Labor unions file suit to block right-to-work law

Tom Loftus , @TomLoftus_CJ

May 25, 2017

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Two labor groups on Thursday filed suit to strike down Kentucky’s new right-to-work law.

The law, House Bill 1 of the 2017 legislative session, bans the requiring of workers to join a union or pay union dues as a condition for holding a job in a union workplace.

In a 19-page complaint filed in Franklin Circuit Court, The Kentucky State AFL-CIO and Teamsters Local 89 claim the law amounts to an unconstitutional “taking” from labor organizations who are required to provide services to all workers in a union shop, even those who choose not to pay dues under the new law.

“It is a law that is directly targeted toward unions to weaken our ability to represent our workers and obtain good collective bargaining agreements and maintain good wage rates,” Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan said at a news conference. “It’s part of that low-wage model of economic development that has been brought in by Gov. (Matt) Bevin and his cronies.”

The lawsuit names Bevin and Labor Secretary Derrick Ramsey as the defendants.

Governor’s Office spokeswoman Amanda Stamper responded to the lawsuit by saying the two labor groups were “playing political games.”

Stamper said in a statement, “This frivolous lawsuit threatens to hurt Kentucky’s families, robbing them of high-paying job opportunities – a good example of which are the 550 jobs coming to northeastern Kentucky,” Stamper said.

Stamper was referring to the recent announcement by Braidy Industries to locate an aluminum plant to Greenup County. The chief executive of the company said he would not have considered Kentucky without a right-to-work law.

For decades, the law was a priority for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and many Republicans who say that it will create many jobs because it will make the state more attractive to companies looking for locations for new operations. It was passed into law at the end of the first week of the 2017 legislative session when a new Republican House majority joined a long-established Republican Senate to pass a raft of GOP priorities that for years had been blocked by a Democratic House.

Irwin Cutler, a Louisville attorney representing the AFL-CIO, said the law unconstitutionally forces unions to provide benefits of its collective bargaining to "free riders."

Cutler said, "These are people who are getting the benefits of the contract – the wages, the benefits, the protection against unjust termination – and they don’t pay anything for it. That constitutes, under the Kentucky Constitution, an unlawful taking of the services, the property of the labor unions.”

Cutler also said the law discriminates against unions because other organizations are permitted to require dues from all those who benefit from their services.

Currently, 28 states have right-to-work laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Each side of the case pointed to different recent court rulings to bolster their arguments on how the case in Kentucky will turn out.

Cutler cited state circuit court rulings, now under appeal, in West Virginia and Wisconsin where right-to-work laws were struck down as violating the state constitutions.

But Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, released a statement saying that last year, a judge threw out a federal lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin law.

Also last year, Stivers said, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld city right-to-work ordinances in Kentucky.

“I am confident that Kentucky will continue to be a right-to-work state for the foreseeable future,” Stivers said.