Phil Holland served his country in the Navy and spent 30 years in law enforcement.
At 86, he was still working part-time at his Oakland neighborhood grocery store when UFCW union bosses finally noticed him.
What they did next cost him the only thing he had left to give.
The Retroactive Union Dues Trap Holland Never Saw Coming
Phil Holland shopped at Village Market for 30 years before he noticed a help-wanted sign in the window in February 2022 and applied.
Four years later, he was still there, working 12 hours a week.
During that entire stretch, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 officials left him completely alone.
They never once disclosed his legal rights under the 1988 Supreme Court decision CWA v. Beck – the ruling that prohibits unions from forcing workers to pay for political activities unrelated to collective bargaining.
In May 2026, that changed.
UFCW Local 5 officials began sending threatening letters framing themselves as a welcome to the union.
By July, they mailed a formal demand: pay more than $3,500 in retroactive dues and fees or lose the job.
Holland offered a middle ground: pay the reduced Beck fee going forward and partial payments on the back amount, a plan entirely consistent with federal law.
UFCW officials rejected it and called Village Market to demand Holland's termination.
The store let him go in early September.
The NLRB v. General Motors Supreme Court decision separately forbids unions from requiring formal membership as a condition of employment – meaning UFCW's original demand that Holland join the union was itself illegal before they even got to the dues question.
"UFCW 5 union officials ignored Mr. Holland for more than four years while he worked part-time at his local grocery store, then out of nowhere ambushed the 86-year-old veteran with a bill for thousands of dollars and illegally had him fired when he didn't give into their unlawful demands," National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix said.
With free legal aid from the Foundation, Holland has now filed federal unfair labor practice charges at NLRB Region 32, asking the board to prosecute UFCW 5 for the illegal firing and to rule that the four-year silence followed by a retroactive dues ambush itself constitutes an unfair labor practice.
California Has No Right to Work Law and UFCW Knows It
Private sector workers in California have no Right to Work protections.
Right to Work laws make union dues voluntary – no worker can be fired for refusing to pay them.
UFCW officials can legally demand dues as a condition of employment – but that authority comes with federal obligations the union ignored.
CWA v. Beck required UFCW to notify Holland that he could pay a reduced fee covering only core bargaining functions, not the union's political and ideological spending.
UFCW Local 5 never sent that notice.
The union runs a political action committee called the Active Ballot Club that, by its own description, funds "member-to-member communication about the union's political program" and lobbying in city halls, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C.
UFCW locals directed thousands of dollars toward California Democrat legislative candidates in 2025 and 2026.
Holland had the legal right to refuse to fund any of it.
UFCW Local 5 holds $23.9 million in assets and represents more than 22,000 members across Northern California.
Letting back dues accumulate for four years without contacting a part-time employee, then dumping the full retroactive bill on a man in his mid-eighties, is a calculated strategy.
The National Right to Work Foundation has documented UFCW locals running this same playbook across the country – a Michigan pharmacy worker faced firing threats after UFCW failed to disclose her Beck rights, and Massachusetts Stop & Shop employees won NLRB settlements after UFCW bosses charged full dues for years without informing workers of their legal options.
California's lack of Right to Work protection is what makes the strategy viable.
Every private sector worker in the state is one retroactive dues letter away from the same phone call to their employer.
Phil Holland offered to pay what the law allows – UFCW bosses chose his termination over his partial check.
Mix added: "Every worker in America deserves Right to Work protections to ensure that all union payments are strictly voluntary."
Sources:
- Staff, "86-Year-Old Veteran Files Federal Charges Against UFCW Union for Causing his Illegal Firing from Part-Time Grocery Job," National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, September 28, 2026.
- Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988).
- "Politics & Legislation," UFCW Local 5, ufcw5.org, accessed September 29, 2026.
- "Local 5, Hayward CA," Office of Labor-Management Standards, via UnionFacts.com, April 23, 2026.
