Oregon state employee didn’t sign membership forms union produced.
Bend, OR— The Freedom Foundation today announced it has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Oregon’s largest public-sector union on behalf of a state employee whose membership was created without his consent and who has since been blocked from stopping dues deductions from his paycheck.
Jorge Castellanos Polanco, a business and employment specialist with the Oregon Employment Department, did not sign a union membership agreement or authorize dues deductions. Yet from his very first paycheck in August 2024, SEIU 503 began taking money from him.
When he demanded to see the authorization SEIU claimed justified the deductions, the union produced two membership forms he says he never signed. One form uses the Spanish form of his name rather than the English name he uses professionally. Both share the same IP address, and that address traces not to Redmond — where he was working at the time — but to Salem, Ore.
Castellanos Polanco did not question the deductions because his previous work in the private sector required him to maintain union membership and he believed it was mandatory.
When Castellanos Polanco learned of his First Amendment right to opt out, submitted a written resignation. But SEIU officials told him he had missed a narrow opt-out window he had never been informed existed.
A union representative advised him he could end his membership, but claimed he would still be required to pay dues for nearly another year while receiving none of the benefits.
When he explained he was sending every spare dollar to help a family member fighting a serious illness, the representative expressed no sympathy. SEIU then sent him a letter claiming he had agreed to withdraw his resignation when he had not.
“I never wanted to join this union, and I never signed these forms letting them take money from my paycheck,” said Castellanos Polanco. “When I tried to leave, they told me I had to keep paying. I was sending every dollar I could to help a sick family member and I couldn’t afford this.”
“SEIU created this man’s union membership without his consent, and when he tried to leave, they threatened him and then falsely claimed he had changed his mind,” said Freedom Foundation Litigation Counsel Rebekah Schultheiss. “This is not a paperwork dispute. It’s a union that believes it can take money from workers with or without their permission.”
The Freedom Foundation’s complaint asks the Employment Relations Board to find the purported dues authorization invalid, order SEIU to immediately stop collecting dues, require a full refund of dues improperly collected, impose civil penalties, and issue injunctions against SEIU.
