**Olympia, WA (March 29, 2006)** – Facing an embarrassing lawsuit filed by Washington State employees with help from the National Right to Work Foundation, Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) union officials today admitted that they wrongly ordered state government workers across the state fired for refusing to pay union dues, and have apparently asked the state to reinstate temporarily those employees and cease additional firings.
The union begrudgingly took the action today after being notified by Foundation attorneys yesterday that they would file papers in federal court on Monday seeking an injunction to block even more firings which had just been threatened. While dismissing their violation of thousands of Washington State workers’ First Amendment rights as “technical,” union officials have so far failed, however, to return literally millions of dollars in forced union dues seized from thousands of state workers as a result of these illegal “pay up or be fired” threats.
The workers’ lawsuit, filed two weeks ago in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, points out that since obtaining a monopoly bargaining contract over them, WFSE union officials have denied them their constitutional due-process rights – and have even ordered several employees fired for refusing to pay compulsory union dues. As many as 20,000 employees joined the union or paid dues rather than lose their jobs.
Foundation attorneys announced today that the workers’ suit will proceed as planned, and that they have received no concrete evidence that any of the terminated employees will be reinstated, any dues returned, or multiple due-process violations halted.
“WFSE officials view workers’ First Amendment rights as mere ‘technicalities,’ and are trying to backtrack after viciously ruining state employees’ careers,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Any action that truly honored workers’ rights would include returning all forced union dues seized from state employees under the union hierarchy’s ‘pay up or else’ ultimatum.”
In May 2005, WFSE union officials sent a mailing to state employees informing them they would be forced to pay compulsory union dues as a job requirement. But this notice failed to provide certain constitutionally-required safeguards of employees’ rights to ensure they are not forced to pay for more than the cost of collective bargaining. These safeguards include a verification or audit of union expenditures and an explanation for the basis of the portions of the workers’ fees claimed to be chargeable.
WFSE union officials are also unlawfully requiring employees who wish to object to funding ideological and other non-collective bargaining activities to sign automatic payroll deduction forms.
The state workers charge that the seizure of forced dues by WFSE union officials without due process is a violation of their constitutional rights articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Foundation-won Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson decision. Hudson requires union officials to provide an independently-audited disclosure of their books and justify their expenditures before seizing any forced union dues from employees.
http://www.nrtw.org/b/nr_491.php

Federal court suit forces Alaska union officials to drop demands that state employee be fired
Anchorage, Alaska (June 20, 2008) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, an Alaska state employee has reached a favorable settlement with union officials and state administrators who threatened his termination after he asserted his right to resign from union membership. When Robert Hunsick informed officials from Alaska State Employees Association, Local 52 (ASEA) of his decision to resign from the union, union brass improperly demanded that he continue to pay full union dues or be fired.
Hunsick filed suit in United States District Court on May 19, causing ASEA lawyers to scramble to avoid a costly and embarrassing court battle with Foundation attorneys. ASEA union officials were unlawfully seizing and spending a portion of his forced dues for political and ideological purposes.
In the Foundation-won Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously established due process safeguards to ensure that employees are not compelled to subsidize union activities beyond what union officials can prove is spent on collective bargaining. Hunsick resigned his formal union membership and asked ASEA officials to provide him a statement breaking down the union’s expenditures, verified by an independent auditor. Hudson also requires that union officials provide the employee who chooses to refrain from union membership an opportunity to challenge the amount of the fee.
But ASEA union boss Jim Duncan told Hunsick that he could only resign his formal union membership in a union-designated 30-day window every June. Eventually, ASEA officials accepted Hunsick’s resignation, but union officials then still failed to provide him with a proper breakdown of union dues to prove that the amount they demanded was not paying for activities unrelated to collective bargaining, such as union politics, lobbying or member-only activities.
When Hunsick insisted on such a breakdown, as guaranteed under Hudson, union officials persisted in demanding that he pay up or be fired, a demand they only dropped as part of the settlement. Under the other terms of the settlement, the ASEA agreed to refund Hunsick all fees deducted from his wages, plus interest, from his initial resignation in December and waived its claim for any such fees not paid.
Alaska is one of 28 states without Right to Work protections that ensure employees are not forced to pay any union dues as a condition of employment. Hunsick’s struggle against ASEA demonstrates the chasm between Alaska’s compulsory unionism laws and its tradition of rugged individualism.
“This settlement is a small victory for employee freedom,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “But as long as state laws compel workers like Robert Hunsick to support unions against their will, true freedom remains lost in the wilderness.”
http://www.nrtw.org/press/2008/06/union-bosses-forced-drop-threats-aga

Federal Court Enjoins Illegal Union Dues Seizures from Pennsylvania Turnpike Employees
**Harrisburg, PA (June 6, 2007)** — A federal judge has enjoined a Teamsters union local, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and two Turnpike Commission officers from continuing to seize union dues from the paychecks of 20 Pennsylvania Turnpike employees who brought suit to vindicate their constitutional rights. The preliminary injunction also blocks enforcement of a longtime union policy that bars thousands of employees in Pennsylvania from resigning from formal union membership for up to three years.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is providing free legal aid to two groups of Turnpike employees from Harrisburg and Pittsburgh in their challenge to the unlawful collection of forced union dues. This injunction pertains to the Harrisburg lawsuit involving Teamsters union Local 77.
The employees filed the parallel lawsuits in March citing multiple violations of employees’ rights by Turnpike and Teamsters union Local 77 and Local 250 officials in confiscating forced dues from employees who, in the case of the Pittsburgh employees, who had resigned their formal union membership. In Pennsylvania, a compulsory unionism state, nonunion members can only be forced to pay for a union’s proven collective bargaining costs.
The Harrisburg lawsuit includes a potentially precedent-setting claim challenging the constitutionality of a clause in the collective bargaining agreement that prohibits employees from resigning their formal union membership except during a narrow 15-day window prior to the expiration of a three-year contract.
In granting the employees’ motion for a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher C. Conner noted that, under the policy, “the only way plaintiffs can resign from the union is to leave their employment” and employees are subject to union discipline and must pay full dues despite their “disagreement with the union’s ideology or politics.” The judge found that the policy “may have a direct and deleterious impact on plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendment,” and that union officials’ actions demonstrated a “real or immediate danger to their First Amendment rights.”
These so-called “maintenance of membership” clauses are common in the public sector in Pennsylvania and exist in several other states. Union officials use them to block employees from exercising their constitutional rights to refrain from formal union membership and cut off compulsory dues unrelated to monopoly bargaining.
“Union officials want to keep Pennsylvania’s public employees from exercising what limited rights they still possess to cut off payment of compulsory union dues,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Until employees in the Keystone State are protected by a Right to Work law making union dues payment strictly voluntary, such abuses will inevitably continue.”
The union hierarchy is violating the minimal procedural protections required by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1988 *Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson* decision. In the Foundation-won Hudson case, the High Court ruled that before collecting any forced dues, union officials must provide an audited disclosure of the union’s expenses and give employees an opportunity to object to paying forced union dues spent for certain activities.
http://www.nrtw.org/b/nr_645.php

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