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Mary Beck, who works at Penn Aluminum, has been in court with
the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 702
union for months, after she accused union officials of
unlawfully seizing money from her wages without her consent.
Beck, who is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to
Work Foundation, has amended charges she filed against the union
in June. The original charge noted that she sent a letter to
union chiefs in January 2022 exercising her right to resign her
union membership and to stop any union dues deductions from her
paychecks that are not required to maintain employment. The
letter also requested a copy of the union contract.
The amended charge states that IBEW union officials didn’t
acknowledge her requests until July, but still demanded she pay
union fees to keep her job.
Mark Mix, president of the the National Right to Work
Foundation, said union officials in an Aug. 9 letter threatened
to terminate Beck by Aug. 15 if she didn’t pay union fees.
“IBEW bosses threatening to upend Ms. Beck’s career for failure
to pay fees to which the union’s sloppily-written contract
doesn’t even entitle them is terrible malfeasance to be sure,
but a correctly written contract certainly wouldn’t solve the
problem,” Mix said.
Unions in Illinois have been taken to court in recent months. A
group of part-time firefighters won their battle in removing a
union from their firehouse. Village of Carpentersville
firefighters filed a petition last September seeking a vote
whether to remove Service Employees International Union Local 73
from the workplace.
“It is just another example of unions ignoring the law and
ignoring the rights of workers,” Mix said.
A request for comment on the case from IBEW Local 702 went
unanswered.
Illinois has the 11th highest number of unionized workers in the
country, according to Stacker.com, which reviewed all 50 states.
Illinois has nearly 14% of the state’s workers as members of
unions.
Nearby Michigan ranked 12th in the country. All other
neighboring states were further down in the rankings with
Missouri and Indiana tied at No. 25, Wisconsin at No. 28 and
Kentucky at No. 30. Iowa ranked No. 32.
Kevin Bessler reports on statewide issues in Illinois
for the Center Square. He has over 30 years of experience in radio
news reporting throughout the Midwest.
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