Santa Monica, Calif. (September 22, 2004) – National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have persuaded the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., to order the prosecution of a local hotel and union for actions taken to corral hotel staff into unionization against their will and without a secret ballot election.

The order came in response to six employees at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel filing federal charges late last year to challenge a so-called “card check” unionization drive that resulted in a flood of allegations of workers’ rights violations. NLRB General Counsel Arthur Rosenfeld ordered a trial regarding allegations that the Four Points Hotel illegally recognized Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Union Local 11 as the monopoly bargaining representative of the Hotel’s staff despite a lack of majority support. Additionally, the Four Points Hotel faces prosecution for unlawfully assisting HERE union officials in foisting union affiliation on its employees.

Under “card check” or so-called “neutrality agreements,” employers are induced to waive their employees’ ability to vote in a secret ballot election and agree to provide other assistance to the union in pressuring employees to unionize. These pacts often include unlawful pre-arrangements over substantive terms and conditions of employment, such as health care, wages, or compulsory union dues.

Because many Four Points workers felt harassed into signing union authorization cards, and many revoked signed cards, the employees disputed the union’s claim that a majority of Sheraton workers actually support the union. They are asking the agency to bar HERE officials from bargaining on their behalf. The case will now be remanded to the NLRB Regional office for a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge.

“Union officials knew they could not win a traditional, government-supervised secret ballot election of the employees,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “That’s why they resorted to the coercive ‘card check’ process to saddle workers with unwanted union representation.”

Rosenfeld’s order follows precedent setting orders earlier this month that unfair labor practice complaints be issued in a series of employee cases challenging organized labor’s predominant coercive “card check” organizing method. Foundation attorneys convinced Rosenfeld to issue complaints based on unfair labor practice charges filed by workers who found themselves targeted for organization by the unwanted United Auto Workers union at Freightliner’s Gaffney, South Carolina, facility as well as Dana Corporation’s plants in Bristol, Virginia, and St. Johns, Michigan.

Santa Ana, Calif. (September 13, 2004) — The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California attacking a “project labor agreement” (PLA) that would force workers on 28 public projects worth roughly $300 million into union ranks. Foundation attorneys filed their “friend of the court” brief in support of a group of nonunion apprentices seeking work on the projects.

Foundation attorneys argue that the agreement between the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council (CTC) union and the Rancho Santiago Community College District (District) that forces workers on all 28 projects into union collectives is preempted by federal labor law. Specifically, Foundation attorneys argue that the discriminatory union-only requirement imposed on contractors bidding on the projects violates provisions in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that limit the ability of union officials to impose union affiliation on workers against their will.

A PLA is a collective bargaining agreement that contractors must become a party to as a condition of performing work on a government-funded construction project. PLAs invariably require contractors to grant union officials monopoly bargaining privileges over their workers, use exclusive union hiring halls, and operate according to wasteful union work rules. A PLA’s function is to foist compulsory union representation onto the backs of employees of nonunion contractors who choose the freedom to work without union involvement.

“It is wrong for the state government to sponsor a scheme that bilks taxpayers out of millions of dollars and deprives employees of their basic right to choose whether or not to affiliate with a union,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “Work should be awarded on the basis of who is willing to do the best job at a reasonable price, not on who is most willing to sell workers out to compulsory unionism.”

Foundation attorneys assert that the discriminatory PLA between the CTC union and the District runs afoul of the NLRA as interpreted in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Building and Construction Trades Council v. ABC of Massachusetts/Rhode Island (“Boston Harbor”). Under Boston Harbor, a state or local government may not attempt to regulate a given industry through its projects. By denying work to nonunion contractors on $300 million worth of public projects, Foundation attorneys argue, the District is attempting to regulate the regional construction industry.

Judge James V. Selna will conduct a hearing on September 27, 2004, to decide whether to grant the District’s motion to dismiss the case against it by the group of apprentices.

Solon, Ohio (September 13, 2004) – A Solon worker filed federal charges against an area bread baking company today after he was unlawfully fired for refusing to join a union and exercising his right not to subsidize union political activities.

Steven Taday, an employee of Schwebel Baking Company, Inc., obtained free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and filed the unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after being fired for refusing to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Union Local 700 and sign a card authorizing automatic dues deductions from his wages.

Taday alleges that, beginning in February 2004, company officials misrepresented his rights by telling him he had to maintain full union membership and sign a dues check-off authorization allowing the automatic deduction of union dues from his paycheck as a condition of employment. The NLRB will now investigate the charge and decide whether to issue a formal complaint in the case.

“Company officials apparently want workers like Steven Taday to simply shut up and pay up,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Rather than respect the rights of workers they employ, company officials are bullying workers to pay for union political electioneering.”

The employee’s dismissal from Schwebel, which employs more than 300 people, violated his rights established by the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court Communications Workers v. Beck decision. Under Beck and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials must specifically inform employees of their right to refrain from formal union membership and the right not to be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective bargaining such, as union political activity.

“Unfortunately, as long as Ohio workers labor under a system of compulsory unionism, these sorts of abuses will continue to plague workers across the state,” said Gleason.

Washington, D.C. (September 8, 2004) – National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have persuaded the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to issue the first-ever unfair labor practice complaints in a series of employee cases challenging organized labor’s predominant organizing method known as “card check.”

Under “card check” or so-called “neutrality agreements,” employers are induced to waive their employees’ ability to vote in a secret ballot election and agree to provide other assistance to the union in pressuring employees to unionize. These pacts – which are sometimes characterized as sweetheart deals – often include unlawful pre-arrangements over substantive terms and conditions of employment, such as health care, wages, or compulsory union dues.

Replacing the less-abusive secret ballot election process with “card check” has become the number one requirement for candidates to obtain Big Labor’s support in the 2004 elections. According to the AFL-CIO’s recent statement to BNA’s Daily Labor Report, “we don’t have any issue that’s a litmus test, but this is as close as it gets.”

NLRB General Counsel Arthur Rosenfeld found that deals the United Auto Workers (UAW) union cut with Freightliner (owned by Daimler Chrysler) and automotive supplier Dana Corporation amounted to unlawful premature bargaining under long-established law. The illegal agreements had been reached long before the UAW had provided any evidence that a majority of the companies’ employees wanted anything to do with the union.

Foundation attorneys brought the original unfair labor practice charges after being contacted by workers who found themselves targeted for organization by the unwanted UAW union at Freightliner’s Gaffney, South Carolina, facility as well as Dana Corporation’s plants in Bristol, Virginia, and St. Johns, Michigan.

The lead cases directly impact the enforceability of these “neutrality” or “card check” agreements, in which employers typically grant union operatives sweeping access to their workplaces and employees’ personal information, strip workers of the opportunity to a secret ballot representation election, and hold mandatory “captive audience” speeches about why employees should be unionized. Workers are subjected to “card check” drives in which union operatives bully workers face-to-face to sign union authorization cards that count as a “vote” in favor of unionization.

“Though long overdue, the General Counsel’s decision is an encouraging step towards protecting the rights of tens of thousands of workers across the country facing this ugly union organizing tactic,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “Workers ought to be able to decide whether to unionize in an atmosphere free of coercion.”

In the Freightliner case, Gaffney workers filed federal charges against Freightliner, Daimler-Chrysler, and the UAW union for unlawfully withholding scheduled pay raises as part of a strategy to coerce employees into ceding to unionization. Although an overwhelming majority of employees signed a petition opposing the UAW, Freightliner nevertheless bargained with the union. Meanwhile, in the cases brought by Dana employees, company and union officials negotiated over health benefits and other substantive terms of employment without first having a majority of workers’ support.

By Stefan Gleason
Special to Knight Ridder/Tribune
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/9594050.htm?1c

While working Americans take a long Labor Day weekend to relax and enjoy the fruits of the free enterprise system, union officials continue to work overtime to diminish workers’ freedom to choose whether to join a union.

Gearing up for the 2004 election, the AFL-CIO decided to shelve all operations other than politics and organizing.

Although Big Labor has increasingly stressed these two activities in recent years, why has it reached fever pitch” The answer: Big Labor is in a life-or-death struggle to preserve and expand its government-granted power to force American workers to join a union.

The latest tool is as simple as it is tyrannical: Union officials claim that secret ballot elections on unionization should be banned. In their place, union organizers are pushing an intimidating process in which workers must say “yes” or “no” in public, not the privacy of a voting booth.

Secret ballot elections are already less common, as union organizers have had increasing success in bullying companies into waiving the election process by using attacks in the press, trumped-up lawsuits and pressure from union-influenced regulators and politicians. Under the resulting “card check” agreements, union officials intimidate workers one by one into signing union authorization cards that are counted as “votes” in favor of unionization.

In just the past year, such “card check” schemes have spurred case after case brought by workers documenting everything from bribes to threats and stalking.

Late last year, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., introduced legislation to ban the traditional secret ballot election process. Only three years earlier, Miller and 15 other members of Congress formally implored the Mexican labor minister to establish a secret ballot election process in that country because, they said, elections “are essential to ensure that employees are not intimidated or coerced.”

Replacing the secret ballot election process with “card check” has also become the No. 1 requirement of candidates to obtain Big Labor’s support in the 2004 elections. According to a recent AFL-CIO statement to BNA’s Daily Labor Report, “we don’t have any issue that’s a litmus test, but this is as close as it gets.”

Union bosses once hailed the secret ballot election as the cornerstone of American labor law, but they now claim that secret ballot elections are “unfair” and must be outlawed to save “union democracy.”

The real reason is that fewer employees are interested in what unions are selling these days, and therefore unions win far fewer elections.

A large number of independent-minded employees, especially in the auto industry, are fighting back. Assisted by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, employees at a Dana plant in Ohio, a Metaldyne factory in Pennsylvania, and a Cequent Towing Products facility in Indiana have won a preliminary victory at the National Labor Relations Board.

In June, a narrowly divided board voted to reconsider prior precedent that bars employees from demanding expedited secret ballot elections to throw out an unwanted union imposed on them as a result of a “card check” drive.

Appearing at a news conference on Capitol Hill in support of related legislation introduced by Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., that would require secret ballot elections in all cases, Dana employee Clarice Atherholt explained: “We’re simply asking for a secret ballot vote so that we can have a say in our future without being intimidated or harassed.”

Unfortunately, Big Labor and its partisans don’t agree. Sens. John Kerry, John Edwards and Kennedy, along with 14 other senators and 31 members of Congress, recently joined together to file a “friend of the court” brief arguing against Atherholt and the other disenfranchised workers.

So as Americans listen to union officials and their allies drone on this Labor Day, let us not forget that Big Labor’s chief goal this election year is to take the freedom to choose out of the hands of rank-and-file workers.

Stefan Gleason is vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, 8001 Braddock Road, Springfield, Va. 22160; www.nrtw.org. This essay was distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Springfield, VA (August 30, 2004) – Spokesmen from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (a non-profit, charitable organization that provides free legal aid to victims of compulsory unionism abuse) are available for comment and interviews on and around Labor Day regarding politics, workers’ rights, and other issues relating to organized labor.

Foundation spokesmen have been interviewed frequently on national television and radio programs, including The O’Reilly Factor, Buchanan and Press, Special Report with Brit Hume, and CNN, and their writings frequently appear in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Investor’s Business Daily, and numerous other publications. They are prepared to comment on or debate any issues related to the following topics:

• How Big Labor’s political agenda is out of step with many rank-and-file workers’ views;
• Big Labor’s war on the secret ballot election process for choosing whether to unionize, the AFL-CIO’s “litmus test” for candidates this election year;
• Union officials’ unprecedented plans for influencing the 2004 elections with forced union dues and other in-kind support;
• How “campaign finance reform” has allowed union officials to consolidate power under a new “privatized Democrat party” fueled by tens of millions of dollars diverted into secretive “527” political committees;
• The growing support for job-producing Right to Work laws which make union membership strictly voluntary;
• Examples of abuse resulting from forced union membership, union violence, violations of religious freedom, and other violations of employees’ individual rights;
• How teacher union officials have contributed to a decline in public education quality while hampering efforts at reform.

To schedule an interview or for information, call Justin Hakes at 703-770-3317.

Boston, Mass. (August 20, 2004) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today formally requested an investigation into apparent collusion between Rosemary Pye, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Region One Director, and officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

At the same time, Foundation staff attorneys helped employees at the St. Gobain Abrasives facility in Worcester file an emergency petition with the Washington, DC-based NLRB to force its Boston office to honor an order that it hold a hearing on the employees’ petition for an election to throw out an unwanted union.

The workers’ emergency petition to the NLRB seeks an order enforcing the Board’s July 8 ruling that required Region One to hold a hearing into whether the union’s unfair labor practice charges filed against St. Gobain are credible and relevant enough to warrant setting aside the election requested by more than 300 employees.

Meanwhile, the letter signed by Foundation president Mark Mix to NLRB General Counsel Arthur Rosenfeld and Inspector General Jane Altenhofen urged an investigation of Director Pye and the Region One office. The record demonstrates that Ms. Pye and her subordinates improperly withheld information from the NLRB in violation of agency procedure. They also leaked pre-decisional information to UAW officials and the press, and they appear to have acted in collusion with the union during the decision making process that ultimately resulted in a dismissal of a decertification petition. In recent days, the Regional Director also canceled an evidentiary hearing explicitly ordered by the July 8 ruling of the NLRB.

“These troubling actions – which include refusing to follow a Board directive, failing to follow Board procedure, apparent collusion between the union and the Region, as well as a general lack of regard for employees’ Section 7 rights [to refrain from unionization] – do not reflect well on the General Counsel’s office or the agency as a whole. I urge each of you to investigate this matter and take appropriate action,” Mix wrote.

A decertification election has only one purpose and effect: to remove the union as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees. If a decertification election is allowed and is successful, the UAW union would lose its special privilege to act as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees. All St. Gobain employees then would be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment and could be rewarded on their individual merit.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, if 30 percent or more of the employees in a bargaining unit sign a decertification petition, the NLRB should conduct a secret ballot election to determine if a majority of the employees wish to decertify the union.

Washington, D.C. (August 11, 2004) – Attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today filed as amicus curiae in a U.S. Court of Appeals in opposition to the AFL-CIO’s appeal to overturn new union financial disclosure requirements intended to provide employees with meaningful information as to how their compulsory union dues are spent.

In June, AFL-CIO lawyers filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after District Court Judge Gladys Kessler upheld new union financial disclosure requirements. Judge Kessler, who has ruled for Big Labor officials in other cases, called AFL-CIO lawyers’ arguments “unconvincing.”

Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao issued the final regulations on October 9, 2003, in response to a national epidemic of union corruption. This revision in the long-standing union disclosure requirements was the first such reform in over four decades.

In their brief, Foundation attorneys argue that Secretary Chao responded to a clear need for union accountability and transparency, and she acted within her authority by issuing the new requirements to disclose more financial information to rank-and-file union members.

“The AFL-CIO hierarchy is going all out to keep rank-and-file workers in the dark about union finances,” said Foundation President Mark Mix. “Not only did Secretary Chao have the authority to do what she did, but she should have gone much further, such as requiring independent audits and more functional reporting of union expenditures.”

The National Right to Work Foundation has also criticized the curious raising of the threshold for itemization of expenditures in the final disclosure rules. In the last days before the rules were finalized, the itemization threshold was raised to $5,000 from an originally proposed level of $250, allowing the concealment of many union disbursements on the new forms.

The AFL-CIO union hierarchy claims the new regulations are “prohibitively expensive,” arguing that unions will be required to keep records in a new way. However, contrary to these claims, to comply with several landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, unions are already required to track expenditures in a fashion that the new forms will require.

Under the Foundation-won rulings in Communications Workers v. Beck and Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, union officials already must maintain accounting systems, record keeping, and infrastructure to provide forced-dues-paying nonmembers with information about how resources are spent on various union functions. With these reporting mechanisms already in place, Foundation attorneys have asserted that most unions should be able to satisfy the new reporting requirements with little additional financial burden.

To read the Foundation’s brief, click here.

Trenton, NJ (August 4, 2004) — Defending the rights of non-union local government employees statewide, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation today filed arguments at the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of Hunterdon County workers attacking the constitutionality of a new state law – backed by Governor Jim McGreevey – forcing workers to pay dues to an unwanted union.

A national legal aid organization, the Foundation filed its amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief in Hunterdon County v. CWA, Local 1034 for Henry Wieczorek and other non-union Hunterdon County employees. The brief challenges a decision by the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC), taken pursuant to the new state law, ordering the county to seize compulsory union dues from all employees in the Communication Workers of America (CWA) Local 1034 bargaining unit. In June, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, ruled in favor of the PERC’s order to seize compulsory dues. That decision was subsequently appealed by the County.

Foundation attorneys argue that there is no compelling state interest to justify PERC’s forcing Hunterdon County to collect compulsory dues from non-union members when county officials have already rejected the requirement during the collective bargaining process. In addition, Foundation attorneys charge that, if counties are forced to collect the fees, it will strip away safeguards that protect workers from having compulsory agency fees used to support union politics or other activities not directly related to collective bargaining.

“Big Labor wants to require the county government to be their collection agency and strong-arm workers into subsidizing a union that they do not support,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Apparently experiencing difficulty persuading employees to join the union voluntarily, union officials are grabbing for the power to compel payment of dues as a job condition.”

Until recently, New Jersey’s county and municipal employees who refrained from union membership could not be compelled to pay so-called “agency fees” unless local government officials agreed to such a requirement through the collective bargaining process. However, a statute signed by Governor McGreevey in 2002 gave union officials the power to utilize a new PERC procedure to force county governments to impose the requirement as a job condition.

In December 2002, in response to demands from CWA Local 1034, PERC ordered Hunterdon County to begin deducting “agency fees” from all non-union county government employees. Seeking to defend its employees’ freedom of association, Hunterdon County officials filed suit against the CWA union challenging the commission’s order. A ruling in favor of the County would strike down the McGreevey law.

Asheboro, N.C. (August 4, 2004) – Employees at the Goodyear Tires (Goodyear) facility in Asheboro have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an election that could strip officials of the steelworkers union hierarchy of their newly granted monopoly representation power over roughly 340 of the company’s employees.

The petition comes on the heels of a controversial “card check” unionization campaign which resulted in NLRB unfair labor practice charges filed by Goodyear employees complaining that revocations of coercively obtained signatures on cards were not honored, and that support for the union had not reached a majority. The employees filed those charges against both Goodyear and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union for their joint role in imposing an unwanted union upon them.

With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Scott Shaw filed the decertification petition signed by over 30 percent of his coworkers after Goodyear began bargaining with the USWA union despite its lack of majority support.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, if 30% or more of the employees in a bargaining unit sign a decertification petition, the NLRB should conduct a secret ballot election to determine if a majority of the employees wish to decertify the union and stop it from any further “exclusive representation.”

“Goodyear employees should be allowed, once and for all, to have a voice in whether they are unionized,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “It’s an outrage that Goodyear struck a backroom deal with USWA officials to deny these workers their rights.”

Bowing to pressure brought by USWA union operatives, Goodyear signed a so-called “neutrality agreement” that prohibits a traditional and less-abusive secret ballot election process in favor of a coercive “card check” campaign. Under the agreement, union organizers were given full access to employees’ personal information and company facilities to browbeat workers into signing union recognition cards that were counted as “votes” for unionization.

If a decertification election is allowed and is successful, the USWA union would lose its special privilege to act as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees. All Goodyear employees then would be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment and could be rewarded on their individual merit.

Meanwhile, the workers’ unfair labor practice charges are under investigation by the NLRB office in Winston-Salem. Numerous workers had submitted letters to Goodyear, and the arbitrator who counted the cards, revoking their previously signed cards. However, USWA officials, Goodyear, and the arbitrator ignored the revocations. The remedy to the unfair labor practices the employees seek is a recount of the cards, taking into consideration the many letters from workers revoking previously signed cards.