Forced Dues For Politics: CWA Union Hit with Federal Charge by Pennsylvania Metal Worker
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CWA officials defied decades of law by rejecting worker’s resignation
Coates’ case challenging illegal seizure of forced dues for politics comes after one analysis found that union officials likely spent over $12 billion on political activities during the 2019-2020 election cycle, far more than union officials publicly admit.
GALETON, PA – An employee of metal corporation Catalus hit a Communications Workers of America (CWA) union local this May with federal charges for illegally seizing full union dues from his paycheck, including dues for politics. Curtis Coates, a metal worker for Catalus, is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Foundation attorneys filed Mr. Coates’ charges with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 6 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Region is now investigating the charges.
CWA Union Officials Continue to Collect Dues from Worker, Despite Lack of Authorization
On October 20, 2021, Mr. Coates sent a message to CWA union officials declaring that he was resigning from his position as shop steward and terminating his union membership.
Because no union monopoly contract was in effect, under longstanding law, Coates should have been able to immediately cut all financial support for the CWA union which he no longer supports. The charges say a union official rebuffed both of Mr. Coates’ requests the next day, insisting that he had to remain both a union member and a shop steward.
From December 2021 to February 2022, Mr. Coates followed up with union officials several times via email and mail. He repeatedly asked when union officials would cease taking dues money from his paychecks and what process he had to follow to revoke his dues deduction authorization to stop money from being seized from his paychecks.
“To date, the Union has not responded . . . and dues and contributions continue to be deducted from his wages,” the charge reads. Because Pennsylvania currently lacks a Right to Work law, union officials can legally force employees to pay some union fees just to keep their jobs. However, those forced fees cannot be demanded when no union contract is in effect.
Further, even in states without Right to Work protections full union membership cannot be required. Additionally, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in CWA v. Beck (1988), won by Foundation attorneys, forced fees are limited to only the part of union dues that union officials claim goes toward a union’s core “representational” functions and cannot be collected for other activities like union politics and lobbying.
Conflict of Interest: NLRB General Counsel is a Former CWA Union Official
Currently, the NLRB General Counsel is former CWA attorney Jennifer Abruzzo, who has expressed support for a number of policies which give union officials greater power to force workers into dues-paying union ranks, even without a vote. Foundation attorneys requested last year that Abruzzo recuse herself from a case involving an Oregon ABC cameraman who accused another CWA local of demanding illegal dues from him, including dues for politics.
Coates’ case represents another potential conflict of interest for Abruzzo, who has repeatedly sided with union officials against the rights of workers opposed to union affiliation.
“Mr. Coates’ right to refrain from funding union activities is being ignored by CWA union officials as they continue to unlawfully seize full union dues, which includes money used for union political activities,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “This case shows why Pennsylvania workers need the protection of a Right to Work law to make all union payments strictly voluntary: So union bosses cannot so brazenly collect money to which they are not entitled under longstanding federal law.”
“Further, Mr. Coates’ case demonstrates the obvious conflict of interest that exists as Abruzzo, a former CWA lawyer, is charged with enforcing workers’ rights violated by her former CWA union colleagues,” Semmens added.
Teamsters Officials ‘Beck’ Down: Must Return Thousands in Dues Seized for Politics
Foundation-won settlement also forces union officials to stop threatening non-members
SoCal Shenanigans: Teamsters officials’ disrespect for rank-and-file workers and their rights led to multiple Foundation-backed employee actions against them in just the past year.
LOS ANGELES, CA – When Nelson Medina and about 60 of his coworkers at Savage Services in Long Beach tried to exercise their right as union non-members to opt out of funding Teamsters Local 848 officials’ political expenditures, Teamsters bosses responded with harassment, misinformation, and threats of termination.
Now, with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, they have won a settlement that required Teamsters honchos to pay back thousands of dollars in dues union officials seized in violation of workers’ rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections, even Golden State private sector workers who oppose a union’s presence in their workplace can be required to pay union dues or fees to keep their jobs. However, under the Beck decision, union officials can never require non-members to subsidize union political activity. Beck also entitles employees who have abstained from union membership to receive union financial disclosures.
Teamsters Bosses to Workers: Fund Union Politics or Be Fired
Medina originally filed charges against Teamsters officials for illegal dues practices in September 2021. The charges stated that he had sent Teamsters officials a letter on August 15 exercising his right to reject formal union membership and invoking his right under Beck to cut off dues deductions for union politics.
About a month after the letter, the charge noted, union officials informed Savage Services management by mail that if Medina and 12 fellow employees who also objected to full union membership did not complete membership applications and pay full dues for the month of September, the employer should terminate the employees before September’s final week.
The settlement, in addition to requiring Teamsters bosses to return nearly $6,000 in illegally taken dues to Savage Services employees, also mandated that union officials declare in a public notice that they “will not fail to provide non-member employees with a breakdown of dues and fees required for Beck objectors upon request.”
They also had to declare they “will not threaten employees who have raised Beck objections with termination for failing to complete a union application as a condition of employment.”
“That Teamsters Local 848 officials illegally siphoned money for politics from almost 60 Savage Services employees and threatened termination of those who dared to stand up for their rights demonstrates clearly that Teamsters officials prioritize power far above the employees they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “Based on the sheer number of employees in Medina’s workplace who received refunds as the result of this settlement, Teamsters officials apparently played fast and loose with the rights of all workers who objected to the union agenda.”
Foundation Attorneys Counter Teamsters Coercion Across Southern California
Last September, Foundation staff attorneys also aided Ventura, CA, Airgas employees in removing Teamsters Local 848 from their facility. After litigation that had lasted almost a year, as well as two submissions of petitions demonstrating a majority of workers at the plant wanted the Teamsters gone, union officials finally departed the plant. They did so just before the NLRB was slated to conduct a secret-ballot vote whether to remove the union at the plant, likely leaving to avoid an embarrassing rejection by the workers.
The string of Foundation-assisted worker victories over unwanted Teamsters officials in Southern California continued last year when Ozvaldo Gutierrez and his XPO Logistics coworkers forced Teamsters Local 63 union bosses out of their Los Angeles facility in October.
Union Bosses Caught Red-Handed Illegally Taking Dues from Charter School Teacher
California union officials backed off anti-Janus deductions after Foundation action
Foundation staff attorney Bill Messenger successfully argued Janus at the Supreme Court. But enforcing the landmark First Amendment victory is an ongoing battle.
LOS ANGELES, CA – A former teacher at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Los Angeles, California, is getting a refund of illegally seized union dues with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The refund came after Foundation staff attorneys sent a letter to officials with the Camino Nuevo Teachers Association, an affiliate of California Teachers Association, threatening legal action for violating the teacher’s First Amendment rights.
Natalie Bahl, who was a teacher at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy up until recently, attempted to exercise her right as a public employee not to pay any union fees. Ms. Bahl notified the union of her decision in a mass email to several union officials, which reportedly also prompted other teachers to make similar requests. Her email was sent before the union-designated “window period” closed for teachers to revoke their authorization for deducting union dues.
Despite the timely request, Ms. Bahl realized a few months later that union dues were still being deducted from her paycheck. When she asked union officials about it, they suddenly claimed she missed her window period for dues revocation.
At that point, Ms. Bahl reached out to National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, who sent a letter demanding a refund of union dues collected in violation of Bahl’s First Amendment rights. Rather than face a potential federal civil rights lawsuit, CNTA union officials refunded all dues taken from Bahl from the time of her request until she left the school’s employment to further pursue her own education.
Union Officials Refuse to Learn Their Janus Lesson
In the Foundation-argued Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court case, the Court recognized that forcing public sector workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment violates the First Amendment. The Justices also ruled that public employees must opt in with affirmative consent to any union payments before money can be taken from their paychecks.
Since winning the 2018 Janus Supreme Court decision, Foundation staff attorneys have scored victories across the country for public employees seeking to enforce their First Amendment rights under the Janus decision. For example, Foundation staff attorneys recently successfully defended a public school teacher in Harford County, Maryland, from whom union bosses illegally seized dues for months despite two letters to the local AFSCME affiliate exercising her right to resign union membership and end all dues deductions from her pay.
“Teachers and other public sector workers have Janus rights under the First Amendment and should immediately contact the Foundation for free legal assistance if they believe their rights have been violated,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Unfortunately we continue to see that even when public employees comply with arbitrary union-created policies designed to stifle their First Amendment rights, union officials still brazenly ignore Janus in order to fill their coffers with union dues seized from employees.
Boeing Technician Files Federal Lawsuit Against Machinists Union Over Illegal Forced Dues Demands
Instead of reducing nonmember worker’s payments in accordance with Supreme Court precedent, union bosses charged him arbitrary higher amount
Seattle, WA (May 24, 2022) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Seattle Boeing technician Don Zueger is suing International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials in federal court for violating his right to refrain from paying for unwanted union activities.
Zueger, who is not a member of the IAM union, is defending his right under the Foundation-won 1988 CWA v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision, in which the Court ruled that union officials cannot charge full union dues to objecting private sector workers who have abstained from formal union membership. Under Beck, union officials can only charge union nonmembers “fees” which exclude expenses for things like union political activities.
Because Washington State lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, nonmembers like Zueger can be forced to pay the reduced amount under Beck as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
IAM Officials Continue to Overcharge Worker in Violation of His Rights
According to Zueger’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, he submitted a request to IAM union officials in February resigning his union membership and asking for his dues payments to be reduced under Beck.
Zueger’s lawsuit reports that IAM officials’ response to his Beck request claimed that, under IAM’s nationwide policy, the portion of union dues he is required to pay is based on averages of selected audits that in each case include nine other local and district IAM affiliates. This means the forced union fee amount is not calculated using the actual amounts determined in the audits of the local and district IAM affiliates that Zueger is required to fund as a condition of employment. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in Zueger’s dues reduction being significantly less than it would have been had union officials only used the audits for the district and local affiliates Zueger is forced to fund.
According to his lawsuit, union officials are still demanding from Zueger dues in excess of the amount Beck permits. The lawsuit seeks to force IAM union bosses to return all money demanded in violation of Beck and to properly reduce his future union payments in accordance with Beck.
Workers Should Be Wary of Illegal Union Dues Schemes as Union Political Activity Increases
Zueger’s lawsuit comes after union bosses spent near-record sums on politics during the 2020 election cycle. A report by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) released in 2021 revealed that union officials’ own Department of Labor filings show about $2 billion in political spending during the 2020 cycle, primarily from dues-stocked union general treasuries. Moreover, other estimates strongly suggest that actual union spending on political and lobbying activities actually topped $12 billion in 2019-2020.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out when union officials are trying to strong-arm employees into subsidizing union activities, including politics, against their will. IAM officials’ nonmember dues scheme doesn’t pass the smell test,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While we’re proud to help Mr. Zueger defend his Beck rights, ultimately no American worker should be forced to pay fees determined by the whims of union officials simply in order to keep their jobs.”
“This case shows why Right to Work laws are needed nationwide to ensure that the decision to join or financially support a union is strictly a matter of each individual worker’s own conscience. Workers should be especially aware of attempts by union officials to force them to fund union activities as union political activity heats up in advance of this year’s elections,” Mix added.
NYC University Professors Take Aim at Forced Union ‘Representation’
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CUNY professors’ lawsuit argues NY law forces them under power of anti-Semitic union
Prof. Avraham Goldstein recalled in a Wall Street Journal piece the anti-Semitism his family faced in the Soviet Union. He and other plaintiffs argue they shouldn’t be forced to associate with a union that subjects them to similar hostility.
NEW YORK, NY – For decades, government sector union bosses have relied on two pillars of coercion — forced dues and forced representation — to maintain their grip on power over America’s public servants and the public services citizens rely on.
While the Supreme Court in the 2018 National Right to Work Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court case recognized that forcing government employees to pay dues to stay employed violates the First Amendment, a new Foundation-assisted civil rights lawsuit from six City University of New York (CUNY) system professors may finally defeat union bosses’ privilege to impose union representation over the objections of public workers.
CUNY professors Jeffrey Lax, Michael Goldstein, Avraham Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, and Maria Pagano sued the AFL-CIO-affiliated Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union, CUNY executives, and New York State officials in January, challenging New York State’s “Taylor Law” that gives unions monopoly bargaining privileges in public sector workplaces like CUNY.
The plaintiffs, most of whom are Jewish, oppose the union’s “representation” on the grounds that union officials and adherents have relentlessly denigrated their religious and cultural identity. Several of the plaintiffs exercised their Janus right to cut off dues after PSC officials rammed through a resolution in June 2021 that they found “anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, and anti-Israel,” according to the lawsuit.
Discrimination Cited in Groundbreaking First Amendment Case
The lawsuit, which was filed with legal aid from both the National Right to Work Foundation and Pennsylvania-based Fairness Center, says: “Despite Plaintiffs’ resignations from membership in PSC, Defendants . . . acting in concert and under color of state law, force all Plaintiffs to continue to utilize PSC as their exclusive bargaining representative.”
The resolution is not nearly the worst example of PSC officials’ anti-Semitism, according to the lawsuit. Prof. Michael Goldstein asserts that adherents of PSC are waging a campaign to get him fired and have targeted him with harassment and threats such that he must have an armed guard accompany him on campus. Prof. Lax cites in the lawsuit a determination he has already received from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that “PSC leaders discriminated against him, retaliated against him, and subjected him to a hostile work environment on the basis of religion.”
While all of the professors take issue with PSC bosses’ radicalism, they also want to break free from internal conflicts within the large and disparate unit, which consists of full-time, part-time, and adjunct teaching employees and others. Prof. Kass-Shraibman states in the lawsuit that “instead of prioritizing the pay of full-time faculty, PSC expended resources advocating on behalf of teachers in Peru, graduate students at various other universities and the so-called ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement.”
On top of all that, Profs. Avraham Goldstein, Kass-Shraibman, and Langbert contend that PSC officials aren’t even respecting their First Amendment Janus rights. Although all three professors clearly indicated they wanted to cut off financial support to the union, the lawsuit explains that “Defendants PSC and the City . . . have taken and continue to take and/or have accepted and continue to accept union dues from [their] wages as a condition of employment . . .” in violation of Janus.
“I had paid thousands of dollars in union dues for workplace representation, not for political statements or attacks on my beliefs and identity,” Prof. Avraham Goldstein wrote in a piece for The Wall Street Journal. “I decided to resign my union membership and naively thought I could leave the union and its politics behind for good.”
“I was wrong,” recounted Prof. Goldstein. “Union officials refused my resignation and continued taking union dues out of my paycheck.”
Suit Seeks Damages and to Overturn NY Law Authorizing Union Control
The lawsuit seeks a declaration from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that the Taylor Law’s imposition of monopoly union control is unconstitutional, and that the defendants cease “certifying or recognizing PSC, or any other union, as Plaintiffs’ exclusive representative without their consent.” The lawsuit also demands the union and university return dues seized in violation of Janus to Profs. Avraham Goldstein, Kass-Shraibman, and Langbert.
“By forcing these professors into a monopoly union collective against their will, the state of New York mandates that they associate with union officials and other union members who take positions that are deeply offensive to these professors’ most fundamental beliefs,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “New York State’s Taylor Law authorizes such unconscionable compulsion. It is time federal courts fully protect the rights of government employees to exercise their freedom to disassociate from an unwanted union, whether their objections are religious, cultural, financial, or otherwise.”
Orange County Lifeguards Push for Rehearing of First Amendment Challenge to Union Scheme Trapping Them in Union Membership
Restrictions will trap lifeguards in union membership and full dues payments for almost four years after they opted out of union
Orange County, CA (May 16, 2022) – California lifeguard Jonathan Savas and 22 colleagues are pressing for a rehearing of their federal civil rights lawsuit before an en banc panel of judges of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Savas and the others are suing the State of California and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) union for violating their and their coworkers’ First Amendment right to abstain from forced union membership and compelled financial support.
Savas and his colleagues are asserting their rights under the National Right to Work Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision, in which the Court declared that no public sector worker can be forced to bankroll a union without voluntarily waiving their First Amendment right to abstain from union payments.
A so-called “maintenance of membership” requirement enforced by CSLEA union bosses and the State of California is forcing the lifeguards to both remain union members and supply full dues payments to the CSLEA union against their will. Savas and the other plaintiffs sent messages resigning their union memberships and ending dues authorizations on or around September 2019, but union officials denied their requests, alleging they have to remain full members until 2023. Despite Janus, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that this requirement does not violate the First Amendment.
Lifeguards’ Attorneys: ‘Maintenance of Membership’ Requirements Have Been Unconstitutional for Decades
Savas’ attorneys criticize the Ninth Circuit panel’s giving a pass to “maintenance of membership” requirements as contradicting Janus, and note that forcing dissenting employees to pay full union dues was unconstitutional even under Abood, the 1977 Supreme Court decision which Janus overruled. The lifeguards are receiving free legal representation from staff attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Freedom Foundation, along with Mariah Gondeiro of Tyler Bursh, LLP.
“The Supreme Court recognized decades prior to Janus, in Abood, that it violates the First Amendment for government employers and unions to require dissenting employees pay full union dues…If maintenance of membership requirements could not survive constitutional scrutiny under Abood,” Savas’ attorneys argue, the requirements are definitely foreclosed by the higher level of First Amendment protection applied in Janus.
Savas’ en banc request also refutes the Ninth Circuit panel’s claim that the lifeguards somehow “contractually consented to the maintenance of membership requirement.” Savas’ attorneys point out that the dues deduction authorization form that the lifeguards signed only vaguely alluded to the presence of the “maintenance of membership” requirement in the union contract with their state employer, and never explicitly informed the lifeguards what that requirement was.
On that same point, Savas’ attorneys point out that “the panel’s contract-law analysis is wrongheaded because Janus requires a constitutional-waiver analysis.” Janus requires that employees voluntarily waive their First Amendment right not to make dues payments before such payments are extracted. Savas’ attorneys state “[t]here is no evidence the Lifeguards knew of their First Amendment rights under Janus or intelligently chose to waive those rights.” Indeed, many of the lifeguards could not have known about those rights because they signed the dues deduction authorization forms before the Supreme Court decided Janus.
“Even if such evidence existed, any purported waiver would be unenforceable…because a four-year prohibition on employees’ exercising their First Amendment rights under Janus is unconscionable,” Savas’ attorneys continue.
Ninth Circuit Panel Ruling Completely Inconsistent with Janus, Rehearing Required
“So-called ‘maintenance of membership’ requirements have been unconstitutional for decades, and it’s outrageous that courts have looked the other way and allowed CSLEA union bosses to infringe Savas’ and his fellow lifeguards’ First Amendment rights under the guise of such restrictions for so long,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “A rehearing of Savas’ case is necessary so the plain meaning of Janus can be applied. Otherwise the Ninth Circuit will not only have ignored Janus, but turned back the clock over half a century on workers’ right to refrain from union membership.”
Case Closed: Nurse Prevails in 11-Year Legal Fight Over Forced Dues
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
100 Rhode Island hospital employees win refund of dues illegally seized for union lobbying
After over a decade of battling power-hungry UNAP union bosses in court, Jeanette Geary has secured not only refunds of dues seized for union politics, but a First Circuit decision clarifying non-members can never be charged for union lobbying.
WARWICK, RI – Jeanette Geary finally achieved a total victory in her 11-year legal battle against union bosses. She and 99 other current and former nurses at Kent Hospital in Rhode Island received refunds of forced dues that were illegally used to support union lobbying in state legislatures. Foundation attorneys represented Geary throughout her fight.
Geary’s journey began when she grew frustrated with United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) union bosses in her workplace. “I realized what the union was doing,” Geary explained. “The union leadership had no interest in nurses or our professional work. Their only interest was collection of dues and fees.”
Geary resigned her union membership, but union dues were still extracted from her paycheck because Rhode Island is a forced unionism state that lacks Right to Work protections. However, thanks to the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, nonmember workers can only be forced to pay fees for union activities “germane” to union monopoly bargaining. They cannot be forced to pay the portion of dues that funds activities like union lobbying.
Nurse Harassed for Standing Up to Union Bosses
Geary demanded a breakdown of the union’s expenditures, but union bosses refused to give her a legally required independent auditor’s verification of how they calculated non-members’ reduced forced fees. Like many who speak up against union bosses, Geary became a target for union harassment. “They laughed at me. They had their workplace reps ridicule me on the job and tell me I could file grievances that would be thrown away and said so with a big smile,” Geary recalled.
In 2009, Geary filed federal charges against union officials. The trial revealed UNAP officials were charging non-member nurses for lobbying in state legislatures. Despite the Supreme Court’s clear mandate in Beck that non-members’ money could not be used to fund political causes, union lawyers argued the lobbying was “germane” to the union’s monopoly bargaining.
Thanks to delays caused by President Obama’s illegal recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Geary had to file two petitions with the U.S.
Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and didn’t get a final NLRB ruling for nearly a decade. Finally, in March 2019, the NLRB ruled 3-1 that union officials cannot charge non-members for lobbying of any kind. It also ruled that union officials must provide independent verification that the union expenses they force non-members to pay have been audited.
Union Bosses Ridiculously Claimed Some Union Lobbying Wasn’t Political
Union officials still wouldn’t abandon their argument that nonmembers could be forced to pay for some union lobbying as a condition of employment. Union lawyers appealed the NLRB’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. A three-judge panel that included retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter ruled unanimously in Geary’s favor, saying “we see no convincing argument that legislative lobbying is not a ‘political’ activity.”
Union officials made a last-ditch attempt to overturn the decision, requesting an en banc hearing by the entire Court of Appeals, but that request was denied. In September 2021, union bosses finally paid back, with interest, thousands of dollars taken from Geary and 99 other current and former Kent Hospital nurses who were not union members but were charged for the union’s lobbying, bringing the decade-long case to a close.
“Jeanette Geary faced workplace ridicule for her decision to stand up to union bosses, yet she persevered for eleven years,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “In the process, she won important legal precedents that will protect thousands of other workers from having their money illegally used to fund union politics.”
National Right to Work Foundation in the Detroit News: Big Labor’s Latest Attack on Michigan Right to Work
A recent op-ed from National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix in the Detroit News discusses union bosses never-ending attempts to overturn or undermine Michigan’s Right To Work protections for workers.
The article explains how union officials wield their monopoly power against workers in the union-controlled “grievance process” and why the Foundation recently filed an amicus brief in a case currently at the Michigan Supreme Court in which union officials are attempting to circumvent Right to Work:
Courts have long recognized that, in unionized workplaces, union kingpins effectively own the process through which workplace grievances regarding alleged misapplications or misinterpretations of company policies are handled.
Five-and-a-half decades ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan’s majority opinion in NLRB v. Allis Chalmers bluntly acknowledged that America’s national labor policy “extinguishes the individual employee’s power to order his own relations with his employer,” while “clothing” union bosses with monopoly-bargaining power.
And Justice Thurgood Marshall’s 1975 Emporium Capwell opinion resoundingly affirmed that a union controls all grievances under “exclusive” union bargaining, notwithstanding any employee attempts to redress grievances independently.
Their ironclad control over employee grievances is undoubtedly a boon for union bosses. Two current federal lawsuits filed by Michigan workers against United Auto Workers union bosses and Fiat Chrysler executives vividly illustrate why.
In one of these cases, 42 current and former employees of FCA (now known as Stellantis) charge that they were cheated out of wages and benefits they were promised by UAW bosses when their pay was cut from $28 an hour to $16 an hour after they switched from part-time to full-time jobs.
When the workers complained about the pay cut, local UAW bosses allegedly promised to file grievances on their behalf — but never did.
In the other case, 47 current and former engineers allege that FCA violated the union contract when it transferred them from a facility in Auburn Hills to another one in Trenton. Grievances they filed regarding the matter were mishandled or withdrawn without explanation by the UAW brass.
As outrageous as UAW bosses’ failure to follow up adequately on workers’ grievances in these two cases may seem to ordinary citizens, the fact is that federal law permits union bosses with monopoly-bargaining power to refuse to advance workers’ legitimate grievances simply because they don’t think it’s in the interest of the union to do so.
[…]
But even this extraordinarily privileged status isn’t enough to satisfy government union officials in Michigan. In Technical, Professional, and Officeworkers Association of MI v. Daniel Renner, a case now pending before the Michigan Supreme Court, they are brazenly contending they may vindictively refuse to process the grievances of union nonmembers to punish them for not joining and bankrolling the union, even when the union contract prohibits the individual employee from filing grievances on his or her own behalf.
Though union lawyers’ outrageous claims in Renner’s case have already been rejected at the Michigan Employment Relations Commission and at the State of Michigan Court of Appeals, there is no guarantee they will be dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court.
That’s why the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed a brief Friday in the case defending Daniel Renner’s rights under Michigan’s right-to-work law.
The Michigan Supreme Court must reject this cynical attack on Wolverine State workers’ legal protections against being forced to fund a union they disapprove of.
Read the entire article on the Detroit News website.
More details on the case and the Foundation’s brief can be found here. Read the brief here (PDF).
