Posts tagged National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
CUNY Professors’ Lawsuit Challenging Forced Association with Antisemitism-Linked Union Continues at Second Circuit
June 5, 2023 // City University professors challenge NY law that forces them to be represented by hostile union hierarchy Six City University of New York (CUNY) professors have taken their federal civil rights lawsuit against Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union officials to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The professors, Avraham Goldstein, Michael Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, Jeffrey Lax, and Maria Pagano, charge PSC union bosses with violating the First Amendment by forcing them to accept the union’s monopoly control and “representation” – “representation” the professors not only oppose, but find extremely offensive and in contradiction to their personal beliefs.
PHL Guava & Java Employees Overcome ‘Widespread Union Intimidation Campaign,’ Vote Out Union
May 23, 2023 // Workers at the Guava & Java store in the Philadelphia Airport have voted to remove the UNITE HERE Local 274 union by an overwhelming majority. The vote follows a petition submitted by Guava & Java employee Shaneisha Brown with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Brown is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Brown filed the petition with the NLRB on March 30, 2023, with a significant number of her coworkers’ support. After the petition was filed and verified, the NLRB scheduled the election to be held on May 11. With an overwhelming majority of 32-9, the workers at Guava & Java voted to remove UNITE HERE Local 274 from their workplace.
Metro officer asks US Supreme Court to hear suit over union fees
December 22, 2022 // Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said it will take months to know if the Supreme Court will hear the lawsuit. He said that since the 2018 ruling, unions have been using restriction periods like the one in Metro’s collective bargaining agreement to determine when someone can resign from a union and stop paying dues. The petition argued that the 20-day resignation period was enacted in a new collective bargaining agreement from July 2019, and that the only form she signed authorizing dues deductions was in 2006.
Spanish Broadcasting System Radio Host Appeals Case After Labor Board Blocks Vote to Remove SAG-AFTRA Union Officials
December 20, 2022 // With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Spanish Broadcasting System radio host Adal Loreto is defending his and his coworkers’ right to vote unwanted Stage Actors’ Guild (SAG-AFTRA) union officials out of their workplace. In July, Loreto filed a petition for a group of his coworkers seeking a vote to end union officials’ so-called “representation” over on-air talent of KLAXFM and KXOL-FM radio stations. That National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decertification petition resulted in a mail ballot election conducted in August and September. However, the workers’ ballots were never actually counted. Now, Loreto and his National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have filed a Request for Review at the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC, asking the Board to overturn NLRB Region 31 Director Mori Rubin’s order that the workers’ ballots be destroyed and never counted.
Opinion: Workers have almost no say over what union bosses do — even their votes don’t count
December 6, 2022 // Unfortunately, as a practical matter, federal law prohibits unionized workers who are dissatisfied with how an “exclusive union bargaining agent” is handling their careers from decertifying it except for a small fraction of the time. For example, under the so-called “contract bar,” once a multiyear union contract is ratified, decertification efforts are forbidden for up to three years, except during a 30-day window beginning 90 days before the contract expires.
Food Company Employees File Charges Alleging Union Dues are Being Illegally Deducted from their Paychecks
November 4, 2022 // Employees at Buitoni Food Company have filed charges against their employer and United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9555 after union dues deductions resumed despite the workers having revoked their authorization for such payments to be taken out of their paychecks. The federal Unfair Labor Practice charges were filed with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5 with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys. The charging workers, Steven Ricketts and Donald Hale, each hand-delivered letters to both USW union officials and to their employer formally resigning their union memberships and revoking their dues check-off authorizations. Because Virginia is one of 27 states with a Right to Work law, union membership and dues payments must be voluntary and cannot be required as a condition of employment. In states without Right to Work laws, workers can legally be fired if they refuse to pay union dues or fees.
A Union Says the National Park Service Violated the Law by Allowing an HR Official to Pursue Decertification After Her Promotion
October 11, 2022 // The allegations stem from an employee who was part of a newly consolidated bargaining unit at the agency’s Blue Ridge Parkway facility in North Carolina and filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority to decertify the union, which is organized as part of AFGE. The FLRA found an absence of precedent with regard to whether its rule barring decertification petitions within one year of a union election applies in cases where multiple bargaining units are consolidated under the umbrella of one union.
Sacramento-area Pine Creek Care Center Nurses Overwhelmingly Vote to Oust Unwanted Teamsters Union
September 23, 2022 // Federal labor board data show that workers across the country are increasingly likely to be involved in efforts to remove unions from workplaces Just a month before Chand and her colleagues’ successful decertification vote, Foundation attorneys aided nurses at Mayo Clinic in Mankato, Minnesota, in their successful effort to throw out the unpopular Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) union from their workplace. About the same time, nurses from the St. James, Minnesota, branch of Mayo Clinic voted to decertify American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 65 union officials by a nearly 9-to-1 margin, also with Foundation legal assistance.
FREEDOM FOUNDATION FILES AMICUS BRIEF WITH THE FLRA IN UNION DECERTIFICATION CASE
September 22, 2022 // In an amicus brief recently submitted to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the Freedom Foundation supported a federal employee seeking to establish that the agency’s rules impermissibly limit the ability of her and her colleagues to decertify an unwanted union.
Blue Ridge Parkway Employee Challenges Federal Agency Decision Blocking Right to Vote Out AFGE Union
September 9, 2022 // Her brief, filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, challenges the FLRA’s dismissal of a “union decertification petition” seeking an election to remove the union. Lamm and her colleagues signed the petition after FLRA officials administratively merged her work unit with another without any vote by her and her fellow employees on the new arrangement. Union officials and the FLRA then cited the merger as a reason to block the decertificiation vote the workers requested. The brief challenges the FLRA’s suspect position that, under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Act, an employee-requested election to remove a union can be blocked after a union is installed by agency fiat through “unit consolidation.” The only “election bar” authorized by the statute is one for 12 months after employees have voted to install a union by secret ballot, the brief argues.