In what has become an annual (or rather semi-annual) tradition, the increasingly discredited American Bar Association (ABA) is once again pointedly excluding the viewpoints of individual employees who don't want a union in their workplace.

The intellectually dishonest organization is holding its second annual Labor and Employment Law Continuing Legal Education Conference in Denver this September. The cover of the event brochure (pdf) trumpets a panel titled "Hot Topic: Neutrality Agreements, Card Checks, and Voluntary Recognition After Dana."

The core case at issue, Dana/Metaldyne, was brought and won by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, and most of the law in this area is the result of Foundation litigation. Yet, the roster of attorneys on the panel again consists entirely of union, company, and government lawyers.

Foundation VP Stefan Gleason wrote the following about the anti-individual worker bias of the ABA back in February, the last time Foundation attorneys were excluded from speaking about its many cases, and the criticism therein is only reinforced by this latest episode:

ABA political hacks have pointedly refused to allow the perspective of employees who may, God forbid, not want a union to dominate their workplace. Once again, a hot topic at the conference was the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation's cases defending employees whose rights are abused during card check organizing drives.

And yet again, the ABA meeting planners refused to allow the perspective of workers or their Right to Work attorneys to be heard -- instead selecting speakers representing Big Labor and a small faction of squishy, union-boss-friendly management lawyers. (Of course, the views of the speakers were rejected by the NLRB in its recent Dana/Metaldyne ruling, and the views of Foundation attorneys were embraced. Just a technicality, I guess.)

The ABA's intellectual dishonesty continues to be an embarrassment to America's legal profession.

The Wall Street Journal's related article about Right to Work attorneys' victory for employees earlier this month says:

Organized labor, which has long criticized the (National Labor Relations) board under the Bush administration, charges that the recent activity is a partisan push, following several decisions reversing rulings made during the Clinton administration.

You've gotta be kidding me. Additionally, the agency has dropped the ball on these Right to Work Foundation-assisted cases.

Finally, the article fails to recognize that the Dana/Metaldyne decision doesn't even protect the very employees that brought the case! One thing's for sure, America's independent-mined employees deserve better than they've gotten on the whole from the Bush NLRB.

AFL-CIO head honcho John Sweeney and SEIU chief Andy Stern both chimed in about last week's victory on behalf of employees by Right to Work attorneys. Sweeney cites a previous NLRB decision calling coercive card check unionization drives "a favored element of national policy."

What a joke. As previously cited, the Board in this decision cited:

“Card checks are less reliable because they lack secrecy and procedural safeguards… union card-solicitation campaigns have been accompanied by misinformation… workers sometimes sign union authorization cards…to get the person off their back.”

Stern, however, gets one thing right when he says:

"The NLRB has become a caricature of itself, and as a nation, we should be embarrassed by governing bodies that fail to consider even the most basic needs and rights of workers.”

How true. The NLRB has failed America's workers in many other Foundation cases. Here are just a few.