Union Bosses Tried to Crush an Indiana Electrician with a $1.29 Million Fine
Imagine leaving a union, buying a small electrical firm, and then opening your mailbox to find a letter from union officials threatening you with a ‘disciplinary’ fine of $1.29 million. That is exactly what the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 16 did to Evansville electrician Brian Head after he exercised his legal right to resign from the union.
An Evansville, Indiana, electrician made a simple decision that should be routine in a free country: he resigned his union membership and bought a small, nonunion electrical business. Not long after, IBEW Local 16 officials tried to make an example out of him.
Instead of respecting his choice, union bosses claimed his resignation wouldn’t “count” for six months, and moved to drag his new company under union control without any vote from his employees. When he refused to surrender his business, they summoned him before an internal union tribunal as if he were still a member.
Then came the hammer. Local 16 officials declared him “guilty” of violating union rules and imposed a so‑called “disciplinary fine” of roughly one‑point‑two‑nine million dollars—an amount large enough to crush a small business and send a clear message to anyone else thinking about leaving the union.
But this time, the intimidation campaign ran into a roadblock: federal law and a worker willing to fight back. With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the electrician filed charges documenting the illegal fine and the union’s attempt to trap him in membership he had already resigned.
Faced with federal prosecution, IBEW Local 16 folded. Union officials agreed to rescind the $1.29 million fine, erase the bogus “discipline” from their records, and stop enforcing their invented restrictions on workers’ right to resign. They must now inform workers that they can leave the union and cannot be punished for doing so.
This case is a stark reminder of how concentrated union power can be abused when officials face little accountability—and how vital it is that workers know their rights and are willing to stand up when those rights are trampled.