Once again, the lawyers at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation are on the frontlines fighting for workers’ rights. With the help of the Foundation, three Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) employees filed a federal suit challenging two Pennsylvania laws that unconstitutionally prohibit workers from leaving union ranks. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, providing CATA employees Brenda Hall, Karen Ilgen, and Martha Hoy with free
legal aid, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Union officials rebuffed the employees’ repeated requests to resign from formal union membership in the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local affiliate 1203B and District Council 83 unions.
Local 1203B and District Council 83 union officials are using the Pennsylvania Public Employee Forced Unionism Law and the Public Employee Relations Act as justification to compel the employees into continuing formal union membership and require the CATA illegally extract full union dues from the employees.
As well as challenging the state law, the employees are suing for their right to object retroactively to formal union membership and obtain refunds. The employees are backed by decades of case law and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.