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A Johns Hopkins University doctoral candidate is fighting back against a union for trying to get her kicked out of her job after she requested, and won, an exemption from paying dues.
Andrea Ori filed the National Labor Relations Board complaint after she said the union kept requesting private financial information, such as her paystubs. The requests came despite Ori (pictured) winning a religious exemption in 2024 from paying dues. The complaint is still pending as of Dec. 8 according to the group representing Ori.
The Teachers and Researchers United Union is under the umbrella of the United Electrical, Radio, & Machine Workers of America national group. The unions filed a “discharge request” with the university after Ori denied its attempts for private information, which she says is protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The request demanded the Baltimore university fire her and prevent her future employment at the school.
Ori, a molecular biophysics student and Fulbright Scholar, filed the complaint with the assistance of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which provided further comments to The College Fix.
“[Ms. Ori] is now seeking to protect her private information from UE union officials, which they are demanding even though neither federal law nor her religious objection give union bosses any right to that info,” the group’s spokesman Jacob Comello told The Fix in an email.
According to the foundation, most employees can limit payments for “union political activities” under the Supreme Court’s Communications Workers of America v. Beck decision.
Unions must also provide religious accommodations for individuals who object to supporting it on religious grounds.
When The Fix asked what religious belief formed the basis of Ori’s accommodation request, Comello said she preferred not to disclose the specifics for the time being.
Comello told The Fix that UE has been silent on the complaint.
“We also haven’t seen a legal response,” he said. “Though presumably the reason for that is because Ms. Ori’s charges were submitted during the government shutdown and the NLRB hasn’t had a chance to process the charges or ask for any kind of response from the union,” he said in November.
The National Labor Relations Act does not consider graduate students in employees.
However, the NLRB, under the Obama administration, “allow[ed] union officials to gain monopoly bargaining power over graduate students at private universities,” according to a news release from National Right to Work.
The Fix reached out via email to UE’s Johns Hopkins affiliate, Teachers and Researchers United, which represents graduate student workers at the university, asking if there is anything missing, misleading, or inaccurate about Ms. Ori’s complaint and requesting the union’s perspective on the case.
Media and communications chairs Stephen Schmidt and Daniella Butler did not respond to questions despite a follow-up email a week later.
The Fix also asked Johns Hopkins University whether it had taken or was considering disciplinary action against Ori, including termination, and how it viewed the allegations.
The university did not respond despite a follow-up email and voice message sent in the past several weeks.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is currently assisting other graduate students in their battles with campus unions.
The workers’ rights group is challenging the 2016 decision that classified graduate students as employees on behalf of a Cornell student.
The group also represented Vanderbilt University graduate students who were similarly battling requests for private information from union organizers.
