Seven Employees Force Settlement with Teamster Local Union Brass
Right to Work Attorneys help employees after union officials levy more than $200,000 in confiscatory fines
Chicago, IL (May 29, 2009) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, seven employees who refused to abandon their jobs during a strike forced a settlement with a local union after union officials levied exorbitant and illegal retaliatory fines against them.
The employees, truck drivers for industrial laundry company Lechner and Sons, filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Teamsters Local Union 731, an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, after Local 731 union officials hit the employees with fines ranging from $13,946 to $40,000 each for not abandoning their jobs during a strike. None of the employees were truly voluntary members of the union during the strike.
In July 2006, Local 731 union bosses ordered the employees to abandon their jobs during a so-called “sympathy strike” involving a different bargaining unit of workers at the plant where the strike occurred. After the strike ended in June 2007, union brass claimed the power to use fines to discipline non-striking employees.
Union officials never informed any of the employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and pay a reduced amount of forced dues. Instead, union officials mislead the employees into believing that formal, full-dues-paying union membership was a condition of employment.
The union hierarchy also claimed the power to discipline two employees for working during the strike even though they were not union members during the strike. The union bosses illegally threatened one employee that if he did not pay the fine, he would never again work in a “union shop.”
With help from Foundation attorneys, the employees forced Local 731 union officials to drop the fines against the seven workers and refund part of their forced dues.
“It is unconscionable for union bosses to mislead employees into union membership and then attempt to drive them into the poorhouse in vicious retaliation for working,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Confiscatory fines and kangaroo courts are just some of the disturbing, yet increasingly-used tactics of union boss intimidation that are all too common in states like Illinois where there is no Right to Work law on the books.”
The employees at the workplace have since decertified the Teamster union as their monopoly bargaining agent.
(Click here to see a copy of a Teamsters Local 731 strike fines notice in which Teamster union bosses claimed the power to use $40,000 worth of fines to discipline one of the non-striking employees.)
Comments
help!!!!!
The same exact thing is going on where I work. When I started working at Silverline Windows in Lansing IL several years ago, I was told that I would automatically be a union member upon hire and that dues would be deducted from my check after thirty days. No other choice if I wanted the job. Now we're up for a new contract February first and 731 has reportedly negotiated a paltry 30 cent wage increase to be stretched out over the course of three years. This after we were named the most productive Silverline plant out of several plants owned by the Anderson corporation. Can someone pleaser tell me if I have a legal right to separate myself from local 731 and become a non-union worker
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Help
Window Maker,
You do have a right. You can simply find a new job that is non-union. However I would stick it out and stand behind your union and representation. You and your brothers and sisters are fortunate to have received an increase in pay in these troubled economic times. The majority of hard working families in this country have not. Instead they are giving concessions or being laid off. (union and non-union) Is the 30 cents total package (meaning wages,health and welfare, pension etc.)or just a pay increase? Most non-union blue collar jobs offer substantially reduced wages, no insurance and pension plans. There is strengh in numbers. Do your homework and check out what these right to work states are paying. What, if any benefits are offered. You can be assured that if you go non-union you will lose. They make alot of empty promises to get you to convert and later renig on these concessions. Happens all the time. United we bargain divided we BEG! Why the effort? Do the math, pay workers less, corperate makes all the money. Look at what happened and is still happening on wallstreet. I could go on and on about this. Know one thing, it's about the all mighty dollar and you will lose alot of that dollar if you go non-union. Stand by your union and appreciate this increase you received, for many others there was none. UNITED WE BARGAIN DIVIDED WE BEG!!!!!