If you know anything about Teamsters/Unions.. look here please.
 

I was recently hired by a local ambulance agency that is a union job, and you are required to join the union (Teamsters). I received my check this week and they deducted $380 for back union dues from when I was employed at UPS. Needless to say I am not happy about this. Apparently when you quit a union job you must file a withdraw form to get out of the union. No one brought this to my attention so I never filed the form. So they have been accumulating union dues, when I have not been at a union job for the last 3 years. I don't know much about law but this seems highly unfair to me. You would think they would remove me from the roster after not having heard from me for 3 years. Anyway, of course I didn't read the mountain of paperwork they gave me when I started at UPS, who does, so I am wondering if I signed my life away.

I am going to check the forms I signed at the ambulance company and see if there is any clause concerning backdues. Maybe I can salvage something.

What pisses me off most is the fact that they just took the money without notifying me. If possible I would have liked to have made payments instead of 3/4 of my check, if I'm obligated.

Anyway, anyone who has any info or comments on this matter. I'd love to hear them.

$380?
 

The problem of course is that $380 is not enough to interest most lawyers, and as it should be. You could maybe check with the ACLU to see if you might have a cause of action, but I doubt it (I'm a dentist, not a lawyer).

Rev

I don't like unions.

I once worked at a union job and they deducted extra dues for some Local, half way across the country, for rebuilding their strike fund that occured five years before I started to work for them. That irked the heck out of me.

Plus, I got let go from my job when people with less senoirity stayed on the job.

NaNa Na
 

I don't think so ,(are you a recent hire ? ) I have no idea what union you are affiliated with ? But I have never heard of this / to me that is wrong ! Your dues start when you become a union member . When i got out of the usaf I worked at Phila International airport for 3 yrs as a Freight Agent (Teamsters) i was in a local at that time (and dues started when you became a union member period I moved on and have had a job with Boeings Helicopter Div. for 18 yrs. now 13 of them in local 1069 of the U.A.W. and they never did any BACK COLLECTION ! I would talk to someone you can trust ,, and find out if that is your union's normal ? practice . Good Luck ;)

All I know is when you quit working a union job you get a withdrawal card. Then if you go to work a gain at a union shop you will not have to pay for initiation. Roadway paid mine when I worked for them. I resigned and got a withdrawal card. Then when I worked seasonal with UPS I didn't have to pay to join their local. Each year I worked there I got a withdrawal card. Now I am working in a railyard loading trains for another local and when I leave here I will get another card. You can not be laid off before someone with less senoirity. You may have been fired.