Washington, DC (July 6, 2011) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency charged with administering private sector labor law, has ruled against a Teamsters workplace policy that discriminated against nonunion workers. Kirk Rammage, the victim of union officials’ discriminatory practices, received free assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation during his extended legal battle.
Although the NLRB previously decided the case in Rammage’s favor in 2009, that ruling was later nullified by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the Board lacked a three member quorum at the time of the decision.
Rammage, an Interstate Bakeries employee from Ponca City, Oklahoma, was involved in the consolidation of two separate corporate divisions in 2005. Part of one division was staffed by a single nonunion sales representative – Rammage – who had put in more time with Interstate Bakeries than any of his coworkers at the office where he worked. Although the company wanted to retain Rammage and protect his seniority during the merger, union bosses from Teamsters Local 523 demanded that union members receive preferential treatment, putting Rammage at the bottom of the seniority roster despite his workplace tenure.
At Interstate Bakeries, seniority increases employees’ chances of securing desirable sales routes and getting more time off. By insisting that Rammage lose his seniority, Teamster officials effectively signaled that union workers took priority over their nonunion colleagues.
After revisiting the facts of the case, the NLRB again concluded that Teamster officials broke the law by discriminating against employees based on their union representation status. However, the Obama Board’s new decision outlines a way for union officials to get around the National Labor Relations Act’s anti-discrimination provisions, indicating that union officials could have lawfully ignored Rammage’s tenure if they had claimed it was because he had no preexisting, enforceable seniority instead of saying it was because he wasn’t previously subject to union monopoly bargaining.
“Teamster bosses discriminated against a nonunion worker because he had the temerity not to associate with their union,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “While we’re pleased to report that the Board has finally gotten around to reaffirming Kirk Rammage’s rights, the Obama NLRB still managed to show its pro-compulsory unionism bias by taking the opportunity to provide union bosses with a roadmap for ‘legally’ discriminating against non-union employees in similar situations in the future.”
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.
