Jewish Students Defeat Union Boss Scheme To Make Them Fund Antisemitic Liberals

“Several Jewish graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have prevailed in their legal cases to cut off financial support to the MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU), an affiliate of the United Electrical (UE) union. The students, all of whom received free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, objected to GSU union officials' anti-Israel activities, particularly their support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement,” the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation reports.

“Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections that make union membership and financial support voluntary, union officials at unionized private colleges like MIT can force graduate students to financially support a union under threat of losing their academic positions and work. However, this power is subject to limitations under federal anti-discrimination law and some Supreme Court decisions,” the NRTWLF reports.

“Foundation staff attorneys litigated federal charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in March for William Sussman, Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Adina Bechhofer, and Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky, each of which stated that the union had demanded full dues payments even after they had each stated their religious objection to funding the union and asked for an accommodation as per Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such accommodations vary, but often take the form of letting the objector divert the dues from the offensive union to a 501(c)(3) charity instead,” the NRTWLF reports.

“Shortly after those filings, Foundation staff attorneys also filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for Katerina Boukin, who objected on political grounds to the GSU's ideological activity and sought to exercise her rights under the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck Supreme Court decision. In Beck, the Court ruled that union officials cannot force those who opt out of formal union membership (like Boukin) to pay dues or fees for union expenses not directly related to collective bargaining, even in a non-Right to Work state. GSU bosses denied Boukin's Beck request on the specious grounds that she had missed a short union-concocted “window period” in which such an objection would be accepted,” the NRTWLF reports.

“The students have now won a favorable NLRB settlement, and a favorable outcome of the EEOC charges, that fully vindicate their rights. The students who voiced religious objections (Sussman, Fried, Gordon, Bechhofer, and Zhitomirsky) have obtained accommodations under which they will pay no money to the union and will instead pay money to charities of their choice, despite initial pushback from union bosses. The charities include American Friends of Magen David Adom and American Friends of Leket,” the NRTWLF reports.

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