Posts tagged National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
Union accused of forcing Jewish students at MIT, Stanford, and Cornell to fund pro-Hamas agenda
August 12, 2025 // At MIT, following the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, the UE affiliate supported campus protests favoring Hamas, the letter states. Five Jewish graduate students requested religious accommodations to avoid paying dues to the union, citing conflicts with their faith. UE General Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker reportedly denied the requests, saying, “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.” At Stanford, three graduate students faced similar challenges. Their requests for accommodations were met with what the letter calls an “abusive” questionnaire, which the union dropped after legal pressure.
Under Trump, Student Labor Organizers Face New Challenges
August 7, 2025 // Anticipating a rollback of recent NLRB precedent, some unions have withdrawn petitions for recognition, looking for other paths to continue their work.
Will Sussman: Columbia Students Should Decertify Their Union
August 5, 2025 // Columbia students are fed up with their union’s focus on radicalism over bread-and-butter issues. “As a Jewish Israeli student at Columbia, the union has done absolutely nothing for me,” said Alon Levin, a graduate student in electrical engineering. “I have heard more blatantly racist and discriminatory language from them than anything that would remotely resemble aiding me in, say, addressing my cost of living or my health insurance concerns.” The problem with graduate student unions is not limited to Columbia, as I learned at MIT.
Hammond poultry facility employee asks board to allow workers to vote union officials out of workplace
August 2, 2025 // Hally's request says that he submitted a petition early this month with signatures from more than 50% of his 550-person unit demanding a vote to oust the union. Normally, NLRB policy only requires 30%. “Region 15 dismissed Hally’s petition consistent with the Board’s contract-bar doctrine,” the Request for Review says. “This bar contradicts the Act’s well-established ‘bedrock principles of employee free choice and majority rule’…because it grants monopoly bargaining status…even in the face of objective evidence proving the union has lost majority support."
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.
A quiet victory: Trump rule protecting federal workers survives Biden’s presidency
July 13, 2025 // Despite the Biden administration’s commitment to promoting unions, our arguments must have carried the day, as President Trump was re-inaugerated in January 2025 without the FLRA taking any further action and the pro-worker rule from his first term still in place. As a result, federal employees today continue to have more control over their paychecks and there’s one less item on the new administration’s to-do list.
Drivers Reject Steelworkers Union
July 8, 2025 // The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) acknowledged Sunoco Logistics’ withdrawal of recognition from the USW on May 12. As the result of Fifer and his coworkers’ effort, more than 420 drivers from around 30 Sunoco Logistics facilities across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico are free of the union’s control. Said Fifer: “I’m glad that my coworkers and I were able to band together to force this Steelworkers union out. The union was not a positive force in our workplace, and we are better off without it. I am lucky to live in the Right to Work state of Texas where I could at least choose to stop sending my money to this union while it was still in power, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for all of my fellow drivers.”
Bid Protests Offer a Way Around PLAs, But Will a Slow, Steady Precedent Win the Day?
June 25, 2025 // The OMB memo instructs federal agencies to maintain the labor pact requirements but also points to a Federal Acquisition Rule provision that provides an exception to the PLA requirement for large construction projects when its use would substantially reduce the number of bidders and impact the price. But it has left neither contractor groups nor NABTU happy. "To that extent this isn’t what we hoped for, it is definitely better than what was in place with the Biden administration,” Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce at AGC told ENR. “In addition, given the recent court decisions, it is hard to see how the administration will be able to impose a mandated PLA without facing successful bid protests."
House Committee Debates NLRB’s Fairness and Transparency
June 18, 2025 // Also at issue was how workers vote for or against unionization. When workers select a union, said Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, they should be allowed to make that choice “securely and privately” and “without intimidation or coercion.” He cited the “true language” of the NLRA that says a “union must be chosen by the majority of all the employees in a unit.” Vernuccio advocated for the use of secret-ballot elections in place of card check, an organizing method in which a union gathers worker signatures.
Hundreds of Sunoco Logistics Drivers Across TX, OK, LA, and NM Free Themselves From Steelworkers Union
May 21, 2025 // Crude oil drivers for Sunoco Logistics Partners (also known as Energy Transfer) have successfully forced unpopular United Steelworkers (USW) union bosses out of their work unit. The victory for workers comes after Jay Fifer, a driver for the oil transportation company, gathered signatures from the majority of his coworkers on a petition demanding that Sunoco Logistics officials end their recognition of the USW union as the majority “representative” of the drivers. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) acknowledged Sunoco Logistics’ withdrawal of recognition from the USW union on May 12. As the result of Fifer and his coworkers’ effort, over 420 drivers from around 30 Sunoco Logistics facilities across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico are free of the union’s control.