Knabb v. UFCW, Local 1776 Keystone State

CASE SUMMARY

The Fairness Center represents Allen Knabb, a liquor store clerk for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Mr. Knabb resigned his union membership over eighteen months ago, around January 2020, but officials for UFCW and the Commonwealth are still taking union dues from his wages to this day. UFCW officials claim that Mr. Knabb can only end the dues during one fifteen-day window a year, which UFCW claims is in December. But even though Mr. Knabb resigned well before the December date in 2020, so that UFCW knew that he wanted to stop paying dues, they kept taking dues after December 2020. This leaves Mr. Knabb no way to end the dues for another full year—until December 2021, almost two years after he resigned. Mr. Knabb brings this lawsuit to enforce his constitutional rights not to be associated with or to financially support a union against his will.

Allen Knabb v. United Food & Commercial Workers Union, Local 1776 Keystone State; Wendell W. Young, IV, in his individual and official capacities; United Food & Commercial Workers Union, Pennsylvania Wine & Spirits Council; Michael Newsome, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Office of Administration; Brian T. Lyman, in his official capacities as Chief Accounting Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Deputy Secretary for the Office of Comptroller Operations.

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Press Resources

Court Documents

Complaint | September 29, 2021