Liquor Store Clerk Pushes Back on Union Membership Requirement and Wins

Kabler v. UFCW, Local 1776

Case Summary

  • John Kabler attended a mandatory orientation session with other new hires when he started as a liquor store clerk.
  • At the orientation session, United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1776 officials told him that he had to join the union to keep his job.
  • John joined the union, thinking he had no choice.
  • John’s litigation secured the rights for all Pennsylvania liquor store clerks to resign from union membership whenever they want.

UFCW, Local 1776 Doubles Down on Membership Requirement

When John walked into the mandatory orientation session when he first started his new job as a liquor store clerk, he didn’t know he would be led to believe he had no option but to join a union.

In fact, UFCW President Wendell Young, IV sent John a letter stating: “It is a condition of employment with this company that you become a member in good standing with [the union].” The letter also threatened that John would be taken off the work schedule if he did not maintain union membership.

Clerk Discovers Union Officials Misled Him

A year later, John found out that none of that was true. Once he learned that union membership could not be a condition of employment, John tried to resign from the UFCW. But the union refused to let him out and enforced a “maintenance of membership” provision in its contract with Pennsylvania that limited resignations to a 15-day window period. This short window only appeared every few years, forcing union members, like John, to remain with the union for long stretches of time. Union officials continued to deduct membership dues from his paycheck.

John Wins Freedom Through Litigation

Having exhausted his options, John turned to the Fairness Center. On his behalf, we filed a federal lawsuit in March 2019 challenging the union’s illegal “closed shop” policy and seeking a declaration that the union was wrong to reject his resignation.

In May 2020, the UFCW provided John with the relief he sought in his federal lawsuit, and John voluntarily dismissed the suit. The union returned to John more than $1,700 in dues and interest, and they abandoned the contract provision that trapped John and his colleagues in union membership.

Today, because of John’s litigation, more than 1,500 Pennsylvania liquor store clerks can resign their union memberships because there is no longer a restriction on resignations in the union’s employment contract with Pennsylvania.

“If I went out and tricked someone into giving me thousands of dollars, I’d be in jail. The union should be held to the same standard of basic decency.” – John Kabler

Case Status & Documents

Kabler v. UFCW, Local 1776 is closed.

Media

The Citizens Taking On Pennsylvania’s Public-Sector Unions

News | National Review

June 29, 2020: “When Pennsylvania’s public-sector union leaders circulated emails calling on state employees to join protests against stricter U.S. immigration policies, not all of those employees were eager to do so … This arrangement did not sit well with John Kabler … He did not like the idea of paying union dues to support political opinions that were not his own.”

State Worker’s Legal Battle to Quite Union Seen as ‘Throwback to the 1940s’

News | The Washington Free Beacon

March 21, 2019: “…The treatment of Pennsylvania state worker John Kabler by his union is a vestige of a bygone age. ‘This is, in many ways, sort of a throwback to the 1940s, because closed shop–a requirement that you have to join a union to have a job–… was effectively outlawed in 1947.’”