Missouri Workers Head to Court to Defend Right to Work Law from Misleading Ballot Amendments
MO Right to Work supporters object to deceptive proposed constitutional amendment language approved by former Secretary of State
St. Louis, MO (May 24, 2017) – A group of Missouri workers have a hearing today in their lawsuit challenging the deceptive ballot language on a set of constitutional amendments that would effectively repeal Missouri’s popular new Right to Work law. The three Missourians are represented by a staff attorney from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Seeing the writing on the wall for passage of a Missouri state Right to Work law making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary, Mike Louis, the Missouri AFL-CIO’s top official, submitted to the Missouri Secretary of State ten proposed amendments to the state constitution. Each of the proposals seek to overturn Missouri’s Right to Work law enacted in February.
The workers’ lawsuit challenges the summary statements and ballot language for the amendments as confusing and misleading. The language was approved by outgoing Secretary of State Jason Kander who ran a failed U.S. Senate campaign that was funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars in union contributions. He approved the ballot language just hours before vacating office, ignoring the fact that none of the petitions even mentioned the Right to Work law that they are designed to nullify. The amendments would appear on the 2018 ballot if union organizers obtain a sufficient number of signatures.
If any of the Big Labor-backed constitutional amendments are put on the ballot and approved by the voters, they would repeal the new Right to Work law and block future passage of any state legislation to protect workers from mandatory union fees. Any future attempt to pass Right to Work would first require another amendment of the state constitution.
In late March, in response to the lawsuit filed by three pro-Right to Work employees with free legal representation provided by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Judge Beetem of the Cole County Circuit court ruled that the proposed language was “unfair and insufficient.” He ordered that the ballot language be rewritten to be more balanced and clearly reflect that the proposed constitutional amendments would repeal Right to Work in Missouri.
The workers then filed a technical appeal so that they can defend the Circuit Court’s decision from union lawyers’ efforts to overturn it and reinstate the misleading language. The hearing in the appeal will be in the Western Division of the Missouri Court of Appeals’ courthouse in Kansas City at 1:30 p.m. Central Time.
“Big Labor continues to resort to any tactic in an attempt to block Missouri’s new Right to Work law,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Big Labor knows that the citizens of Missouri believe it is wrong for an employee to be fired simply for refusing to pay union dues or fees to a union boss. That’s why the union bosses are so intent on confusing voters about their goal of restoring their forced dues powers.”
The workers have also filed a lawsuit opposing the language proposed for a Right to Work law repeal referendum filed by the AFL-CIO. That lawsuit alleges that the approved language of the repeal referendum, which would put Missouri’s Right to Work law on hold pending a statewide vote, amazingly, includes grammatical errors and does not meet the statutory requirements that govern the process.
Massachusetts Educators Ask State High Court to Take Legal Challenge to Public Sector Forced Union Dues
Case argues forcing state employees to subsidize union officials’ speech violates First Amendment protections
Boston, MA (June 27, 2017) – With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, a group of Massachusetts educators are asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to hear their case challenging payments they are currently forced to make to union officials.
In 2014, four University of Massachusetts and Hanover School Committee educators filed a series of prohibited practice charges with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations (DLR) against their employers and the union that holds monopoly bargaining contracts at their facilities. The charges challenge the constitutionality of the compulsory union fees that they are forced to pay.
The four plaintiffs have chosen to refuse union membership, but all must pay fees to National Educators Association union officials as a condition of their employment. The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Dr. Ben Branch, is a Finance professor. His colleague and fellow plaintiff, Dr. Curtiss Conner, is a Chemistry professor, both at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Plaintiff Dr. Andre Melcuk is Director of Departmental Information Technology at the Silvio O. Conte National Center for Polymer Research at the University. Dr. Melcuk was born in the Soviet Union and opposes the union based on his dislike of collectivist organizations.
Plaintiff Deborah Curran is a long-term teacher in the Hanover Public Schools. She had the union officials who supposedly “represent” her attempt to invalidate her promotion to a position mentoring new teachers and push to have her investigated and suspended. She ultimately spent nearly $35,000 of her own money battling union officials just to protect her job.
All of these employees believe they would be better off without union representation and desire to be released from paying for the unwanted representation. Their charges at the Massachusetts DLR were dismissed on February 23, 2015, but only recently did the DLR formally transmit the record to the Court of Appeals.
Foundation staff attorneys now seek direct review of the educators’ case by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Ultimately the issue of the constitutionality of forced union fees for public employees will have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“These are dedicated teachers and professors who are being forced to pay dues and fees to union bosses who do not have their best interests in mind,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “The fact that one of these educators had to pay forced fees to union officials, while the same officials were pushing for her termination, demonstrates the injustice of mandatory union payments for employees who never asked for or wanted union officials’ so-called ‘representation.’”
In addition to this case, Foundation staff attorneys have six other cases in federal court seeking a ruling that forced union payments for public employees violate the First Amendment. One of those cases, Janus v. AFSCME, is currently at the Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari.
