A Florence-based union is the subject of a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of a former Duro Hilex Poly employee.
Located in Erlanger, Duro Hilex Poly is the largest paper bag manufacturer in the world. Employees at the factory are represented by the United Steelworkers Union Local 832. According to former employee Melva Hernandez and her legal representation, the union violated Kentucky’s Right to Work law, as well as federal labor laws.
Hernandez was an employee at Duro Hilex Poly from 2011 to 2022. When she first joined the company in 2011, Kentucky did not have a Right to Work law.
Kentucky’s Right to Work legislation was passed in 2017. The Bluegrass State is one of 28 states with these types of laws. The legislation prohibits an employer from compelling a person to join, remain in, or pay dues to a union as a condition of being hired or remaining employed. In these states, union membership and financial support is voluntary, leaving membership up to the individual employee.
A union challenge to the law made its way into the Kentucky Supreme Court in late 2018, only to be struck down in a 4-3 vote.
In June 2022, Hernandez filed federal unfair labor practice charge at the National Labor Relations Board Region 9 in Cincinnati, maintaining that union dues were deducted from her paycheck as the result of a “forced unionism” contract provision which conflicts with Kentucky’s Right to Work laws. In regards to the charge, a hearing is scheduled for April 11 at the John Weld Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati.
Then in response to her charges, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint on Jan. 25. In the complaint, Hernandez claims she was forced to join the union when she first started working for the company. Hernandez, who is receiving free legal aid from the board, again asserts the union took dues from her paycheck after ending her membership.
Hernandez first requested to end her union membership and union dues deductions in a letter sent to union officials in August 2021. Her request was rejected by the union on the grounds that it fell outside an annual “escape period” created by the union. The following year, Hernandez once again tried to exit the union, but to no avail. Hernandez then tendered her resignation.
The complaint alleges that Hernandez was then “threatened ” by the local union leadership, as well as forbidden from talking to her coworkers about dropping their union membership. The complaint then claims Hernandez was accused of informing other employees at the plant on how to resign from the union under Kentucky’s Right to Work law.
Finally, the complaint alleges that union dues were continually deducted from her paycheck, in spite of her union resignation, until she officially quit her job.
The complaint says that union officials violated the National Labor Relations Act by taking dues from her paycheck “notwithstanding the absence of an employee authorization for the deductions and remittance.”
Regarding dues deductions, the National Labor Relations Board complaint is only seeking to prosecute local union officials for money deducted from Hernandez’s paycheck when she opted out of the union for a second time, within the union’s “escape period.”
“It’s outrageous that the only way Ms. Hernandez could escape the predatory dues practices of Steelworkers union officials was to quit and find another job entirely,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
As of now, the United Steelworkers Union Local 832 have not responded to requests for comment.
