-backed Starbucks employees are also pursuing cases challenging the constitutionality of the structure of the NLRB. These employees have attempted to hold decertification votes to remove unwanted Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace, but NLRB officials blocked their cases based on unproven union allegations of employer meddling.
Ariana Cortes and Logan Karam, two Starbucks employees from New York, recently filed an appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in their lawsuit. They are appealing a District Court judge’s ruling that they lacked standing to bring their challenge. The ruling didn’t address the core constitutional arguments their lawsuit raised. Another Starbucks employee, Reed Busler, filed another similar lawsuit that is currently pending in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
“For too long, independent-minded employees who challenge union boss coercion that violates federal law have had to pursue their claims with unaccountable NLRB bureaucrats who exercise power in violation of the Constitution,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The National Labor Relations Board should not be a union boss-friendly kangaroo court run by powerful bureaucrats who exercise unaccountable power in violation of the Constitution, yet for too many workers, including those bringing these legal challenges, that is what the Labor Board has become.”
DHS Security Guard’s Federal Lawsuit Forces IGUA Union Bosses to Stop Illegal Forced Union Dues Demands
After union officials did not provide legally required financial disclosures, guard wins reduction in mandatory union fees
Washington, DC (June 6, 2024) – Rosa Crawley, a security guard at the Department of Homeland Security’s Nebraska Avenue Complex, has triumphed after filing a federal lawsuit charging the International Guards Union of America (IGUA) with unlawfully demanding and seizing union dues from her paycheck. Crawley, who is employed by Master Security, forced the union to back off its illegal dues demands with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Crawley is not a member of the IGUA union, but is still subject to IGUA’s monopoly bargaining power over the security guards at the DHS Nebraska Avenue Complex. As part of the settlement, IGUA union bosses must reduce the compulsory fee that they seize from Crawley as a condition of keeping her job. Before she filed suit, union bosses demanded the equivalent of full membership dues from her.
In her federal lawsuit, which she filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Crawley sought to defend her rights under the 1988 Right to Work Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision.
While union officials can force private sector workers in non-Right to Work jurisdictions like the District of Columbia to pay dues or fees just to keep their jobs, the Beck decision prevents union bosses from forcing employees who have abstained from union membership to pay for anything beyond the union’s core bargaining functions, such as union bosses’ political activities. Full membership dues often contain charges for these unrelated items.
Beck also requires union bosses to furnish nonmembers who invoke their rights under the decision with an independent audit of the union’s finances and a breakdown of how union officials spend forced contributions.
Beck protections aren’t necessary in Right to Work states like neighboring Virginia, where union membership and all union financial support are fully voluntary.
IGUA Union Bosses Took Full Dues from Guard, Provided No Financial Disclosures
According to the suit, Crawley sent a letter to union officials resigning her union membership back in July 2023. Instead of immediately providing her with her Beck rights, union officials informed her that she would be charged a so-called “agency fee” which “is the same exact cost as what the union members pay.”
“So there will be absolutely no change in a financial sense,” the union’s reply letter stated.
Not satisfied with that explanation, Crawley in September 2023 formally invoked her Beck rights and asked union officials to reduce her dues payments in accordance with the decision. She also asked them to “provide [her] with an accounting, by an independent certified public accountant, that justifies Local 160’s calculation of its agency [forced] fee,” according to her lawsuit.
In an October 2023 reply to her Beck request, union officials used a confusing percentage averaging calculation to determine a fee amount that contradicted what they told Crawley when she resigned her membership. An independent audit of the union’s finances was nowhere to be found. Despite that, Crawley’s lawsuit reported that IGUA bosses continued to collect full union dues from her paycheck, and tried to impose extra steps that would need to be completed if she wanted to see the union’s financial info.
Workers Must Be On Guard for Illegal Union Uses of Worker Funds as Election Nears
After the filing of her lawsuit, Crawley expressed concern that her money was flowing toward union politics while IGUA bosses dragged their feet on honoring her Beck rights. “I shouldn’t have to pay for the IGUA union’s political activity just so I can continue to do my job,” commented Crawley. “Union officials have a legal obligation to stop charging me for politics and provide me with an accounting of how they are using my money, and so far they have done neither. This isn’t how they should treat the workers they say they ‘represent.’”
“We’re pleased that Ms. Crawley was able to terminate IGUA union officials’ outrageous seizure of full union dues from her paycheck,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, IGUA union officials’ inability to follow even the modest limitations that Beck places on their ability to impose mandatory dues on workers is ridiculous, and no worker should have to file a federal lawsuit to force union bosses into recognizing those rights.
“Workers’ right to prevent their money from going toward unwanted union activities, particularly politics, is especially important as union bosses try to push forward their agendas in advance of the 2024 election,” Mix added. “So workers should be vigilant of Beck violations, and remember they can contact Foundation attorneys for free legal aid in exercising their rights under that decision.”
Court of Appeals Hearing Arguments in Case Brought by Southwest Flight Attendant Who Was Illegally Fired for Criticizing Union Officials
District Court jury found and federal judge ruled: TWU union and Southwest violated multiple federal laws in firing Charlene Carter
New Orleans, LA (June 3, 2024) – Today, a three-judge panel of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments in an appeal of a 2022 District Court decision that found that Southwest Airlines and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 556 illegally fired veteran flight attendant Charlene Carter in retaliation for Carter expressing her religious beliefs. Carter filed the lawsuit in 2017 with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Her lawsuit against the TWU Local 556 union and Southwest challenged her termination by Southwest at the behest of TWU union officials as a violation of both the Railway Labor Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In 2022, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas awarded Carter $5.1 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages against TWU and Southwest for their respective roles in her unlawful termination.
In December 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered Southwest and the union to give Carter the maximum amount of compensatory and punitive damages permitted under federal law, plus back-pay, and other forms of relief that a jury originally awarded following Carter’s victory in a July 2022 trial. The Court also ordered that Carter be reinstated as a flight attendant at Southwest, writing that, “Southwest may ‘wanna get away’ from Carter because she might continue to express her beliefs, but the jury found that Southwest unlawfully terminated Carter for her protected expressions.”
Both the union and Southwest appealed their loss to the Court of Appeals, resulting in today’s arguments.
Flight Attendant Challenged Union Officials for Their Political Activism
Carter resigned from union membership in 2013 but was still forced to pay fees to TWU Local 556 as a condition of her employment. The Railway Labor Act (RLA), the federal law that governs labor relations in the air and rail industries, permits the firing of employees for refusal to pay dues and preempts the protections that state Right to Work laws provide.
However, the RLA does protect employees’ rights to refrain from union membership, to speak out against the union and its leadership, and to advocate for changing the union’s current leadership.
In January 2017, Carter, a pro-life Christian, learned that then-TWU Local 556 President Audrey Stone and other Local 556 officials used union dues to attend a political rally in Washington, D.C., which was sponsored by activist groups she deeply opposed, including Planned Parenthood.
Carter, a vocal critic of Stone and the union, sent private Facebook messages to Stone challenging the union’s support for political positions that were contrary to Carter’s beliefs, and expressing support for a recall effort that would remove Stone from power. Carter also sent Stone a message emphasizing her commitment to a National Right to Work law after the union had sent an email to employees telling them to oppose Right to Work.
After a meeting at which Southwest officials confronted Carter about her posts protesting union officials’ positions, the company fired Carter. In 2017, Carter filed her federal lawsuit challenging the firing as a clear violation of her rights under two federal laws. She maintained that she lost her job because of her religious beliefs and criticized how union officials spent employees’ dues and fees on political activism.
Ultimately, after an eight-day July trial, a federal jury agreed with Carter and her Foundation staff attorneys. In email communications unearthed and introduced at trial by Foundation staff attorneys, TWU union militants advocated for “targeted assassinations” of union dissidents and mocked Carter for being unable to stop her money from going toward union-backed causes she opposed.
“Southwest and TWU union officials made Ms. Carter pay an unconscionable price just because she decided to speak out against the political activities of union officials in accordance with her deeply held religious beliefs,” stated National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Yet rather than comply with the jury’s decision and the District Court order, Southwest and TWU union bosses have decided to attempt to defend their ‘targeted assassinations’ against a vocal union critic.
“We are proud to defend Ms. Carter throughout this prolonged legal case to vindicate her rights,” added Mix. “Ultimately, her case should prompt nationwide scrutiny of union bosses’ coercive, government-granted powers over workers, especially in the airline and rail industries, because even after winning her reinstatement Charlene and her colleagues at Southwest and other airlines under union control are forced, as per the Railway Labor Act, to pay money to union officials just to keep their jobs.”
Federal Lawsuit Hits Guards Union of America for Illegally Forcing DC-Based Security Guard to Pay for Union Politics
Union officials provided contradictory information on amount a guard must pay the union to keep a job
Washington, DC (April 19, 2024) – Rosa Crawley, a DC-based security guard employed by Master Security, has just hit the International Guards Union of America (IGUA) Local 160 with a federal lawsuit, which maintains that full union dues, including dues for union political activities, are being illegally deducted from her paycheck. Crawley filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Crawley, who with her coworkers provides security services to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Nebraska Avenue Complex,” seeks to enforce her rights under the 1988 Right to Work Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision. The Court held in Beck that union officials cannot force workers who have abstained from union membership to pay union dues or fees for any expenses not directly germane to contract negotiations. Nonmember workers who exercise their Beck rights are also entitled to an independent audit of the union’s finances and a breakdown of how union officials spend forced contributions.
Beck rights are only relevant in non-Right to Work jurisdictions like the District of Columbia, where union officials have the legal prvivilege to force private sector workers to pay dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. In jurisdictions that have Right to Work protections, like neighboring Virginia, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
“I shouldn’t have to pay for the IGUA union’s political activity just so I can continue to do my job,” commented Crawley. “Union officials have a legal obligation to stop charging me for politics and provide me with an accounting of how they are using my money, and so far they have done neither. This isn’t how they should treat the workers they say they ‘represent.’”
Union Officials Haven’t Revealed How They Spend Worker Money
According to the suit, Crawley sent a letter to union officials resigning her union membership back in July 2023. Instead of immediately providing her with her Beck rights, union officials informed her that she would be charged a so-called “agency fee” which “is the same exact cost as what the union members pay.”
“So there will be absolutely no change in a financial sense,” the union’s reply letter stated.
Not satisfied with that explanation, Crawley in September 2023 formally invoked her Beck rights and asked union officials to reduce her dues payments in accordance with the decision. She also asked them to “provide [her] with an accounting, by an independent certified public accountant, that justifies Local 160’s calculation of its agency [forced] fee,” according to her lawsuit. In an October 2023 reply to her Beck request, union officials used a confusing percentage averaging calculation to determine a fee amount that contradicted what they told Crawley when she resigned her membership. An independent audit of the union’s finances was nowhere to be found.
Crawley’s lawsuit recounts that, since October 2023, union officials have made her reiterate her request for an accounting, pay an initiation fee equal to the initiation fee paid by full members, and “[have] collected and [continue] to collect from Crawley amounts equal to full union dues.”
“Federal labor law’s default position is that union officials are empowered to demand workers’ hard-earned money as a condition of employment. This is problematic because there are any number of reasons workers may not want to support the union, including religious, political, or financial reasons,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While the Beck decision provides important protections, a Right to Work environment is ultimately better because workers are completely free to decide whether or not union officials deserve any of their hard-earned money.”
Texas Starbucks Employee Challenges Federal Labor Board Structure as Unconstitutional in New Federal Lawsuit
Regional NLRB blocked employee and his coworkers from voting out union, new lawsuit now second pending worker-backed challenge to agency’s authority
Fort Worth, TX (January 24, 2024) – Reed Busler, an employee at the “Military Highway” Starbucks in Shavano Park, TX, is hitting the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with a federal lawsuit arguing the federal agency’s structure violates the separation of powers. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, argues that the agency violates Article II of the Constitution by insulating NLRB Board Members from at-will removal by the President.
Busler’s lawsuit stems from an NLRB Regional Director’s dismissal of a petition he filed on behalf of his coworkers seeking an election to remove the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union from power at the coffee shop. Busler is receiving free legal aid in both proceedings from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law that established the NLRB, restricts a president’s ability to remove Board members except for neglect of duty or malfeasance. Busler’s complaint contends that these restraints violate “the fundamental separation of powers principle that the President must be free to remove executive officers at will,” as dictated by Supreme Court cases like Seila Law LLC v. CFPB (2020) and Collins v. Yellen (2021).
“Board Members are principal officers wielding substantial executive power. This includes the power to promulgate binding rules, to enforce the law through adjudicating unfair labor practice disputes and issuing remedies, to issue subpoenas, and to enforce the law through adjudicating representation proceedings,” reads the complaint. “By adjudicating Busler’s petition notwithstanding its unconstitutional structure, the Board is violating his right to have his petition adjudicated by politically accountable officials.”
Regional NLRB Trapped Workers in Union Despite Reports of Abrasive Behavior
Busler submitted his union decertification petition on November 16, 2023. The petition contained signatures from enough of his coworkers to trigger a vote to remove the union under NLRB rules. However, the NLRB Regional Director still blocked the vote based on unfair labor practice charges SBWU union officials filed against Starbucks, despite there being no proven connection between those allegations and Busler’s decertification petition.
The NLRB’s refusal to hold a union decertification vote means that Busler and his coworkers are still trapped under the “representation” of the SBWU union, despite numerous reports of SBWU agents’ combative and abrasive behavior at the store. In other filings in the NLRB case, Busler and his colleagues reported that SBWU officials ordered a divisive strike in which “[union] supporters outside the store were loud, boisterous, and were screaming at customers” and “would sometimes yell at other employees or tell partners that if they did not support Workers United they would be personally ostracized by other partners.”
“Moreover, I believe the other employees who signed my decertification petition did not do so because they were coerced or duped by anything Starbucks allegedly did wrong, but because the Union was a divisive force in our store and has now ignored our location for several months,” Busler stated in an NLRB filing.
Lawsuit Seeks to Stop NLRB from Exercising Unconstitutional Power Over Workers’ Case
Busler’s federal lawsuit seeks a declaration from the District Court that the structure of the NLRB as it currently exists is unconstitutional, and an injunction halting the NLRB from proceeding with his decertification case until his federal lawsuit is resolved. Busler now joins Buffalo, NY-based Starbucks worker Ariana Cortes in challenging the structure of the NLRB with free Foundation legal aid.
“The National Labor Relations Board should not be a union boss-friendly kangaroo court run by powerful bureaucrats who exercise unaccountable power in violation of the Constitution,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Mr. Busler seeks to remove a union he and his colleagues oppose, and he is entitled to pursue that statutory right before an agency whose structure complies with the Constitution.”
Buffalo Starbucks Worker Files Groundbreaking Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of NLRB Structure
Regional NLRB blocked employee and her coworkers from voting out union majority disapproved of, new lawsuit challenges agency’s authority
Buffalo, NY (October 4, 2023) – Buffalo “Del-Chip” Starbucks employee Ariana Cortes has hit the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with a federal lawsuit, arguing that the federal agency’s current structure violates the separation of powers. The lawsuit, filed with the District Court for the District of Columbia, follows Cortes’ challenge to an NLRB Regional Director’s dismissal of her and her coworkers’ petition seeking a vote to remove Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their store.
Cortes is receiving free legal aid in both proceedings from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The lawsuit contends that, because NLRB Board Members cannot be removed at-will by the President, the NLRB’s structure violates Article II of the Constitution.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law which established the Board, restricts a president’s ability to remove Board members except for neglect of duty or malfeasance. The complaint argues that “[t]hese restrictions are impermissible limitations on the President’s ability to remove Board members and violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. Thus, the Board, as currently constituted, is unconstitutional.”
“The Supreme Court made clear in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, 140 S. Ct. 2183 (2020) and Collins v. Yellen, 141 S. Ct. 1761 (2021) that under Article II of the Constitution, the President must be able to remove federal officials who exercise substantial executive power,” the complaint states. “The five-member NLRB exercises substantial executive power because it issues binding rules, adjudicates unfair labor practices and representation disputes, issues subpoenas, and decides whether and how to direct and conduct elections in representation cases.”
Regional NLRB Dismisses Starbucks Employees’ Request to Vote Out Union
On April 28, Cortes filed a petition, backed by the majority of her coworkers, that requests the NLRB conduct a decertification election at her workplace to end the monopoly bargaining power of SBWU union officials. NLRB Region 3 dismissed Cortes’ petition based on unfair labor practice charges SBWU union officials filed against Starbucks, despite there being no proven connection between those allegations and the decertification petition.
Cortes’ Foundation-provided attorneys filed a Request for Review with the Board challenging this dismissal order. That appeal contrasted the standard the NLRB often applies to petitions to certify unions, which usually proceed with little to no delay, with the standard the NLRB applies to petitions to decertify unions, which are often hamstrung and delayed.
New Federal Lawsuit Seeks to Temporarily Enjoin Unconstitutional Proceedings
Cortes’ new federal lawsuit seeks a declaration from the District Court that the structure of the NLRB as it currently exists is unconstitutional, and an injunction halting the NLRB from proceeding with her decertification case until her federal lawsuit is resolved.
“For too long the NLRB, especially the current Board, has operated as a union boss-friendly kangaroo court, complete with powerful bureaucrats who exercise unaccountable power in violation of the Constitution,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “As the story of Ms. Cortes shows, the NLRB’s unchecked power creates real harms for workers’ rights, especially when workers seek to free themselves from the control of union bosses they disagree with.”
Former Connecticut State Trooper Wins Over $250,000 in Political Discrimination Suit
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2023 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CSPU union upended trooper’s career after he refused to fund union politics
Joseph Mercer fought back with free Foundation legal aid when the CSPU union blocked his promotion because he challenged union political activities and told others about their rights.
HARTFORD, CT – In 2015, then-Connecticut State Trooper Joseph Mercer received a promotion to Operations Sergeant of the Emergency Services Unit, a position that gave him significant responsibility over emergency services training and field operations. Mercer gained this prestigious position through his seventeen years of experience as a trooper, which included a tense situation with an armed suspect barricaded in a hotel.
But behind the scenes, Mercer was a target of Connecticut State Police Union (CSPU) officials, who resented Mercer because of his resistance to funding union politics with his own money. After CSPU President Andrew Matthews filed two baseless grievances against Mercer, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) demoted him to a position that offered fewer overtime opportunities and involved less time in the field.
Mercer slammed CSPU and DESPP officials with a federal lawsuit in 2016 with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, accusing police union officials of retaliating against him for exercising his right to stop funding union politics.
This April, Foundation attorneys forced CSPU and DESPP to back down and settle the case. Both parties must now pay $260,500 as a condition of ending the suit.
CSPU Union President Targeted Dissident Trooper Immediately After Promotion
Just a month after Mercer received his promotion, CSPU President Matthews filed a grievance over Sergeant Mercer’s appointment.
Matthews’ grievance claimed that there had been no “selection process” to fill the position, despite the fact that none of Sergeant Mercer’s union-member predecessors had undergone any particular kind of selection process before they got the job. Matthews also filed a second baseless grievance, alleging Mercer had mismanaged the incident involving the armed suspect barricaded in a hotel. State police officials had never expressed dissatisfaction with how Mercer handled the situation.
In October 2015, after meeting in private with the union president, then-DESPP Commissioner Dora Schriro transferred Mercer out of his Operations Sergeant position to an administrative post. Prior to this demotion, Mercer had received no warnings, reprimands, or other disciplinary actions regarding the incident referenced in Matthews’ grievance. Mercer filed his lawsuit with Foundation aid in February 2016.
Mercer’s Foundation attorneys cranked up the heat on both the union and DESPP officials in May 2022, when a District Court judge ordered DESPP Commissioner James Rovella, who had replaced Schriro, to turn over additional documents that might provide insight into the circumstances surrounding Mercer’s firing.
Rather than follow through with the judge’s discovery order and continue the fight against Mercer, CSPU and DESPP reversed course and settled the case in April 2023. The settlement categorizes the vast majority of the $260,500 payout as “compensatory damages” due directly to Mercer.
Settlement Underscores Importance of Public Servants’ Janus Rights
“We are proud to have defended Sergeant Mercer’s rights and secured him a settlement that vindicates his free association,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “However, it’s disgraceful that CSPU union officials targeted Mercer, a dedicated public safety officer, with such a retribution scheme in the first place. Public servants should not have to endure multi-year lawsuits just so they can refrain from supporting union politics they oppose.”
“Situations like these demonstrate why the Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court decided while Mercer’s case was ongoing, is so important,” Messenger added. “As demonstrated in Mercer’s case, unelected union officials often wield their enormous clout over government to serve the union’s self interests over the public interest and employee interests. That’s why it’s vital that public employees can exercise their First Amendment Janus right to cut off all financial support for union officials this way.”
