Worker freedom group calls unions’ actions an ‘illegal scheme’
Two Jewish students filed federal antidiscrimination charges against the Cornell Graduate Student Union and the national United Electrical Workers Union, alleging they were harassed for requesting religious exemptions from paying union dues.
David Rubinstein and Louie Gold’s Jewish beliefs prevent them from associating with an organization that has been at “the forefront of demonizing Israel, seeking its destruction, and supporting Hamas’s violent and barbaric terrorism against Israel and its inhabitants,” according to the complaints.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation provided copies to The College Fix.
The complaint said Rubinstein (pictured, left) and Gold (pictured, right) received questionnaires which they allege were designed to help the union avoid its “affirmative legal duties to accommodate religious objectors.”
“Through the questionnaire, the unions frustrated, deterred, unnecessarily complicated, obstructed, and restrained me, and others, from seeking and securing an accommodation,” Rubinstein and Gold stated in their separate complaints.
A news release from the worker freedom group also said the questionnaire contained “invasive and legally irrelevant questions.”
Rubinstein and Gold were asked to disclose the name of their religious institution and faith leaders. In addition, the questionnaire indicated that Gold and Rubinstein’s religious accommodations may not be approved. The questionnaire’s final statement read, “The UE national union will review your religious objection upon receipt and may have follow-up questions,” according to the news release.
Rubenstein and Gold filed their charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects employees from discrimination based on religion.
The Fix reached out twice to the national United Electrical union via its communications director Jonathan Kissam and Samantha Cooney, its digital organizer, to ask for a response to the complaint. Neither responded to emails sent in the past month.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation provided further comments to The Fix.
Vice President Patrick Semmens says he hopes to save graduate students from the unions’ “illegal scheme.”
“We want to stop the UE and GSU unions from subjecting religious graduate students to this illegal scheme to harass them and impede their legal rights,” Semmens told The Fix via an emailed media statement.
Semmens says these violations and the prevalence of forced unionism are the result of a lack of oversight by New York lawmakers.
“These rights violations, of course, stem from New York’s lack of Right to Work protections, which give union officials power by default to create contracts that mandate dues payment as a condition of keeping one’s work,” Semmens said.
Rubinstein and Gold’s case is one of many where compulsory unionism has won out over religious objections, Semmens said.
“The combination of union officials’ government-granted powers and extremism has had a devastating impact on Jewish graduate students around the country,” Semmens said. “Union officials can impose their agendas and ‘representation’ on those who don’t want and never asked for it, and then force dissenters to pay to promote that agenda.”
The graduate student union ratified its first contract in April 2025 after a year of negotiation with Cornell’s administration.
The Fix reached out to Cornell via email to ask how the school intended to respond to Rubinstein and Gold’s complaints and if officials support the union’s treatment of religious members.
Deputy Director of Media Relations Lindsey Knewstub responded on the university’s behalf and declined to comment.
Cornell’s Graduate Student Union has a history of participation in pro-Palestine protests.
In Oct. 2024, GSU organized a demonstration of 180 students to object to the deportation of an international student who was suspended following claims he pushed through police during a pro-Palestine protest, according to reports by Cornell’s campus newspaper.
The Fix reached out and followed up with members of GSU at Cornell University via email but has not received a response in the last two weeks.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Cornell University graduate students David Rubinstein and Louie Gold; Cornell University with College Fix edits