Source: https://nrtw.org/category/newsletter-articles/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 15:53:18+00:00

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Foundation staff attorneys have asked the Trump NLRB to repeal Obama-era rulings that granted coercive powers to union officials, such as AFL-CIO top boss Richard Trumka (right), at the expense of worker freedom.
WASHINGTON, DC – Since 2011, a Big Labor-friendly ruling by the Obama National Labor Relations Board has barred workers from holding secret ballot votes to remove an unwanted union from their workplace.
Foundation staff attorneys have urged the new Trump NLRB to overturn the case called Lamons Gasket to restore employees’ protections against union officials’ coercion. The latest appeal, the third this year brought by staff attorneys, is on behalf of Seattle hotel housekeeper Gladys Bryant.
Bryant works at Embassy Suites. UNITE HERE Local 8 union officials unionized the workplace through a card check drive, which bypasses an NLRB-supervised secret ballot election and is often characterized by manipulation and intimidation. Union organizers misled Bryant and her fellow workers into signing cards, and then counted those cards as “votes” toward unionization.
When Bryant realized what had happened, she led a group of colleagues in filing an NLRB petition for a secret ballot decertification vote with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys.
However, the election petition was dismissed by a regional career NLRB official using the Lamons Gasket ruling.
Under the Foundation-won Dana decision, workers could collect signatures to request a secret ballot election during a 45-day window following notice that they had been forced under union representation via card check. Dana had provided an important, although limited, protection for workers against coercive card check drives. However in the 2011 Lamons Gasket ruling, an Obama-selected NLRB overturned Dana. This means that no matter how many workers sign a petition seeking to oust a union, they can be barred for one year before they can file for a secret ballot vote.
Instead of ceding her workplace voice when her secret ballot vote petition was dismissed under Lamons Gasket, Bryant continued the legal battle with help from Foundation staff attorneys.
Foundation attorneys have submitted an appeal to the NLRB asking the Board to overturn Lamons Gasket and restore workers’ protections against the coercive tactics union officials use to force their monopoly bargaining privileges onto employees.
Such protections are especially important for workers in states like Washington that lack Right to Work protections. In those states, private sector employees can be forced to pay fees as a condition of employment to a union about which they never even had the chance to vote.
Foundation staff attorneys also filed unfair labor practice charges, still under NLRB investigation, for Bryant against the union and hotel management for coercive tactics used in the union card check process.
Elizabeth Zeien (left) and Carrie Keller were forced into union ranks and compelled to pay union fees. Thanks to Janus, the two Minnesota state workers have won refunds of their hard-earned money.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Two more workers have received refunds of unconstitutionally seized union fees under the Janus precedent. After being forced into union ranks and required to support a union they oppose, Carrie Keller and Elizabeth Zeien have won a settlement against Teamsters union officials for violating their First Amendment rights.
The refund is a result of the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME decision, which held that no public sector worker can be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
Now that union officials have settled their lawsuit, Keller and Zeien are the second and third public sector employees to win refunds in lawsuits under the new Janus precedent of unconstitutionally seized union fees.
Neither Keller nor Zeien, employees of the State of Minnesota Court System, was a union member when they started working at the court. They both negotiated their own terms and conditions of employment and salaries free from union interference.
In 2015, Teamsters Local 320 union officials started proceedings to force a number of state employees who were not in monopoly bargaining units into union ranks, in which they could be required to pay union dues and fees.
In March 2017, Minnesota state officials gave in to the Teamsters’ demands and added a number of employees, including Keller and Zeien, to a Teamsters-controlled bargaining unit. The workers were never given a vote on whether they wanted to be part of the union bargaining unit.
To challenge the forced unionization scheme, the two workers came to Foundation staff attorneys for free legal aid in filing a lawsuit.
In the Foundation-won Janus ruling, issued on the last day of its term on June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to force government employees to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of employment. The Court also clarified that no union dues or fees can be taken from workers without their affirmative consent and knowing waiver of their First Amendment right not to financially support a labor union.
Deciding to settle the lawsuit after the Janus decision, Teamsters union officials were obligated to refund Keller and Zeien the entirety of the unconstitutionally seized union dues plus interest. No further union dues or fees will be collected from the workers’ wages unless either affirmatively chooses to become a union member and authorizes deductions.
Keller and Zeien join Debora Nearman as the first three government employees who, with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, have received their hard-earned money back under Janus. In July, SEIU officials settled with Nearman to return nearly $3,000 in forced-fees refunds.
Foundation staff attorneys are already litigating more than a dozen cases for public sector employees previously forced to pay union fees in violation of their First Amendment rights, and receive more requests daily.
SALEM, OR – After years of being forced to financially support a union, public sector workers across the country are finally free from compulsory union fees as a result of the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME decision. Enforcing the monumental victory, Foundation staff attorneys are providing free legal aid to thousands of government employees to reclaim their hard-earned money through class action lawsuits.
In Janus, briefed and argued by Foundation staff attorneys, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that charging any government employee union fees as a condition of employment is a violation of the First Amendment. Unions may collect fees when an employee gives their clear and affirmative consent.
Government employees are now looking to hold union officials accountable for money unconstitutionally seized before the Janus decision. Foundation staff attorneys have filed several class action lawsuits for workers.
Together, the suits seek more than $170 million to be reclaimed from union officials’ coffers and returned to the individuals who earned it in the first place. That amount will continue to grow as Foundation staff attorneys file more class action lawsuits to seek forced fees refunds for more government employees.
In one such lawsuit, potentially tens of millions of dollars are at stake for a class of thousands of Oregon state workers.
In September, a group of public employees filed a lawsuit against the three largest Oregon public sector unions with a class action complaint to enforce the Janus precedent. Foundation staff attorneys represent the group as they seek refunds of forced fees from Oregon affiliates of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); and the National Education Association (NEA), as well as the Oregon-based Association of Engineering Employees (AEE).
The lawsuit seeks the return of affected workers’ money taken by the unions over the last six years, as allowed by the applicable statute of limitations, which is estimated by legal experts to total 30 million dollars or more. The Oregon employees’ lawsuit is just one of several across the country.
Also in September, Kiernan Wholean and James Grillo, workers at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), filed a complaint against the Connecticut State Employee Association (SEIU Local 2001) and the Secretary of Office of Policy Management, the Undersecretary of Labor Relations, and the Commissioner of DEEP of Connecticut.
Wholean and Grillo are not members of SEIU Local 2001 and had not consented to the deduction of forced union fees from their wages. Before Janus, they and other non-member employees had been forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment.
Connecticut stopped deducting union fees from the workers’ wages following a letter to the State Comptroller from the National Right to Work Foundation, which threatened legal action for any dues deductions from non-members that continued after Janus. However, DEEP still maintains a monopoly bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 2001 officials that requires non-members to pay union fees to get or keep jobs.
The complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut with free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, asks that the court certify a class to include all individuals who during the statutory limitations period were forced to pay union fees to SEIU Local 2001 without their affirmative consent, and to order the union to return the unconstitutionally seized fees to the class. The class potentially includes hundreds of workers.
Adding to the legal attack on union officials’ ill-gotten gains, a California state employee filed a lawsuit to enforce the Janus victory and return unconstitutionally forced fees to potentially 5,000 workers.
William Hough has worked at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) since 2005. He in no way wished to support Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 and exercised his right to refrain from union membership. However, he and other non-member employees were still forced by state law to pay union fees to keep their jobs.
After the Janus decision, Hough seeks the return of the money union officials seized from him and other employees. With free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, he filed his class action lawsuit against the VTA, SEIU Local 521, and the Attorney General and Governor of California.
Hough’s lawsuit asks for the class to include all affected individuals who, at any time within the applicable limitations period, were forced to pay fees to SEIU Local 521 without their consent. With a potential class of 5,000 workers, those union fees may total five million dollars.
The lawsuit also challenges the constitutionality of California’s law that, despite Janus, still authorizes Local 521 and its affiliates to seize union dues from non-members without their consent. Hough asks the court to declare such California laws a violation of the First Amendment.
In addition to the new cases reported in this article, Foundation staff attorneys continue to pursue other lawsuits to recoup forced fees for workers, as reinforced by the Janus precedent. In Hamidi v. SEIU, a class of 30,000 California state workers seek more than $100 million in unconstitutionally seized forced union fees. In Riffey v. Rauner, a group of Illinois home care providers asks for the return of $32 million in union fees seized through another coercive scheme.
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2018 edition.
Debora Nearman won a settlement against SEIU with the help of Foundation staff attorneys. Thanks to Janus, she is no longer forced to fund the organization that ran an aggressive campaign against her husband, Rep. Mike Nearman.
EUGENE, OR – Workers have already begun claiming their new rights under Janus. After being forced for years to support a union that opposed her personal views, including her religious convictions and her husband’s campaign for office, Debora Nearman has won a settlement against SEIU Local 503 officials for their violations of her First Amendment rights.
SEIU officials are required to return over two years of illegally seized fees, nearly $3,000, to Nearman. The refund is the first return of forced fees as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME decision, which held that the First Amendment prohibits mandatory union fees.
with SEIU Local 503 because the organization actively opposed her personal and political views, including her religious beliefs, and her husband’s public service.
State Representative in the Oregon Legislature. During the campaign, the SEIU local union that she was forced to fund spent over $53,000 to run an aggressive campaign against him, including distributing disparaging fliers.
case became the first in which a public employee won a refund of fees seized by union officials prior to the Janus decision.
bargaining-related purposes in order to get or keep their jobs. In Janus, the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to force government employees to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
from supporting a labor union.
member of SEIU and authorize such deductions. To comply with Janus, SEIU Local 503 and the state of Oregon have removed their forced fees provision from their collective bargaining agreement.
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2018 edition.
WASHINGTON, DC – On Monday, February 26, veteran National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorney William Messenger argued the blockbuster Janus v. AFSCME case before the United States Supreme Court. Messenger, representing Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services employee Mark Janus, asked the High Court to recognize that the First Amendment protects public workers from being required to make payments to union officials as a condition of working for their own government.
Mr. Janus is an Illinois child support specialist who filed the challenge after being required to pay union fees to AFSCME union officials even though he opposes many of the positions union officials nadvocate using his money. Janus feels he would be better off without the union’s so-called representation and that compelled speech through forced union dues violates his First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association.
In the 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education case, a divided High Court ruled that public employees could not be required to subsidize many political and ideological union activities. However the Court left in place forced fees used to subsidize union monopoly bargaining with the government. In a series of Foundation-litigated cases over the last five years, the Supreme Court has questioned the theory underpinning Abood.
In the National Right to Work Foundation-won Knox v. SEIU (2012) and Harris v. Quinn (2014) cases, the Supreme Court made clear that mandatory union payments invoke the highest level of First Amendment protection. Now staff attorneys from the National Right to Work Foundation, who represent Janus along with attorneys from the Illinois-based Liberty Justice Center, have asked the Supreme Court to apply the First Amendment precedent of heightened scrutiny to all mandatory union payments required of government employees.
“Mandatory union fees are the most widespread regime of compelled speech in the nation. It is long past time that public employees’ First Amendment rights be protected from being forced to subsidize union officials’ speech,” said Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse, Jr.
“We are hopeful that by the end of the Supreme Court’s term it will issue a decision ensuring that union payments for public employees like Mr. Janus are strictly voluntary, at which point the challenge will be enforcing those protections for millions of government workers,” LaJeunesse added.
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2017 edition. To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of the page.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – With forced dues requirements for over five million public sector employees at stake in the Foundation’s Janus v. AFSCME case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, union bosses coast-to-coast are already scrambling to limit workers ability to cut off dues payments if the court rules that mandatory union payments violate the First Amendment.
Following the Supreme Court’s announcement in late September that it was taking the Janus case, there were reports that Big Labor was ramping up tactics to block the workers from escaping forced dues. In response, Foundation staff attorneys crafted a special legal notice to public employees, warning them against signing any union authorization cards that might later be cited to limit their right to stop paying dues.
“Unfortunately, there is a long history of union officials refusing to accept limits on their forced- dues powers, and with 5.2 million government workers forced to pay billions each year to union bosses, it is no surprise that union bosses are pulling out all the stops to attempt to block them from using the protections that a Foundation win in the Janus case would bring,” said Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.
For instance, according to The Wall Street Journal, Education Minnesota, an affiliate of the National Education Association, is having teachers sign pre-filled “membership renewal” cards which also authorize their employer to deduct union dues or fees from their paychecks.
Although Foundation staff attorneys question the legality of such cards, the special legal notice reminds workers that signing such a card could limit their legal options later. This is compounded by the fact that in many documented instances, union organizers solicit signatures under misleading or false pretenses.
Public sector employees are taking notice of such schemes and are already calling the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to report this behavior by union officials and seek advice in protecting their rights. As always, Foundation staff attorneys are prepared to take legal action for workers who are illegally required to pay forced dues.
WASHNGTON, D.C. – Since the Supreme Court’s 1977 Abood decision, union dues for public employees have ostensibly been divided between political and ideological activities that workers could not be forced to subsidize and union activities regarding monopoly bargaining which state workers like Janus v. AFSCME plaintiff Mark Janus could be required to fund.
Beginning with the National Right to Work Foundation’s 2012 Knox v. SEIU Supreme Court case, the High Court has begun to question whether that supposed line sufficiently protects the First Amendment rights of workers like Mr. Janus who do not wish to join or associate with a union, especially because all public sector union activities are directed at the government, making them inherently political. Nevertheless union lawyers continue to argue, and are expected to argue again to the Supreme Court in Janus, that the so-called “agency fees” which nonmembers are required to pay are completely unrelated to union political spending and lobbying.
However, in public statements about the impact of losing the power to compel payment from nonmembers, union officials and their allies repeatedly admit that their forced-dues powers are crucial to Big Labor’s vast political influence.
One of the starkest admissions about how dependent union bosses are on forced dues came from an internal report commissioned by AFSCME, the union in the Janus case. According to a Bloomberg News report, the union study was commissioned to look at the potential impact of a Supreme Court ruling against forced fees. It concluded that union officials could only count on payments from “roughly 35%” of workers if dues were voluntary.
Of the remaining 65 percent, union officials said a quarter would likely opt out while the rest were “on the fence.” A separate admission by AFSCME official and former Obama Administration appointee Naomi Walker demonstrates the extent to which forced dues fuel partisan union spending on politics.
Writing about Janus for a union-funded publication, Walker predicted that the “progressive infrastructure in this country, from think tanks to advocacy organizations—which depends on the resources and engagement of workers and their unions—will crumble,” if the Supreme Court strikes down mandatory union fees. Meanwhile, the SEIU says it has planned for a 30% budget reduction in preparation for the loss of forced-dues powers over public employees.
Behind closed doors the recipients of Big Labor’s political largess also admit that union political expenditures would be significantly impacted by a ruling striking down forced dues. A leaked copy of remarks by the head of the left-wing Democracy Alliance noted that the groups “dodged a bullet” when Scalia’s death left the High Court split 4-4 with forced dues intact.
Democracy Alliance has directed around $500 million in political spending in recent election cycles. It counts national unions as a significant portion of its roughly 100 membership groups, which include AFSCME, SEIU and the two national teacher unions. In the leaked speech, Democracy Alliance President Gara LaMarche described the groups as “a key anchor of funding for progressive campaigns and causes.” According to a report in the Washington Free Beacon, he warned that Big Labor’s political allies would “need to find new ways to raise money to make up for the disastrous financial shortfall that could follow policies that prevent forced unionization.
According to public disclosure reports filed by union officials, Big Labor political spending during the 2016 election cycle topped $1.7 billion. Of that figure, over $1.3 billion came from union general treasury funds, funded largely by workers who would lose their jobs if they refused to pay union dues or fees.
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2017 edition. . To sign up for a free copy of the newsletter via mail please see the form at the bottom of the page.
It’s been a landmark year in the debate over forced union dues. Kentucky and Missouri became the 27th and 28th states, respectively, to pass Right to Work laws to ensure that financial support of a union is completely voluntary. Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court could announce in a few weeks that it will hear Janus v. AFSCME, a case seeking to strike down mandatory union payments as a violation of First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association.
The basic case for Right to Work is simple: Forcing workers to pay money to a union they don’t support is wrong. This is why polling consistently shows that Americans overwhelmingly support Right to Work, including strong majorities of independent, Republican and Democratic voters.
There are other reasons to support Right to Work, too. Workplace freedom is an economic engine, with private-sector job creation rates in Right to Work states double those in forced-unionism states between 2006 and 2016.
Plus, Right to Work laws make union officials more accountable to rank-and-file members. Without Right to Work, employees must pay up or be fired. With voluntary dues, workers can withhold financial support from a union that is corrupt, ineffective or putting its institutional interests ahead of what is best for workers. Right to Work is a defender of workers’ rights — union members and nonunion alike.
Gompers understood that true strength came from voluntary membership, and that by using government-granted powers to force workers to associate with and fund unions — such as laws that prohibit employees from choosing their own workplace representatives — organized labor undermines its legitimacy to speak on behalf of workers.
Today, this is compounded by the fact that fewer than 6 percent of unionized workers currently under monopoly union contracts have even had the opportunity to vote for or against union representation. That’s how entrenched forced unionization is in the American labor force.
In the years since Gompers wrote against “compulsory systems,” Big Labor has completely tossed out any pretense of his “voluntary unionism” that attracts workers by showing them the potential benefits of unionization.
Instead, Big Labor has wholeheartedly embraced “compulsory unionism,” which relies on special legal privileges from government to corral workers into a union with many having no say in the matter at all.
But with Right to Work states growing — six states have passed Right to Work in the past five years — and the potential Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME looming that could give every government employee Right to Work protections, union officials may be forced to confront a future without the power to force workers to pony up.
Without government-granted power to compel support, union officials would need to listen to their members and prove to them that paying union dues is worth it.
Union officials may find that level of accountability scary, but it’s exactly how Gompers would have wanted it.
This op-ed originally appeared in the September 3, 2017 New York Post.

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