Employees Force Settlement in Precedent-Setting Federal Union Racketeering Lawsuit
Phoenix, Arizona (July 22, 2009) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, five Phoenix-based employees who refrained from formal dues-paying union membership forced a settlement with the defendants in a federal lawsuit laying out how union agents conducted a corrupt scheme to divert sales commissions from the employees to union officials.
National Right to Work Foundation attorneys used the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) anti-corruption statute (establishing new legal precedent in the process) and the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) to attack a scheme allegedly orchestrated by Qwest Communications and Dex Media, publisher of the yellow pages phone books, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1269 union bosses.
Evidence discovered in the lawsuit showed that IBEW Local 1269 union officials manipulated company procedures to receive greater compensation at the expense of the nonunion plaintiffs. Some of the methods used to increase the union agents’ compensation included reassigning accounts from nonunion employees to union officials, giving union agents “double commissions” for sales made by other workers, and allowing union officials to regularly sell lucrative “group ads” while denying similar opportunities to nonmember employees. By knowingly aiding union agents as they manipulated company rules to increase their performance-based pay, Qwest and Dex were accused of bribing union officials to act against workers’ interests in bargaining negotiations.
In April, a United States District Court judge denied significant parts of the defendants’ motions for summary judgment and held that the union officials and company should stand trial for giving preferential treatment to union agents through the distorted performance-based pay system. The judge’s decision and an earlier decision denying motions to dismiss have established a favorable anti-corruption precedent enabling National Right to Work Foundation litigators to target other union schemes under the federal racketeering statute.
“Because IBEW Local 1269 union bosses acquired monopoly bargaining privileges from Qwest and Dex Media, they were emboldened to conjure up a scheme fleecing the very workers they claimed to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The only meaningful way to limit union corruption is stripping union officials of their government-granted monopoly bargaining privileges and making union representation truly voluntary.”
“The Foundation employs cutting-edge legal strategies to take on such compulsory unionism abuses nationwide and forcing corrupt union bosses to be accountable to the rule of law.”
Employees Force Settlement in Precedent-Setting Federal Union Racketeering Lawsuit
Employees Force Settlement in Precedent-Setting Federal Union Racketeering Lawsuit
Right to Work Foundation uses innovative legal techniques after company and union officials collude to enrich union bosses
Phoenix, AZ (July 22, 2009) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, five Phoenix-based employees who refrained from formal dues-paying union membership forced a settlement with the defendants in a federal lawsuit laying out how union agents conducted a corrupt scheme to divert sales commissions from the employees to union officials.
National Right to Work Foundation attorneys used the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) anti-corruption statute (establishing new legal precedent in the process) and the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) to attack a scheme allegedly orchestrated by Qwest Communications and Dex Media, publisher of the yellow pages phone books, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1269 union bosses.
Evidence discovered in the lawsuit showed that IBEW Local 1269 union officials manipulated company procedures to receive greater compensation at the expense of the nonunion plaintiffs. Some of the methods used to increase the union agents’ compensation included reassigning accounts from nonunion employees to union officials, giving union agents “double commissions” for sales made by other workers, and allowing union officials to regularly sell lucrative “group ads” while denying similar opportunities to nonmember employees. By knowingly aiding union agents as they manipulated company rules to increase their performance-based pay, Qwest and Dex were accused of bribing union officials to act against workers’ interests in bargaining negotiations.
Fearing Vote on Its Forced Dues Powers, Union Hierarchy Gives up Monopoly Bargaining Privileges
New Cumberland, PA (July 21, 2009) – Facing an imminent deauthorization election initiated by New Cumberland air traffic controllers, National Association of Air Traffic Control Services (NATCA) union officials have renounced their monopoly bargaining privileges and withdrawn from the bargaining unit entirely.
After receiving notice of the impending election, the union hierarchy apparently recognized that it was not wanted by employees and walked away to avoid further embarrassment.
With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, all four employees at a New Cumberland air traffic control tower recently filed a deauthorization petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), seeking a secret ballot election to remove the authority of NATCA union officials to require payment of union dues as a condition of employment. After NLRB administrators confirmed that all four employees signed the petition, a deauthorization election was scheduled for late July to determine formally whether the union could continue to extract payments from air traffic controllers.
Although all four employees wanted to eject the union entirely, they were only allowed to vote on the union’s presence when the current contract period expires. Before the deauthorization election could take place, however, union officials opted to disclaim any interest in continuing to represent the bargaining unit rather than face defeat at the ballot box.
“All four employees wanted to eject the union, but the biases of federal labor law meant their only option at the time was to strip union bosses of their forced dues privileges,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Faced with having to earn the workers’ dues voluntarily instead of seizing them under the threat of termination, NATCA bosses showed their true colors and abandoned the unit.”
Now that NATCA has formally renounced its monopoly bargaining privileges for this particular bargaining unit, all employees of the New Cumberland air traffic control tower will be able to individually negotiate with their employer for wages and benefits.
“While we applaud the efforts of the New Cumberland air traffic controllers to rid themselves of an unwanted union, these employees shouldn’t have to navigate layers of federal bureaucracy just to represent themselves in the workplace,” continued Gleason.
New Obama Car Czar is Militant Union Boss
Good news! The Obama Administration’s Car Czar – tasked with reorganizing the auto industry with government tax dollars – is resigning. The bad news? His replacement, Ron Bloom, is a union label hatchet-man. The Washington Examiner digs up a choice quote on his managerial prowess:
Bloom’s relevant experience appears to be negotiating for unions with troubled companies, and so it would be useful to know his approach. Thanks to an old Time magazine collection of quotes, here it is:
"Let me give you some advice. First, we are big believers in dentist chair bargaining. For those of you not familiar with this approach, it is inspired by the story of the man who walks into his dentist’s office, grabs the dentist by the balls and says, ‘now, let’s not hurt each other.’ We do have a lot to lose and we and everyone else knows it. But what you need to understand is that we are willing to lose it."
We’re sure his subtle negotiating techniques will be on full display in the coming months. But will Bloom actually manage the auto industry task force with anything approaching impartiality? The Examiner is skeptical (emphasis mine):
The president of the United Steelworkers, Leo W. Gerard, said of Bloom in a New York Times piece: "He’s going to Washington to help the administration sort out problems, and that’s his gift,” said Leo W. Gerard, president of United Steelworkers. “Ron has been a problem solver. He has worked on 50 bankruptcies over the last 20 years. He has a lot of experience and knowledge. There’s a big problem — we want to save the auto industry in America — and that’s what Ron is going to help them do."
But will he be saving the industry, or helping the unions perpetuate its woes? So far, the Obama administration’s "bankruptcy negotiation" technique has amounted to strong-arming and ruining the reputations of senior creditors who resist being written out in favor of unions. With the choice of Bloom, it is more obvious that the unions now sit on both sides of the negotiating table. Unless, that is, you believe an administration that fires CEOs is not really running the auto industry in which it owns a huge stake.
WSJ: Mandatory Binding Arbitration Means More Power for Union Bosses, While Workers Lose Rights
Here at Freedom@Work, we’ve covered the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (more accurately called the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill). The job-killing bill would effectively eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections and open up workers to intimidation and dirty tricks by union organizers in coercive card check organizing drives. Moreover, the bill’s mandatory binding arbitration provision would allow federal bureaucrats to impose terms and conditions of employment on workers and employers — which even Far Left icon George McGovern opposes.
Shikha Dalmia, senior analyst at the Reason Foundation, wrote in the Wall Street Journal this weekend — echoing what National Right to Work has been documenting for years — that mandatory binding arbitration has been occurring in government employment in numerous forced unionism states with atrocious results.
In 1969, the Wolverine State embraced a form of compulsory arbitration nearly identical to the one proposed in EFCA to resolve disputes with its police and firefighters. Years later, Detroit mayor Coleman Young — who had authored the original law as state senator — rued what he had done. "We now know that compulsory arbitration has been a failure," he lamented to the National Journal in 1981. "Slowly, inexorably, compulsory interest arbitration has destroyed sensible fiscal management and has caused more damage to the public service than the strikes it was designed to prevent."
…
A 2006 task force convened by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who supports compulsory arbitration, found that local government costs in arbitration states are 3%-5% higher compared to nonarbitration states. "While small in percentage terms, the impact in dollar terms is huge," the task force concluded. Given that local governments in Michigan alone spend over $23 billion annually, this works out to over a billion in extra spending for them.
Michigan’s experience is hardly unique. Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis also tried to limit public-sector compulsory arbitration during his first term. In 1977, Mr. Dukakis argued that compulsory arbitration "has removed legitimate management prerogatives in the area of staff assignments, (and) transfers from the control of municipal officials at a time when they are under severe pressure to improve their management and make savings." Mr. Dukakis failed to stop compulsory arbitration, but two years later Massachusetts voters approved a ballot initiative that effectively scrapped it.
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Businesses are not the only losers in compulsory arbitration. Currently, any contract negotiated by union officials has to be ratified through a vote of rank-and-file members. Under compulsory arbitration, workers do not get this vote. In other words, EFCA will take away the right of workers to vote to form a union, and then binding arbitration will take away their right to vote on a contract.
The only clear winners under this law would be the union bosses, who will obtain new powers without any new accountability. If Michigan’s experience suggests anything, it’s that rank-and-file workers, businesses, and the American economy will suffer. Sen. Lincoln and her colleagues should bear this in mind before they make their final decisions.
[Emphasis added]
Read the whole thing here.
Click here to watch an urgent video message from Senator Jim DeMint, Steve Forbes, and National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
Mark Mix in Washington Examiner: White House’s Latest Big Labor Payoff
National Right to Work president Mark Mix recently wrote in the Washington Examiner about the Obama Administration’s refusal to attend the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in Providence at the behest of militant union bosses. The message to mayors was clear: Hand over your cities and taxpayers’ dollars to the union bosses.
Miami mayor Manny Diaz, outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), has accused the White House of "setting a very dangerous precedent" during the organization’s 2009 annual meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. Vice President Joe Biden, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, and Cabinet members Shaun Donavan, Arne Duncan, and Gary Locke had all been slated to attend.
Not one showed up.
Why would Obama and his Cabinet do such a thing to their close political friends? Because International Association of Firefighters (IAFF/AFL-CIO) union President Harold Schaitberger told them to.
As the national recession and exploding government deficits are forcing mayors across the country to make difficult decisions to keep their cities from going bankrupt, Schaitberger is leading a crusade to intimidate local and state elected officials. Specifically, he and his lieutenants are trying to deter local and state politicians from reforming the outrageous public-safety union pension systems that are driving cities like Providence into insolvency. The Obama White House is apparently eager to go along.
Not long before the mayors’ meeting, Schaitberger and the bosses of IAFF Local 799 in Providence announced that they would be setting up a picket line outside the conference. The White House then vowed that no one from the Obama administration would defy the union brass by attending. In a June 5 IAFF union press release, Schaitberger was quoted gloating about the Obama administration’s "unqualified support" for "organized labor."
Read the rest of the op-ed here.
Click here to watch an urgent video message from Senator Jim DeMint, Steve Forbes, and National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
Nurses Eject Unwanted CNA Union from Tenet Hospital in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA (July 8, 2009) – After enduring a coercive union organizing campaign and harassment by union militants, a Philadelphia-area nurse successfully ejected the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) union, a local affiliate of the national California Nurses Association (CNA) union, from Hahnemann University Hospital.
Certifying the results, federal supervisors from the National Labor Relations Board announced that PASNAP lost the election, 309 votes to 267. Union officials may no longer force nurses to accept their “representation.”
Kimberly Hummel of Deptford, New Jersey is employed as a nurse at Hahnemann University Hopsital, a medical facility owned and operated by Tenet Healthcare Corporation. After CNA organizers muscled into the hospital using a controversial “Election Procedures Agreement” (EPA), Hummel criticized the hospital’s support for union organizers.
With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, she filed federal unfair labor practice charges against the California Nurses Association (CNA) union and Tenet Healthcare Corporation in February 2009.
The charges challenged the legitimacy of the EPA, listing multiple violations of employee rights that hindered nurses’ attempts to resist the CNA’s professional organizers. Under the agreement, Tenet managers were gagged from responding truthfully to employee questions about the CNA, and nurses who opposed unionization were forbidden from using Tenet facilities to express their views. Outside union organizers, on the other hand, were given free rein to pressure nurses into approving unionization.
In early June, Foundation attorneys filed another round of unfair labor practice charges against the CNA, alleging that Hummel was harassed and stalked by union militants in retaliation for her efforts to challenge CNA’s aggressive organizing tactics.
Despite this intimidation, Hummel successfully initiated a union decertification election by collecting signatures from more than 30 percent of affected hospital employees who oppose the union’s presence.
“After enduring a backroom organizing deal between their employer and the CNA and union intimidation in the workplace, Hahnemann University Hospital nurses have finally restored their individual rights to free association,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.
New Right to Work Podcast: Right to Work, Card Check, and the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill
Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason sits down with Reality Check Radio to discuss the history of the Right to Work movement, Card Check, and the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:
You can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.
Click here to watch an urgent video message from Senator Jim DeMint, Steve Forbes, and National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
Right to Work Committee Experts: Beware of Bogus Card Check Compromises!
At the annual Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism (CEAFU) conference in Washington, D.C., Right to Work Legislative Director Greg Mourad discussed the state of the card check debate in Congress. Here’s the video:
Another Day, Another Union Stooge Appointed by Obama
In the latest of a litany of Big Labor political paybacks, President Barack Obama nominated union lawyer George H. Cohen to Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).
According to the Peggy Browning Fund’s biography of Cohen, "he joined the National Labor Relations Board in 1960 as an Attorney Advisor for Board Member [Gerald] Brown where he helped shape the progressive, union [boss]… friendly agenda of the ‘Kennedy Board’… In 1966, George left the Board to begin his 40 year stint as a union-side labor lawyer."
Cohen’s past efforts on behalf of union chiefs clearly indicates that he brings years of forced unionism bias to what is a very coveted position for Big Labor.
Under the mandatory binding arbitration provision in the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, the FMCS bureaucrats would take over employer/union boss contract negotiations 90 days after a card check forced organizing campaign. The forced arbitration provision that is triggered at 120 days not only snatches the power of contract negotiations away from the people it actually affects; but it also, as the Wall Street Journal notes, emboldens union bosses "to run out the 120-day clock and let an arbitrator impose a contract that is bound to include much of what unions demand." The federally-imposed contract would be binding for two years.
If Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism Bill passes, the Cohen-led FMCS would become a defacto rubber stamp for union boss coercion, doing Big Labor’s dirty work during negotiations and empowering them to browbeat employers into forcing more workers into forced-dues-paying union membership.
Obama’s nomination of yet another union hired gun, this time for the vital post of FMCS Director, is just another example in a long list of union stooges who clearly do not have the best interests of independent-minded workers at heart.
