A Tennessee man has filed federal charges against his employer and the union that represents his workplace, saying they attempted to force him to pay union membership dues, although Tennessee has had a right-to-work law prohibiting that practice since 1947.
“Even in longstanding right-to-work states like Tennessee, union bosses all too often engage in schemes and ploys to undermine or outright violate employees’ right-to-work protections,” said Mark Mix, president of the conservative National Right to Work Foundation, which is legally representing Bill Bauer of Spring Hill.
Exactly half of the 50 states have right-to-work laws, with historically union-friendly Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin having adopted them in the last three years.
Even in the remaining states where workers can be required to join or otherwise financially support a union, they have the right under a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Communications Workers of America v. Beck to require the union to refund the portion of their dues spent on activities other than collective bargaining, such as political spending.
However, compliance is generally left up to unions, which often do little to alert their members of their rights.
Only 39 percent of union members were aware they had the right to demand refunds under Beck or, if they lived in a right-to-work state, to refuse to pay anything to the union, according to a study released Monday by a conservative coalition group, National Employee Freedom Week.
In the case of Tennessee, one in four union members in the state told the survey they did not know that they did not have to support their workplace’s union. Bauer, a nuclear power plant worker, was one of the three-fourths who did know he had that right. He says his employer still told him otherwise.
Bauer’s lawsuit says that when he was hired last month by Williams Plant Services, a company that does repairs for the Tennessee Valley Authority, he was told that he had to give 3.5 percent of his paycheck to International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1323.
When he refused, noting that state law says he is not obligated to pay the union anything, he was told by the company he could not work until he did.
Asked if the group thought the union and the company were colluding, National Right to Work Foundation spokesman Pat Semmens replied, “The charge is only against the company. But obviously the union is benefiting from the company misleading our client (and probably others) by saying that payment to the union is a necessary condition of employment.”
Representatives for Williams Plant Services and IBEW Local 1323 could not be reached for comment.
The idea of opting out is broadly popular among the union rank-and-file. The National Employee Freedom Week survey found that 76 percent of union members answered yes to the question, “Should employees have the right to decide, without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union?” Just over a quarter, 28 percent, of union members said if they could leave their union without losing their job or facing any other penalty, they would.
National Employee Freedom Week was founded in 2012 and mounts an annual summer publicity campaign to alert union members of their rights under existing law. Groups participating in the coalition include the right-to-work foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the National Taxpayers Union and FreedomWorks, among others.
