UAW Coercion in Right to Work Michgan

UAW union officials are stepping up their coercion and intimidation tactics now that Michigan’s Right to Work Law is allowing all workers to choose whether they wish to accept union representation.  Kathleen Sulkowski, represented with free legal advice by the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, is challenging the requirement that union members appear in person, and provide identification, in order to resign their membership.  Bernie Woodall has the story on yahoo.com.

Sulkowski sent a letter in August to officials at the UAW Local 600 union in Dearborn, expressing her desire to quit the union. But in mid-September, a Local 600 official responded that to do so she would have to come to the union hall and provide identification in order to quit.
“UAW union officials’ latest tactic to show up in person and furnish photo identification is designed to dissuade or intimidate workers from exercising their rights to refrain from membership,” Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, said in a statement issued on Friday.

When Michigan passed its right-to-work law, it said the new law goes into effect for workers once their current contract expires. Sulkowski’s contract had expired by the time she sent the letter to Local 600 officials, said Anthony Riedel, spokesman for the National Right to Work Foundation.