Posts tagged Federal Charges
Union asks DeKalb school board members to step down after indicted superintendent resigns
October 26, 2025 // The Georgia Federation of Teachers sent a letter the DeKalb County school board chair and vice chair calling on school board members to resign. The letter is in response to former Superintendent Devon Horton resigning after being indicted on federal charges.
Heavy Equipment Operators File Federal Charges Against Operating Engineers Union for Illegal Retaliation
October 21, 2025 // The charges filed by Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, and Chris Oaks each state that even before formally resigning from the union, the employees were never voluntary union members, as they had been misled into believing that union membership was mandatory. Though union officials frequently mislead workers into believing that formal union membership is required, the problem is especially prevalent when employment involves union hiring halls. Under longstanding law, only fully voluntary union members can be subjected to internal union discipline, which often involves fines levied against workers at odds with union boss demands. Workers cannot face discipline for actions that occur after a worker has resigned from such voluntary union membership.
Pratt & Whitney Employee Slams IAM Union With Federal Charges For Imposing Illegal Post-Strike Discipline
October 6, 2025 // Union officials insulted worker for wanting to resign membership and keep working, incorrectly told workers P&W was “closed shop”
King Soopers Employees Hit Union Officials with New Federal Charges for Illegal Strike Fine Threats
September 11, 2025 // This isn’t the first time UFCW Local 7 officials are alleged to have violated federal law. In 2022, after the UFCW ordered a strike, several employees filed charges against Local 7 officials for hitting them with fines despite being non-union members. In two cases where the employees received free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, union enforcers backed down from their fines rather than face discipline from the NLRB.
San Fernando Valley Kaiser Permanente Nurse Hits UNAC Union With Federal Charges for Forcing Nurses to Fund Union Politics
July 19, 2025 // Sarah Warthemann, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente’s branch in Woodland Hills, has just filed federal charges against the United Nurses Association of California (UNAC) union at her workplace. She maintains that UNAC officials threatened that she would lose her job if she did not formally join the union, and have ignored her attempt to exercise her legal right to opt out of paying for union political expenses. Warthemann filed her charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Pittsburgh-Area Coca-Cola Driver Slams Teamsters With Federal Charges for Threatening Firing Over Refusal to Fund Union Politics
July 7, 2025 // Hammaker’s charges go on to challenge the fact that Teamsters union officials’ policies force workers to “affirmatively opt out of paying for non-chargeable expenditures” (if such requests are accepted at all), as opposed to letting workers voluntarily opt in to such support. Moreover, “the Union has violated the Act by failing to inform [Hammaker] and similarly situated employees of the true amount of dues they are required to pay” under Beck to stay employed, the charges conclude.
Evansville Electrician Files Federal Charges Against IBEW Local 16 for Union Bosses’ $1.29 Million Retaliatory ‘Fine’
July 1, 2025 // Putting such restrictions on workers’ right to resign their union memberships has no basis in law. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Pattern Makers v. NLRB spell out that workers have a right to end union membership and union officials cannot require such membership as a condition of getting or keeping a job (though states that lack Right to Work laws like Indiana’s let union officials force workers to pay dues or be fired). Union officials also may not impose union discipline, like fines, on workers who aren’t members. In the interim between the two letters, IBEW Local 16 pursued union discipline against Head for “purchas[ing] a non-union electrical contractor and…decid[ing] not to sign a Letter of Assent” that would have likely handed the business over to union control without any kind of worker vote. Notably, the union’s discipline took place after Head’s March 27 union resignation – meaning Head was legally beyond the union’s powers to impose any sort of internal punishment.
Employee of LAX Foodservice Provider Slams Unite Here Local 11 With Federal Charges Detailing Intimidation, Harassment
April 28, 2025 // Kenia Solano, maintains that union officials and agents have targeted her with harassment, intimidation, and even physical confrontation over her opposition to the union’s control. Solano filed her charges at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 21 with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. “Unite Here has been a terrible presence in our workplace. Our contracts are bad and union representatives treat me and anyone who disagrees even a little bit with the union like we are evil,” commented Solano. “The law is supposed to protect my right to disagree with the union and tell my coworkers that we are better off without it, but union bosses have not respected those rights at all and just keep harassing me.”
Ascension St. Agnes Nurse Slams NNOC Union With Federal Charges After Union Restricts Workplace Vote
April 16, 2025 // Delaney details in her charges that NNOC union officials are forbidding nurses who are not formal union members, like herself, from voting on a “partial deal” that is part of a wider contract negotiation. The union is restricting the voting pool despite the fact that the union monopoly contract will impose conditions on all nurses at the facility, members and nonmembers alike. Delaney is arguing that NNOC union officials are violating the “duty of fair representation,” a legal mandate that requires union officials not to discriminate in its bargaining functions, including on the basis of union membership. The duty originates from a 1944 Supreme Court case, Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railway Co., in which the Court recognized that rail union bosses were manipulating their powers over the workplace to discriminate against African-American railway workers.
Minnesota Electric Utility Employee Challenges IBEW Nationwide Policy Coercing Worker Contributions to Union’s Political Activity
April 10, 2025 // An employee of Agralite Electric Cooperative, an electric utility company in Western Minnesota, has just filed federal charges against the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union, challenging nationwide restrictions union officials impose on workers who wish to cut off financial support for union political activities. The worker, Theresa Klassen, filed charges against both the IBEW international union and IBEW Local 160 at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 18 in Minneapolis. Klassen is represented for free by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.