Congressional Hearing 

Worker Speaks Out Against Obama Labor Board Before Congress

In the wake of National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) move to kill the only protection workers have against card check forced unionism, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing yesterday about the recent onslaught of the NLRB's pro-forced unionism rulings as former-Chairwoman Wilma Liebman's term expired late last month.

Testifying at the hearing was Barbara Ivey, who works at a Portland, Oregon-based IT unit at Kaiser Permanente.

Ivey and 60 of her coworkers were subjected to a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) card check forced unionization campaign (via a neutrality agreement).

Many of Ivey's coworkers reported that they were misled or pressured by SEIU organizers into signing union cards, and didn't even know what they meant.

After the SEIU succeeded in gaining enough cards to claim monopoly bargaining privileges over the workers, the workers were told that if they didn't like it, they could file with the NLRB for a secret-ballot decertification election (per Foundation-won precedent in Dana) to overrule the card check campaign and remove the unwanted union.

After leaning about her rights with the assistance of Foundation staff attorneys, Ivey collected the necessary amount of signatures on a petition for a secret-ballot election.  But then, on August 26, 2011, the Obama NLRB overruled the Dana precedent in Lamons Gasket and the election was summarily cancelled.

Now, the employees in the Kaiser IT department are stuck with the SEIU for anywhere from one to four years before they will even have a chance to force a secret-ballot vote (and getting a decertification vote is a major uphill battle for employees who will have campaign against an entrenched union with full-time paid professional organizers).

Yesterday, Ms. Ivey shared with Congress her experiences with the unfairness of card check unionization and the one-sidedness of the Obama NLRB. You can read Barbara Ivey's testimony by clicking here (pdf).

You can watch the video of the hearing here.

Michigan Child Care Providers Take Their Case to the Airwaves

As we recounted earlier this month, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are fighting a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to hand over all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to government union bosses.

Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, and Carrie Schlaud, the courageous lead plaintiff of the providers' class-action lawsuit against Granholm and the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions appeared on the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends to discuss the case:


To view more videos regarding the lawsuit, including Mark Mix's appearance on the Fox Business Network's Willis Report and Michigan child-care provider Peggy Mashke's appearance on the Fox Business Network's Varney & Company, check out the Foundation's Youtube channel here.

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

"Troubling." "Notorious." "Deeply disturbing." You would have thought that the sky was falling.

However, no, this is how some members of Congress feel about employees' right to vote out an unwanted union after a coercive "card check" unionization drive, as evidenced by today's Joint Subcommittee hearing regarding the National Labor Relations Board.

Dominating the hearing was talk about the National Right Work Foundation's Dana/Metaldyne victory, which won this right for employees. NLRB Chairman Robert Battista made an analogy that the right for employees to vote out and unwanted union after a card check was a way for them to "speak now or forever hold their peace."

Too bad for America's workers, many times it is only union and company officials that say "I do" to card check/neutrality agreements, and they are left without a say.

 


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