Respect workers' right to unionize — and to resign union membership

Not everyone wants to be a union member. And according to the Supreme Court, public sector workers have a constitutional right to refuse union membership without penalty. Bizarrely, though, for those who have already joined a union, leaving can take years or be effectively impossible.

John Kabler Jr. is a Pennsylvania liquor store employee who was misled into thinking that his union membership with United Food and Commercial Workers was a job requirement. After years of UFCW forcibly taking money from his paycheck, he realized he could simply resign — but the union used a restrictive red-tape ploy called an “escape window” to prevent him.