A group of construction industry employees of a Lawrenceville-based company have filed federal charges at the National Labor Relations Board against their former union, alleging that union officials subjected them to illegal post-resignation discipline after they resigned their memberships.
The workers’ charges were filed at the NLRB with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes between employers, union, and individual employees.
The employees, Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, David Johnson, and Chris Oaks reportedly resigned their International Union of Operating Engineers memberships months or years ago. The employees claim that despite the resignation, union officials are threatening the workers with fines. The fines are apparently for working at Lawrenceville business Dennis Taylor & Co., which was once part of a “hiring hall” arrangement with the union, but no longer is.
The resignations came after Dennis Taylor & Co. removed itself from an arrangement to hire employees through an IUOE union boss-controlled hiring hall, according to a press release from the National Right to Work Legal Foundation.
Technically, both union members and non-members can utilize union-run hiring halls to find employment with employers that have decided to utilize the hiring hall to fill openings. However, Right to Work claims that there is a long history of union officials using hiring halls to discriminate against nonmembers and coerce workers into formal union membership in order to attain employment.
The charges filed by the employees each state that even before formally resigning from the union, the employees were never voluntary union members, as they had been misled into believing that union membership was mandatory.
Under longstanding law, only fully voluntary union members can be subjected to internal union discipline, which often involves fines levied against workers at odds with union boss demands. Workers cannot face discipline for actions that occur after a worker has resigned from such voluntary union membership, Right to Work said.
“Contrary to the apparent wishes of IUOE Local 926 union bosses, formal union membership cannot be required as a condition of employment, a precedent in place since the early 1960s,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It is outrageous that IUOE union officials are attempting to barge back into the lives of these workers years after they’ve legally exercised their rights, and are now illegally threatening them with fines simply for working to provide for themselves and their families.”
The post Employees of Gwinnett company file federal charges against former union appeared first on AccessWdun.
This Article was originally published on this site
