Whitefish man suing Teamsters

By NICHOLAS LEDDEN/The Daily Inter Lake

A Whitefish man filed a federal lawsuit last week against a union he says is illegally threatening his job.

Michael Weller, backed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, alleges the Teamsters union Local 2 is forcing him to pay union dues without providing a breakdown of where that money is being spent.

And Weller isn't even a union member.

In Montana, a state with no right-to-work law, non-union employees of a unionized workplace can be required to pay that portion of monthly union dues that pertains only to the cost of collective bargaining.

However, the union is required to provide the employee with a audited breakdown of how those dues are spent.

Weller charges the union failed to provide him with those financial disclosures, and then threatened to terminate his job if he failed to pay the reduced rate.

Union dues at Weller's workplace, a resin hauling company based out of Columbia Falls, are $39 a month. According to the union, the reduced rate is $38.31, a reduction of only 69 cents.

And the Teamsters now say Weller owes them almost $350 in back dues he stopped paying in February.

"The portion of dues not used for collective bargaining purposes could well amount to only 69 cents," said John Powell, a spokesman with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. "But since the union has failed to provide a full breakdown, we have no way of knowing if this is true."

The union is required by law to provide non-members with the financial disclosures Weller is asking for. In the U.S. Supreme Court case Communications Workers v. Beck, the court ruled that workers have a right to refrain from formal union membership and to reclaim the portion of union dues not spent on collective bargaining, such as political activities.

In that decision, the court also found that employees have a right to have an independent third party audit union expenditures to verify that the percentage of dues that non-members are forced to pay does not include political spending and other non-collective bargaining expenditures.

If his lawsuit is successful and he does receive an audited breakdown proving just how much of his monthly "objection fee" is spent on collective bargaining activities, Weller says he will pay the union for back dues.

"It has nothing to do with the money," he said. "It's the principle of the matter. What prompted this was them threatening my job. I'm not real big on people threatening me."

Union representatives did not return calls for comment.

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com