Wallula, WA (November 16, 2010) – After receiving free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a group of Wallula-based Tyson Foods Inc. employees prevailed in a protracted legal battle to have a secret ballot vote to remove a local union from their workplace.
Last year, Tyson (NYSE: TSN) recognized the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1439 union as the employees’ monopoly bargaining agent after a controversial “card check” union organizing campaign. Union officials then gave employees only 24 hours to vote on whether or not to ratify the union’s contract with the company. They also required employees to sign union dues deduction authorizations in order to vote – discouraging many employees from voting. Only 61 of the facility’s 1,177 employees actually voted.
In response, a group of independent-minded employees attempted to file a decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a secret ballot election to determine the fate of their bargaining status. Tyson company officials reprimanded the employees and confiscated the employees’ petition. Another group of employees then successfully filed a second petition with the NLRB to obtain a vote.
The workers relied on the Board’s 2007 Dana Corporation decision in which Foundation attorneys won new rights for employees intended to counteract the intimidation and harassment waged by aggressive union operatives that frequently occurs during union organizing campaigns, most often as a result of “card check.”
Dana allows workers to demand a secret ballot election to toss out union officials from their workplace within 45 days after an employer notifies employees that it has recognized a monopoly bargaining agent without a secret ballot vote. This check gives workers some ability to stop union organizers from gaining monopoly control over a workplace.
UFCW union lawyers challenged the employees’ petition, arguing that the union’s new contract with the company barred an employee election to remove the union. However, the NLRB Regional Director in Seattle ruled last week that the employer and union officials failed to post notices as required by Dana informing the employees of their right to a secret ballot election. He therefore upheld the validity of the employees’ petition for a secret ballot vote.
The Regional Director also rejected the union’s argument that, because Dana is being challenged by union lawyers in five other cases across the country, its precedent should not be followed. The very Foundation attorneys who originally won the landmark Dana case are providing free legal aid to employees seeking to protect their Dana rights in two of those cases before the NLRB.
“The NLRB should allow employees the right to defend themselves from union organizing abuses including collusion between union and company officials and aggressive ‘card check’ campaigns,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “A secret ballot election gives workers at least a fighting chance to prevent union bosses from springing their unwanted ‘representation’ on unsuspecting or vulnerable workers.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
