Asheboro, North Carolina (December 6, 2004) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has filed a formal complaint – ordered by the NLRB’s General Counsel – against Goodyear Tires and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) union for jointly coercing a majority of the company’s workers to accept an unwanted union.

Receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, three workers at Goodyear’s Asheboro, North Carolina, facility filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB after USWA officials claimed that a majority of workers had signed union “authorization” cards in mid-March. Goodyear subsequently installed the USWA union as the monopoly representative of roughly 340 workers at the plant.

However, numerous workers submitted to Goodyear and the arbitrator who counted the cards letters revoking their previously signed cards. USWA officials, Goodyear, and the arbitrator unlawfully ignored the revocations. The workers’ unfair labor practice charges simply asked the NLRB to recount the cards and recognize the letters from workers revoking previously signed cards.

Bowing to pressure brought by USWA union operatives, Goodyear had 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 authorization cards that were counted as “votes” for unionization.

In August, workers at the Asheboro facility also filed a petition with the NLRB for a decertification election that could strip the USWA union hierarchy of its newly granted monopoly representation power over the plant’s workers. That election is on hold pending the unfair labor practice charges.

“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 the freedom to decide their own representation.”

The NLRB has scheduled a January 31, 2005, hearing before an Administrative Law Judge to prosecute the unfair labor practice complaint against Goodyear and the USWA union. A likely result will be that the union hierarchy loses its special privilege to bargain on behalf of all Goodyear workers.

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.