N.J. PERC Issues Formal Complaint Against Union for Retaliation Against State Employee

**Trenton, NJ (June 28, 2006)** – Responding to charges brought with free legal help from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) issued a formal complaint and will try the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1034 union and a state agency for vindictively reversing a state employee’s promotion and pay raise in retaliation for filing a successful lawsuit asserting workers’ constitutional rights.

Gary Lipsius, a New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) employee, was informed by the department in July 2005 that he would receive a promotion, but CWA union officials quickly intervened and persuaded the agency to rescind the promotion in explicit retaliation for a 2004 civil rights lawsuit Lipsius brought seeking to protect his constitutional rights and the rights of thousands of his colleagues.

Lipsius originally petitioned the NJDEP for a promotion in 2003 because his ongoing duties more accurately reflected an elevated title and salary. When the New Jersey Division of Resources Management denied his promotion in December 2003, Lipsius appealed to an independent classification reviewer who agreed that he was entitled to the promotion and pay raise based on his duties.

Lipsius’ unfair labor practice charges, filed at the New Jersey PERC, seek back pay under the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act, as well as reinstatement of his raise and promotion.

According to records provided by the New Jersey Department of Personnel, approximately 440 promotion requests received consideration between July 28, 2001 and June 25, 2005. In none of these cases – which were all initiated by the CWA union, the employee, or both – was an employee promotion denied.

“CWA union officials made an example of Gary Lipsius to intimidate New Jersey public employees that refuse to toe the union line,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “Such thuggery is not only illegal, but it demonstrates that union officials are out for themselves – rather than rank-and-file workers.”

In the 2004 class-action lawsuit against the CWA union, Lipsius alleged that the union was illegally deducting compulsory dues from the paychecks of thousands of nonunion New Jersey employees. Also receiving free legal aid from Foundation attorneys, he and two of his colleagues charged the CWA union with collecting compulsory dues for non-chargeable activities, such as politics, without properly disclosing the union’s expenditures. The suit forced union officials to cease and desist their illegal actions.

Under the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court decision Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, before collecting any forced dues, union officials must first provide an audited disclosure of the union’s books. Such audits are intended to ensure that forced union dues seized from nonunion public employees do not fund union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union political activities.

The PERC will hear the case against the NJDEP and the CWA union for the illegal retaliation against Lipsius on October 4 in Trenton.