Will The Trump Administration Hear Charges Against These Union Bosses?

The Trump administration has a prime opportunity to cut off left-wing activists’ power to force Americans to bankroll their political activity after a Minnesota worker filed new charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

The non-profit, non-partisan, National Right to Work Foundation reports “Theresa Klassen, an employee of Agralite Electric Cooperative, is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to expedite consideration of Big Labor schemes that force workers to pay dues for union political activities.”

“Free association is a right of every American, including workers who don’t want to associate with a union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s telling that IBEW officials are using a legally suspect policy to make it needlessly difficult for workers to stop supporting the union’s political activities.

“While the NLRB General Counsel should urge the agency to address these illicit schemes swiftly, ultimately Minnesotans and all Americans deserve Right to Work protections, which would make all union financial support strictly voluntary,” Mix added.

“Klassen has filed an appeal with the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel, asking him to issue a complaint in her case after an NLRB Regional Director let International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union officials off the hook for violating her rights. Klassen is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys,” the NRTWF reports.

“Klassen originally filed charges against both the IBEW international union and IBEW Local 160 to defend her rights under Communications Workers of America v. Beck. In this Foundation-won landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Court ruled that union officials cannot force workers who abstain from membership to pay dues for anything beyond the union’s monopoly bargaining functions – including politics,” the NRTWF reports.

“Even though Klassen successfully resigned her union membership, union bosses continued to demand full dues payments from her – including dues for union political expenditures. When she invoked her Beck rights with assistance from Foundation staff attorneys, union bosses then claimed that she could only opt out of dues payments for politics within a narrow 30-day “window period” each year in the month of November,” the NRTWF adds.

According to the NRTWF, “Klassen’s appeal argues that it would violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) ‘for a union to demand payment for any dues beyond what Section 8(a)(3) requires unless that employee affirmatively consented to pay full union dues.’,” adding that “under the Beck decision, Section 8(a)(3) only permits union bosses to demand dues for union expenses that are directly related to bargaining.”

Klassen is now “asking the NLRB to uphold this interpretation and end all opt-out requirements, so that union officials must obtain explicit permission from employees to take payments for non-bargaining-related functions, including union political and lobbying activities,” the NRTWF reports.

“Klassen is also asking the NLRB to end window period practices for becoming Beck objectors, as they similarly violate the NLRA by preventing workers from exercising their rights. Window period restrictions on when employees can exercise their Beck rights allow union officials to extract money from workers after they’ve already objected to financially supporting union political activities,” the NRTWF adds.

“The IBEW should be respecting my rights, not throwing up roadblocks so they can continue to use my paycheck dollars to fund their own agenda,” said Klassen. “The NLRB needs to recognize that union officials are violating the law; otherwise, these rights are not rights at all.”

“Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, IBEW union officials can impose contracts that force Klassen and her coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs, though this amount is limited by the Beck decision. In contrast, in Minnesota’s neighboring Right to Work states, union officials cannot force workers to pay any dues or fees just to keep their jobs,” the NRTWF notes.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.