Washington, D.C. (April 6, 2004) – Two Dana Corp. employees today filed federal charges challenging an unlawful provision within the master agreement between the “Big Three” auto makers (General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, and Ford) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union that pressures “tier one” suppliers to help forcibly unionize employees.
The charges attack an increasingly common “top-down” organizing tactic that is used to short-circuit traditional grassroots-driven union organizing drives and bypass the less-abusive secret ballot election process. The workers allege that the UAW union’s “good corporate citizen policy” and other contract clauses are, in effect, an illegal “secondary boycott” provision that requires “Big Three” parts suppliers to assist union organizers or lose their significant sales contracts.
With free legal aid from attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Dana Corp. workers Gary Smeltzer and Joseph Montague filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the UAW union. Smeltzer and Montague, employees at Dana Corp.’s St. Johns, Michigan, plant currently face a UAW union organizing drive precipitated by the national agreement.
Facing pressure from the “Big Three” and the “good corporate citizen policy,” Dana signed a so-called “neutrality agreement” with the UAW. The agreement requires the company to deny employees an opportunity to vote in a traditional secret ballot election, gives union organizers employees’ private information including home addresses, and subjects employees to a highly coercive card-check recognition process which includes “home visits” and other intimidation of employees into signing the cards. (If a majority of the employees are successfully pressured to sign the cards, the union hierarchy is granted “exclusive representation” power and the employees are ultimately forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.)
“The UAW union’s so-called ‘good corporate citizen policy’ is nothing more than a coded statement that if you do not grease the skids for unionization at your company, you will lose your business with the Big Three,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Since employees are increasingly less likely to opt in favor of unionization when actually given a chance to vote their consciences, union organizers have resorted to harassment, bullying, and other tactics.”
The NLRB’s regional director will investigate the employees’ unfair labor practice charges and decide whether to issue a formal complaint.
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.
