Good News, Bad News
Mark Mix - National Right to Work Legal DefenseFoundation
First, the good news.
Last summer, the United States Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Knox v. SEIU to uphold workers' First Amendment rights and strike down a union-boss political fundraising scheme.
In the class-action lawsuit affecting over 36,000 California civil servants, the High Court agreed with National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys that nonmember workers should not be forced to subsidize union officials' political spending, even for a short period of time.
Not only that, the majority also held that if a union raises the fees nonmembers must pay, the union must obtain the affirmative consent of nonmembers to collect the new fees.
Fresh off the heels of our United States Supreme Court victory in Knox, I thought I'd share with you some of the facts and figures from a memo our Legal Director recently sent me.
Since 1968, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation's strategic litigation program has provided free legal aid to workers to fulfill two primary objectives:
1) To enforce employees' existing legal rights against forced unionism abuses; and
2) To win new legal precedents expanding these rights and protections.
Foundation attorneys have argued at the Supreme Court fifteen times and won several major cases including Hudson, Abood, Ellis, Lehnert, Beck, Miller, Davenport, and Knox.
These precedents have helped to protect workers nationwide from the ills of compulsory unionism but barely scratch the surface of the Foundation's legal aid program:
>> Foundation attorneys have won or settled favorably approximately 2,683 cases;
>> Foundation attorneys have assisted approximately 20,564 individual clients;
>> Foundation attorneys have assisted more than 416,000 workers in thirty-three certified class action lawsuits;
>> The largest recovery to date in a Foundation-supported lawsuit was $8.3 million from AFSCME for about 53,000 Pennsylvania state employees in Hohe v. Casey;
>> The largest class that Foundation attorneys have assisted is 102,122 nonunion home care providers in West v. SEIU, in which about $8 million dollars was recovered for 97,445 of those class members;
>> The second largest class that Foundation attorneys assisted was 97,310 private sector agency-fee payers for whom $2.4 million was recovered in Abrams v. CWA.
None of this would be possible without the generosity and commitment to our cause by concerned citizens like you.
But there is no time to rest on our laurels.
I hope you understand the severity of the threat you and I still.
The union bosses just unleashed their biggest political spending blitz ever to re-elect President Barack Obama, who will be eager in his second term to repay his Big Labor benefactors.
Meanwhile, we're continuing to defend Right to Work laws in court from spurious Big Labor legal assaults.
And we're going to keep taking the fight to the union bosses and their enablers in government with lawsuits, NLRB charges, FEC complaints, and exposure in the media.
That's why your continued support is so crucial.
I hope you understand how much is at stake.
Sincerely,
Mark Mix
P.S. The Foundation relies completely on voluntary contributions from its supporters to provide free legal aid.
Please chip in with a tax-deductible contribution of $10 or more today to support the Foundation's programs.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, is assisting thousands of employees in nearly 200 cases nationwide. Its web address is www.nrtw.org/.
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