Milwaukee Worker Wins Refund of Union Dues in Settlement of Case Against Teamsters Union
Teamsters Local 200 union officials agree to repay money siphoned from factory workers’ pay after he exercised rights under Wisconsin Right to Work law
Milwaukee, WI (April 27, 2020) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an employee at a Milwaukee factory has secured a settlement with Teamsters “General” Local Union No. 200. Union officials denied his right under Wisconsin’s Right to Work law and the National Labor Relations Act to cut off union financial support.
Under the terms of the settlement, Teamsters Local 200 officials will repay Tyler Lewis union dues, plus interest, seized from his paycheck after he resigned his union membership and revoked his dues deduction authorization (“checkoff”).
Lewis works for Snap-on Logistics Company. After he was hired, a union official told him that he must become a union member and sign a checkoff authorizing the deduction of union dues from his paycheck. That union demand violated longstanding law going back to 1963.
In September 2019, Lewis resigned from the union and revoked his checkoff. Local 200 union officials refused to honor Lewis’s request to stop union dues deductions and continued to deduct them from his paycheck, despite Wisconsin’s Right to Work law making union payments strictly voluntary.
Consequently, Lewis filed an unfair labor charge with the National Labor Relations Board with the help of National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. The favorable settlement for Lewis resolves his charge.
“This settlement for Mr. Lewis is yet another victory for the rights of all Wisconsin workers, although it should not take federal labor charges for union bosses to acknowledge the basic rights of employees in the Badger State,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Clearly Wisconsin’s Right to Work law mandates that union membership and dues payment must be strictly voluntary, but union bosses regularly attempt to trap workers in forced fee ‘agreements,’ rather than respect workers’ rights and vie to win their uncoerced support.”
“This case demonstrates, yet again, why Teamsters union bosses have a well-earned reputation for using coercive tactics against workers who refuse to toe the union line,” Mix added.
Milwaukee Worker Files Federal Charges Against Teamsters Union for Violating His Rights under State and Federal Law
NLRB Charge: Despite Right to Work law, union bosses coerced worker into becoming a union member and then blocked attempts to cut off dues payments
Milwaukee, WI (March 3, 2020) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, an employee at a Milwaukee factory has filed federal charges against Teamsters “General” Local Union No. 200 for violating his rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and Wisconsin’s Right to Work law.
Tyler Lewis, employed by Snap-on Logistics Company, filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after union officials told him that he must become a union member and pay membership dues as a condition of employment in violation of longstanding federal law.
Teamsters union officials further refused to allow Lewis to stop union dues from being seized from his paycheck even after he learned of his rights and resigned his union membership in September 2019. Moreover, union officials continue to deduct dues from his paycheck and refuse to refund Lewis any of the dues unlawfully seized from him.
Forcing workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment is prohibited under Wisconsin’s Right to Work law, which went into effect in March 2015. However, union officials continued to accept and retain union dues seized from Lewis because they claimed he could only cut off union dues deductions during a narrow union-created “window period.” Even as they made that claim, they failed to provide Lewis with specific dates when his request would be accepted under their rules.
As his charge details, the union monopoly bargaining agreement in Lewis’ workplace, which was signed after the state Right to Work law went into effect, contained language prohibited by the Right to Work law that workers must pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. Moreover, even if the agreement was actually in place prior to the law’s effective date, Lewis’ Foundation-provided attorneys state in the filing that the passage of the Right to Work law invalidated the union’s claim that Lewis’ right to stop dues payments was limited to a brief union window period.
“Once again, Teamsters union bosses are using coercive tactics to force workers they claim to ‘represent’ to pay union dues and fees against their wishes,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Wisconsin’s Right to Work law should mean union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary, but rather than respect workers’ rights and work to win their uncoerced support, union bosses are again attempting to trap workers in forced dues in violation of federal law.”
