High Point, North Carolina (July 20, 2005) – A group of Thomas Built Buses (TBB) employees filed a motion late yesterday with the full National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to allow them to bring some extraordinary last-ditch election misconduct to the attention of the agency.

The appeal of the NLRB Regional Director’s refusal even to consider employee objections raises a core legal question that could determine to what extent employees – not just unions and employers – have an independent ability to assert their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

Two days before the June 29 election, Scott Evitt, Human Resources General Manager for Freightliner issued an explosive memo announcing that TBB hourly-paid employees would have to pay higher health insurance premiums starting September 1, 2005.

UAW union operatives quickly circulated copies of the Evitt memo around the facility with “DID YOU SEE THIS” THE COST OF BEING NON-UNION JUST WENT UP!” written at the top.

The TBB employees allege that the last-minute intervention of their employer in announcing a major increase in benefit costs, tainted the election that granted United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials monopoly bargaining power over about 1,200 TBB employees. The workers objected to the extraordinary 11th hour move by the company, but the Regional Director refused to grant the employees’ motion to intervene, and therefore never even considered whether the misconduct tainted the election.

Employees opposing unionization report that this last ditch intervention by the company swung a large number of votes in favor of the union – ultimately resulting in a vote of 714 to 508. Under long-standing law, an intervention of this nature intended to influence the election is illegal, and the proper legal remedy is to set aside the election as tainted. Not surprisingly, neither the company nor the union objected to the election result, so the employees asked National Right to Work Foundation attorneys to assist them in intervening.

“We hope the Board recognizes that employees indeed have rights – regardless of whether company and union officials have cut a deal to undercut their freedom of choice,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “How can workers be denied the ability to challenge a tainted election when company and union officials seem to have acted hand in glove since the outset to turn the employees into dues-paying union members?”

Facing a formal complaint and prosecution by the NLRB, UAW and TBB/Freightliner officials agreed earlier this year to cancel a company-wide sweetheart deal in which union officials had unlawfully bargained to limit workers’ wage demands and made other concessions in exchange for Freightliner’s assistance in coercing workers to unionize.

Based on evidence provided by Foundation attorneys, the NLRB’s General Counsel also found that TBB/Freightliner officials provided unlawful assistance to the union and held unlawful “captive audience” speeches jointly with union officials to coerce employees to sign union authorization cards treated as “votes” for unionization.

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.