Washington, DC (September 1, 2010)<\/b> \u2013 In a decision dated August 27 but only released yesterday, three members of the National Labor Relations Board granted review of a landmark 2007 case in which the federal labor board granted employees the right to demand a secret ballot election to remove an unwanted union within 45 days after the union obtained monopoly bargaining status through the coercive card check process.<\/p>\n
In late 2009, union lawyers initiated a strategy to overturn the Dana Corp<\/i>. decision won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. In a series of cases nationwide, union lawyers asked the NLRB to revoke the new protections to workers swept into union ranks through card check forced unionism, and now three members of the Board \u2013 all former union lawyers themselves \u2013 have agreed to consolidate two of those cases in a review of Dana<\/i>.<\/p>\n
As the dissenting Board members point out, workers across the country have already used Dana<\/i> decertification elections to kick out unwanted unions, demonstrating the unreliability of card check instant organizing campaigns. Workers frequently sign union authorization cards due to union organizers\u2019 intimidating tactics or even outright lies about what signing a card means. To remove the limited protection of the secret ballot in these cases \u2013 as the Obama NLRB appears set to do \u2013 would deny workers the ability to vote according to their conscience and remove an unwanted union from their workplace.<\/p>\n
The Board\u2019s decision to reconsider Dana<\/i> highlights concerns over one member\u2019s ethics and impartiality. President Obama\u2019s radical recess appointee Craig Becker joined in the decision to revisit Dana<\/i> despite his own participation as a lawyer for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in that very case. <\/p>\n
In response to over a dozen motions for recusal brought by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Becker agreed to recuse himself in a case that serves as a sequel to Dana<\/i> because he coauthored a brief jointly filed by the AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers (UAW). However, he refused to recuse himself from two of the cases (AT&T Mobility<\/i> and Aramark<\/i>) in which union lawyers are seeking to overturn Dana<\/i> because \u201c[n]either of [his] former employers is a party or represents a party\u201d in those cases. <\/p>\n
But that\u2019s only true if one accepts Becker\u2019s shaky distinction between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its local affiliate unions (Aramark<\/i> involves the Service Workers United union, an affiliate of the SEIU). Foundation attorneys have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether Becker\u2019s participation in cases involving SEIU local unions violates his ethics pledge. <\/p>\n
As Foundation attorneys point out, while Becker contends the national and local unions are \u201cseparate and distinct legal entit[ies],\u201d the SEIU itself considers locals to be \u201cconstituent subordinate bodies.\u201d Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU\u2019s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals\u2019 membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies. <\/p>\n
The Obama NLRB\u2019s decision to revisit Dana even appears designed to sidestep Becker\u2019s ethics problem. Even though Aramark<\/i> is also pending, the Board only consolidated two challenges to Dana<\/i>, neither of which involves the SEIU or its affiliates. That means Becker could overturn the Dana<\/i> precedent even though he participated as a union lawyer in the original Dana<\/i> case and even though doing so would directly benefit his former employer in another pending case. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile President Obama and members of Congress continue to push for a federal bill that would end the secret ballot in workplace unionization drives, an obscure federal agency stacked with former union lawyers is poised to eliminate the private vote for workers who have been subjected to unreliable and coercive card check campaigns,\u201d explained Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the beginning of the Obama NLRB\u2019s assault on freedom in the workplace, and individual employees are the ones who will pay the price,\u201d continued Mix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, DC (September 1, 2010)<\/b> \u2013 In a decision dated August 27 but only released yesterday, three members of the National Labor Relations Board granted review of a landmark 2007 case in which the federal labor board granted employees the right to demand a secret ballot election to remove an unwanted union within 45 days after the union obtained monopoly bargaining status through the coercive card check process.<\/p>\n
In late 2009, union lawyers initiated a strategy to overturn the Dana Corp<\/i>. decision won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. In a series of cases nationwide, union lawyers asked the NLRB to revoke the new protections to workers swept into union ranks through card check forced unionism, and now three members of the Board \u2013 all former union lawyers themselves \u2013 have agreed to consolidate two of those cases in a review of Dana<\/i>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[888],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n