Washington, DC (August 18, 2011) – The National Right to Work Foundation – the nation’s premier advocate for workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – filed formal comments today with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) opposing the Board’s proposed new guidelines which will help give union organizers the upper hand over independent-minded employees.
In late June, the NLRB proposed new rules dictating how union organizing elections are conducted. The new rules dramatically shorten the time frame individual workers have to share truthful information with their coworkers about the effects of unionization.
Moreover, the rules require job providers to disclose the personal information of workers (including their home address, phone number, email address, and shift information), thus opening up dissenting or undecided employees to intimidation, harassment, or worse.
The new rules also create a loophole which allows union organizers to claim they have support of 30 percent of employees in the workplace, the minimum number required to initiate an election, despite a dispute regarding the size of the bargaining unit in question. Then, union organizers who fear that they do not have enough support to win an election could withdraw their request for an election and use the newly-gotten personal information in later attempts to unionize the employees.
Foundation staff attorneys argue in the formal comments that ambush union organizing elections encourage forced unionization of workers who might otherwise be opposed to unionization, and that the rule requiring job providers to hand over the employees’ personal information to union bosses is a violation of workers’ privacy.
“The forced unionism bias is clear: The Obama NLRB is determined to make union organizing campaigns as one-sided as possible and to stifle the rights of employees who may oppose bringing a union into their workplace” said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. “Although a secret ballot election can’t prevent the fundamental violation of individual rights that occurs under union boss monopoly bargaining, at the very least one is needed that gives workers enough time to educate their coworkers on the downsides of unionization after months or even years of union organizing and propaganda.”
“Rather than adopting this proposal, the NLRB should encourage the rights of independent-minded employees to thoughtfully determine their own fates in the workplace without being placed in greater danger of harassment or intimidation at the hands of aggressive union organizers,” added Mix.
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.
