Posts tagged forced union fees
Michael Watson: Improving Union Annual Reporting
July 3, 2025 // Especially following the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which “collection” is funding what spending is important information for union members, and they deserve ready, single-site access. (Citizens United overturned a Taft-Hartley Act–derived ban on using union dues revenues for independent expenditures on behalf of candidates.) They should not need to cross-reference Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports and Labor Department reports to infer which pot of money paid for which spending. Instead, the Labor Department or Congress should revise the LM-2 form to require labor unions to specify the funding source, perhaps by adding a new schedule for expenditures to or by the “Separate Segregated Fund” (the technical name for the “second collection” pot of money) or by requiring specification of the source of funds for Schedule 16 and 17 expenditures related to politics and advocacy.
DHS Security Guard’s Federal Lawsuit Forces IGUA Union Bosses to Stop Illegal Forced Union Dues Demands
June 6, 2024 // Crawley is not a member of the IGUA union, but is still subject to IGUA’s monopoly bargaining power over the security guards at the DHS Nebraska Avenue Complex. As part of the settlement, IGUA union bosses must reduce the compulsory fee that they seize from Crawley as a condition of keeping her job. Before she filed suit, union bosses demanded the equivalent of full membership dues from her. In her federal lawsuit, which she filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Crawley sought to defend her rights under the 1988 Right to Work Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision.
Support Staff at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children Vote to Eject SEIU Union Officials
December 20, 2023 // Large unit of over 270 medical assistants, office coordinators, and others will now be free of union control
D.C. Security Guard Fights Back Against Union Retaliation for Trying to Remove Union Forced Dues Power
June 15, 2023 // Due to D.C. lacking Right to Work protections, workers who oppose union boss agendas can still be forced to pay union fees as a condition of their continued employment. However, under Beck decision, union officials can never require non-members to fund activities not directly related to union monopoly bargaining. Beck has been interpreted by the lower courts, and the NLRB, to require that union officials provide certain union financial disclosures to justify the amount they claim a worker can be required to pay. Sebuabe has yet to receive justifications for the amount he can legally be forced to pay by union officials.
Federal Judge Rejects Attempt by TWU Union and Southwest to Thwart Flight Attendant’s Religious Discrimination Suit
May 11, 2022 // Carter resigned from union membership but was still forced to pay fees to TWU Local 556 as a condition of her employment. State Right to Work laws do not protect her from forced union fees because airline and railway employees are covered by the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA). The RLA allows union officials to have a worker fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees. But it does protect the rights of employees to remain nonmembers of the union, to criticize the union and its leadership, and advocate for changing the union’s current leadership.