Worker Advocate Launches Legal Task Force to Protect Indiana Right to Work Freedom

Law prevents union officials from extracting union dues from workers as a condition of employment

Washington, DC (February 2, 2012) – The National Right to Work Foundation announced today that it is launching a legal task force aimed at protecting Indiana’s newly-enacted Right to Work law.

Union officials publicly floated the idea of challenging the law in Indiana's courts before the law was even passed by the Indiana state senate.

Indiana is the nation's 23rd Right to Work state after the state senate passed the bill and Governor Mitch Daniels signed the bill into law on Wednesday.

Foundation attorneys have successfully defended state Right to Work laws in the past, including Oklahoma's. The task force has already examined reported union lines of attack and determined that Indiana’s Right to Work law is on sound legal ground.

"Union bosses want to undo what thousands of Hoosier citizens have worked hard for over the past decade," said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. "Because union partisans cannot win the hearts and minds of Indiana's workers and voters, they seek to have the courts strike down Indiana’s popular Right to Work law for them."

Read the entire press release here.

Right to Work Foundation Attorneys Move to Disqualify Controversial Recess Appointees from Six Cases

Argue Labor Board does not have legitimate quorum to hear pending cases

Washington, DC (January 30, 2012) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed motions with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to disqualify President Barack Obama's recent purported recess appointees to the agency from participating in the Foundation's six cases pending before the Board.

Foundation attorneys argue that the appointments are unconstitutional and, therefore, the Board lacks the quorum necessary to hear Foundation cases. This legal challenge is part of an ongoing controversy over the constitutionality of Obama's recent move to install three members to the NLRB as "recess appointees" despite the fact that the U.S. Senate was not in recess.

Foundation attorneys also were among the first to challenge the constitutionality of Obama's "recess appointments" in federal court. An earlier motion challenging the appointments, filed by the Foundation and other plaintiffs challenging the NLRB’s notice posting rules, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Read the entire release here.

Read one of the Foundation attorneys' motions to disqualify the "recess appointees" here.

Right to Work Foundation Announces New Addition to Legal Team

Regent-trained attorney dedicated to the cause of individual liberty for America's workers

Washington, DC (January 30, 2012) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has hired Sarah Hartsfield of Austin, Texas, as an addition to its legal staff.

Hartsfield is a recently sworn in member of the Virginia State Bar and 2011 graduate of the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

"Sarah brings to the Foundation a real commitment to defending and advancing individual liberty against the injustices of compulsory unionism," said Ray LaJeunesse, vice president and legal director of the National Right to Work Foundation.

Read the entire release here.

Hotel Officials, Union Bosses Hit With Multiple Federal Labor Board Charges for Abusive Organizing Tactics

Union organizers verbally abuse Marriott employees and spy on workers in changing rooms after striking backroom deal with company officials

New York, NY (January 24, 2012) – A group of New York City Marriott (NYSE: MAR) employees – acting on behalf of their coworkers – have filed federal charges against the company and a local union for workplace intimidation and harassment.

The three SoHo Marriott employees filed the charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys.

New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council Local 6 union organizers entered into a backroom deal with company officials that allows union organizers unfettered access to the employees in order to install a union in the workplace.

Abusing this privilege, union organizers are attempting to browbeat the workers into supporting the union through a prolonged campaign of intimidation and harassment. Meanwhile, company officials deny workers' attempts to meet on company grounds.

Union officials have used video cameras in employee changing rooms, accessed employee lockers and handled employees' personal possessions, and have even resorted to verbal abuse. Union officials even took photographs of a female employee without her consent while she was changing her uniform in an employee changing room.

Read the entire release here.

Minnesota Child Care Providers File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Forced Unionization Scheme

Child care providers fight against Governor Dayton’s dictate that pushes childcare business owners into union

Minneapolis, MN (January 19, 2012) – A group of home-based child care providers have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Governor Mark Dayton's recent executive order designed to forcibly unionize the state's providers.

Jennifer Parrish from Rochester filed the suit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Parrish and other providers seek to halt Dayton's executive order intended to designate American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials as the monopoly bargaining and political representatives of thousands of providers in the state.

Read the entire release here.

Michigan Childcare Providers File Federal Appeal Seeking Refunds for Providers Forcefully Unionized

Right to Work Foundation attorneys continue federal class-action lawsuit against union officials to recover millions in illegally confiscated dues

Cincinnati, OH (January 18, 2012) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, five Michigan home-based childcare providers have filed a federal appeal to win back forced union dues taken from tens of thousands of providers in the state.

Carrie Schlaud, Diana Orr, Peggy Mashke, and Edward and Nora Gross originally filed a federal class-action suit against then-Governor Jennifer Granholm and a United Auto Workers (UAW) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) coalition, the Child Care Providers Together Michigan (CCPTM) union, for designating home childcare providers who accepted state assistance as public employees solely for the purposes of CCPTM "representation" and forcing them to pay union dues.

Under Granholm's direction, the Michigan Department of Human Services created the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council to provide union officials with an entity to negotiate with as the childcare providers' "management." Working with the council, CCPTM operatives staged a union certification election to acquire monopoly bargaining privileges over Michigan childcare providers.

Although only 15 percent of the 40,000 childcare providers receiving state assistance voted in the union certification election, CCPTM union bosses were then granted monopoly lobbying privileges and the power to collect union dues from home-based care providers.

Read the entire release here.

On Tuesday, National Right to Work staff attorneys argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of tens of thousands of California civil servants who were forced to contribute to an SEIU "Political Fight Back Fund" in 2005. The video below gives a overview of what's at stake in the case, including an interview with Foundation staff attorney Jim Young:

You can also read Right to Work President Mark Mix's op-ed on the case in The Washington Times. Here's the key quote:

Forcing civil servants to subsidize the political agenda of an organization to which they don’t belong should offend every American, regardless of political sympathies. Voluntary SEIU members may wish to financially support their organization’s political goals, but nonunion employees - many of whom disagree with the union’s agenda - are under no similar obligation. Freedom of association is a bedrock principle of American democracy, and no one should be compelled to support a group to which they don’t belong.

For more info, check out the Foundation's Knox webpage, which includes links to relevant legal documents, press releases, and media coverage. 

The Supreme Court is scheduled to release its ruling in the case by June.

Civil Servants File Brief Opposing Union Challenge to Public-Sector Unionism Reforms

Workers ask court to uphold reform measure protecting most Badger State public workers from forced unionism

Madison, WI (January 9, 2012) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, two Wisconsin public employees have filed an amicus curiae brief in favor of Scott Walker's government-sector monopoly bargaining reform. The reform protects the Right to Work for most Wisconsin public workers and bans automatic forced-union-dues seizures from public employees' paychecks.

Christopher King, a social services specialist for Western Wisconsin Cares, and Carie Kendrick, a custodial lead at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, filed the brief with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.

The workers, who are forced to accept the "representation" of union officials, want instead the freedom to represent themselves with their employers. The workers state in their brief that "they equate the 'services' provided by (union officials) to be akin to those of some itinerant street window washers who sling dirty water on your car windshield, smear it around, and then demand payment."

In their brief, the workers ask the judge to uphold the new law as constitutional and deny the unions' request to suspend the law. The workers rely on the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Davenport v. WEA victory in which the Court unanimously held that union bosses enjoy an "extraordinary power" to force workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, but have no constitutional right to use government resources to deduct union dues or fees from workers' paychecks.

Read the entire release here.

Worker Advocate Blasts Obama Labor Board Rule Change

New rule would allow union bosses to ambush workers into forced-dues-paying union ranks

Washington, DC (December 22, 2011) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced new guidelines that give union organizers the upper hand over independent-minded employees in representation elections which will be implemented on April 30, 2012.

The new rules dictating how union organizing elections are conducted are designed to dramatically shorten the time individual workers have to share information with their coworkers about the effects of unionization. The new rules were rushed out before former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer and Obama recess appointee Craig Becker's NLRB term expires, at which point the NLRB will drop to two members and no longer have a quorum necessary to take any action.

Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation – the nation's leading advocate for workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – released the following statement in the wake of the NLRB's announcement:

"Christmas came early for Big Labor as the Obama Labor Board has once again given union bosses increased power to ambush workers into dues-paying union ranks.

Read the entire release here.

Transcript Shows SC Boeing Employees Kept in Dark about Labor Board Sham Settlement

Washington, DC (December 14, 2011) – National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) documents show that workers who had intervened in the Board’s high-profile case against Boeing were instead shut out of the entire process by which the case ended with Boeing agreeing to locate production of its 737 MAX plane in forced-dues Washington State.

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, North Charleston Boeing employees Dennis Murray, Cynthia Ramaker, and Meredith Going, Sr. moved to intervene in the NLRB's unprecedented case targeting the company for locating production of some of its 787 Dreamliner airplanes in South Carolina, in part due to its popular Right to Work law. In Right to Work states, workers cannot be compelled to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) originally denied the workers' request but was forced by the NLRB in Washington, D.C., to allow them to participate as partial intervenors in the case.

The transcript of the hearing ending the case in which NLRB, Boeing, and International Association of Machinist (IAM) union lawyers participated show that the workers were explicitly shut out of the proceedings. According to the transcript, the judge acknowledged that he had "finessed" the workers out of the process, which occurred without any notice to the workers.

Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, issued the following statement in the wake of the hearing's revelations:

"The Obama Labor Board has set a dangerous precedent that will allow union bosses to bully job providers not to locate jobs in states with Right to Work protections for their workers, thus forcing more workers into union-dues-paying ranks, or face costly legal action.

"Boeing, IAM, and NLRB lawyers' transparent ploy to sweep the South Carolina workers under the rug once again shows that the Obama NLRB puts union boss priorities above the rights and well-being of individual employees.

Read the entire release here.