Washington, D.C. (April 6, 2004)<\/b> \u2013 Two Dana Corp. employees today filed federal charges challenging an unlawful provision within the master agreement between the \u201cBig Three\u201d auto makers (General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, and Ford) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union that pressures \u201ctier one\u201d suppliers to help forcibly unionize employees. <\/p>\n
The charges attack an increasingly common \u201ctop-down\u201d organizing tactic that is used to short-circuit traditional grassroots-driven union organizing drives and bypass the less-abusive secret ballot election process. The workers allege that the UAW union\u2019s \u201cgood corporate citizen policy\u201d and other contract clauses are, in effect, an illegal \u201csecondary boycott\u201d provision that requires \u201cBig Three\u201d parts suppliers to assist union organizers or lose their significant sales contracts.<\/p>\n
With free legal aid from attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Dana Corp. workers Gary Smeltzer and Joseph Montague filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the UAW union. Smeltzer and Montague, employees at Dana Corp.\u2019s St. Johns, Michigan, plant currently face a UAW union organizing drive precipitated by the national agreement.<\/p>\n
Facing pressure from the \u201cBig Three\u201d and the \u201cgood corporate citizen policy,\u201d Dana signed a so-called \u201cneutrality agreement\u201d with the UAW. The agreement requires the company to deny employees an opportunity to vote in a traditional secret ballot election, gives union organizers employees\u2019 private information including home addresses, and subjects employees to a highly coercive card-check recognition process which includes \u201chome visits\u201d and other intimidation of employees into signing the cards. (If a majority of the employees are successfully pressured to sign the cards, the union hierarchy is granted \u201cexclusive representation\u201d power and the employees are ultimately forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.) <\/p>\n