Federal Labor Official to Prosecute Scheme to Force Nurses under Union Boss Control
Washington, DC (February 16, 2010) – After a protracted legal battle, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel has sustained part of an appeal filed by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys challenging a backroom unionization deal between Tenet Healthcare Corporation and the California Nurses Association (CNA) union.
As part of their efforts to forcibly unionize hospital employees across the country, CNA officials and Tenet Corporation agreed to a series of measures designed to impose union monopoly bargaining on unwilling nurses. This so-called Election Procedures Agreement (EPA) gave union organizers preferential access to Tenet facilities and gagged nurses who opposed unionization.
The agreement between Tenet and the CNA also subverted the NLRB’s oversight role during workplace elections. Under the CNA union’s scheme, the NLRB’s only role is to count ballots and rubber-stamp the union’s monopoly bargaining privileges, effectively gutting the already limited rights of employees who wish to resist unionization.
With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, nurses in Houston and Philadelphia have repeatedly challenged the legality of this arrangement. In earlier proceedings, Tenet was forced to give nurses who opposed forced unionism equal access to hospital facilities.
A recent appeal filed by Foundation attorneys challenging the EPA was partly sustained by the NLRB’s General Counsel. The General Counsel agreed with Foundation attorneys that a provision of the EPA committing Tenet to binding arbitration if union officials and the company are unable to agree on a first contract constitutes illegal pre-recognition bargaining between the union and the company, allowing union officials to negotiate substantive terms of employment for workers they don’t even represent. The legality of this provision will now be litigated before an administrative law judge and ultimately the federal courts.
“CNA bosses shouldn’t be empowered to negotiate on behalf of workers they don’t even represent,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Tenet Corporation and CNA operatives have stacked the deck in favor of union organizers, stifling independent-minded employees in an attempt to push Houston and Philadelphia nurses under union boss control, like it or not.”
By Hook or By Crook, Big Labor Wants Card Check
It appears Big Labor will stop at nothing to impose card check forced unionism on American workers and job-providers. Public opposition from energized Right to Work supporters and other concerned Americans to the draconian card check bill — which eliminates the secret ballot in workplace unionization drives, opens up workers to intimidating "home visits," and allows government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers — has thus far stalled the legislation in the Senate.
On Tuesday, in what may have been a test vote on card check, the Senate rejected an attempt to move President Obama’s nomination of radical union lawyer Craig Becker to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the quasi-judicial agency that administers federal labor law. Becker’s writings indicated a willingness to impose the card check forced unionism mechanism through NLRB rules, without even a Congressional vote.
But despite this setback union officials aren’t giving up on card check, and neither are the forced unionism proponents in the Obama Administration. The Daily Caller reports that White House staffers are considering a new executive order that could effectively require all federal contractors to submit their workers to coercive card check campaigns:
Critics say the proposals would heavily favor unionized companies and significantly increase the cost and amount of time needed to award contracts. Estimates have the potential cost increase at 20 percent, adding about $100 billion a year to the federal budget.
“Making contracting decisions based on political or ideological litmus tests will waste taxpayer dollars and limit economic growth at a time when we can least afford to do so. The administration’s new rules amount to a backdoor attempt at card check. The last thing our small businesses need is to be saddled with new rules that effectively say ‘unionize or die,’” said John Hart, communications director for Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican. Coburn and four other Senate Republicans sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag last week asking for a briefing on the proposals; they have yet to receive a response.
…
Now the administration is facing increasing pressure to go around Congress and implement pro-labor policies via executive order. The Service Employees International Union, one of the groups lobbying the White House to adopt the new labor policies, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
No surprises here: SEIU czar Andy Stern was the most frequest visitor to the White House in Obama’s first year.
Workers Prevail in Battle for Secret Ballot Vote After Corrupt Card Check Unionization Scheme
Workers Prevail in Battle for Secret Ballot Vote After Corrupt Card Check Unionization Scheme
Communications union bosses collude with AT&T to lock local group into union ranks without majority support
Seattle, WA (February 11, 2010) – A group of AT&T Mobility employees have won a legal victory countering union officials’ domination of their workplace using a coercive card check unionization campaign that occurred after union organizers colluded with AT&T officials to sweep the workers into union ranks in exchange for contract concessions.
Per a so-called “neutrality agreement” between the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union hierarchy and AT&T, workers in a 140-employee bargaining unit (which consists of various locations across the state of Washington) were “card checked” into the CWA union’s regional monopoly bargaining unit which consists of thousands of employees.
In exchange for AT&T foisting CWA monopoly bargaining on workers through a card check organizing drive, union officials agreed to subject employees to a contract which results in lost benefits for the workers, including promotion opportunities. Moreover, the employees’ inclusion in the larger regional unit would make it virtually impossible for them to later organize to remove the union officials’ monopoly bargaining privileges.
However, using precedent won by Right to Work Foundation attorneys in the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) landmark 2007 decision in Dana Corporation, Joseph Simpson of Redmond and his colleagues filed a decertification petition demanding a secret ballot election to remove the unwanted union from their workplace.
Workers Prevail in Battle for Secret Ballot Vote After Corrupt Card Check Unionization Scheme
Seattle, WA (February 11, 2010) – A group of AT&T Mobility employees have won a legal victory countering union officials’ domination of their workplace using a coercive card check unionization campaign that occurred after union organizers colluded with AT&T officials to sweep the workers into union ranks in exchange for contract concessions.
Per a so-called “neutrality agreement” between the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union hierarchy and AT&T, workers in a 140-employee bargaining unit (which consists of various locations across the state of Washington) were “card checked” into the CWA union’s regional monopoly bargaining unit which consists of thousands of employees.
In exchange for AT&T foisting CWA monopoly bargaining on workers through a card check organizing drive, union officials agreed to subject employees to a contract which results in lost benefits for the workers, including promotion opportunities. Moreover, the employees’ inclusion in the larger regional unit would make it virtually impossible for them to later organize to remove the union officials’ monopoly bargaining privileges.
However, using precedent won by Right to Work Foundation attorneys in the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) landmark 2007 decision in Dana Corporation, Joseph Simpson of Redmond and his colleagues filed a decertification petition demanding a secret ballot election to remove the unwanted union from their workplace.
In Dana, the NLRB, citing the coercive nature of card check organizing, recognized that employees should be able to file a decertification petition and demand a secret ballot election to toss out union officials from their workplace within 45 days after notice that a union has obtained monopoly bargaining powers through card check.
CWA union brass contested the employees’ request for a secret ballot election because it was not made within the 45-day window period. However, the NLRB regional director in Seattle investigating the matter confirmed employees had not been told of their right to request the election as Dana requires, because the notice was not posted at the facility where a majority of employees worked. Apparently the notice about their Dana rights was “taken down” at some point. The first time employees heard about their right to an election was when one of them contacted the Foundation. The regional director decided that the employees’ petition was therefore valid.
CWA union lawyers are now attempting to tie up the NLRB decision in an attempt to avoid an election at all costs and are appealing the regional office’s decision to the national board in Washington, DC – joining union lawyers in a handful of other high-profile cases asking the NLRB to undo workers’ Dana protections.
“Dana provides these employees with a last line of defense against a union boss-nurtured scheme concocted to force them under union control,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “While it is certainly important that these employees will now be able to challenge the unreliable card check unionization scheme with a secret ballot election, the fact is that employees should never be forced into union ranks to begin with.”
January/February Foundation Action Newsletter Available Online
The January/February 2010 issue of Foundation Action is now available for download as a PDF. This is the Foundation’s official bimonthly publication that provides an excellent overview of hard-hitting legal actions being taken by Foundation attorneys every day to combat forced unionism.
In this issue:
- Right to Work Sues Obama Administration, Demands Info on Big Labor Ties
- Big Labor Moves to Roll Back Sweeping Foundation Precedent
- Right to Work Combats Sneak Attack on Railway/Airline Workers
- Supreme Court Asked to Halt UAW Religious Discrimination
- Grocery Clerks Fight to Free Themselves From Union Ranks
In addition to to reading Foundation Action online, you can sign up to receive a free subscription by mail here.
Big Government: Big Labor’s «Bread and Butter»
The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) just released a new study detailing the disturbing trend of the forced unionization of government workers. In it, NILRR points out that in 2008 and the first 11 months of 2009, unionized private-sector workers lost their jobs at more than double the rate than their private-sector non-unionized colleagues.
Meanwhile, for the first time ever, more than half of our nation’s government workers are now under union boss monopoly bargaining control and the number is growing with disastrous consequences:
While today 51% of unionized workers nationwide are government employees, as recently as 1981 there were more than twice as many unionized private-sector workers as their were unionized public-sector workers. The ever-increasing concentration of Big Labor’s power and influence in government employment will greatly exacerbate the harmful tendency of public employment to grow faster than private employment over time.
Not only that, but Congress is considering passing legislation that would help union bosses corral more city and local government emergency responders into union ranks — legislation that local government officials are warning will make their already-severe budgetary woes even worse.
Combined with NILRR’s recent analysis that taxpayers are fleeing forced unionism states, it’s easy to see their conclusion: Unless states take action to cut back Big Labor’s numerous government-granted special privileges, fewer and fewer American private-sector workers and their employers are facing a greater tax burden to sustain an ever-growing government — especially in forced unionism states.
Read NILRR’s report here.
And for more on the history of Big Labor’s campaign to acquire incredible power over local, state, and national government, order your free copy of Stranglehold: How union bosses have hijacked our government today.
Bus Drivers Beat the Odds to Strip Public Sector Union Bosses of their Forced Dues Powers
Hudson, OH (February 3, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, First Student workers in Hudson have successfully stripped Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Local 791 union officials of their power to force school bus drivers to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
After repeated clashes with OAPSE union brass, Janet Barlow – a driver at First Student – circulated a workplace petition to strip the union of its power to collect forced dues from First Student employees. After collecting signatures from her coworkers, Barlow submitted the petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which then supervised a January 26 election to determine if union officials would be stripped of their extraordinary power to extract forced dues from First Student drivers.
After reviewing the results, the NLRB announced that 41 workers voted in favor of revoking the union’s dues-collecting privileges while only 19 voted against. As a result, OASPE Local 781 union officials are no longer legally allowed to demand mandatory dues payments from First Student employees.
Deauthorization elections aimed at ending union bosses’ dues-collecting privileges are an uphill battle for independent-minded workers. Incumbent union officials enjoy the benefits of workplace access and often company support, while employees must first collect signatures from over 30 percent of their coworkers to trigger a deauthorization vote. Moreover, employees who abstain from voting or miss the election are counted as votes in favor of maintaining a union’s forced dues powers. Although the deck was stacked in favor of forced unionism, Barlow and her coworkers successfully rescinded Local 781’s dues-collecting powers.
The result follows a prolonged legal battle between union officials and Barlow, whose previous attempt to opt out of union dues for politics met with resistance from OAPSE bosses. Prompted by these setbacks, Barlow circulated a deauthorization petition to remove the union’s forced dues privileges.
Barlow previously filed charges with the NLRB against OAPSE officials for discriminating against nonunion workers and failing to notify First Student employees of their rights to resign from union membership. Barlow’s original allegations are still being investigated by the NLRB, but NLRB officials have notified Foundation attorneys that they’ve found merit to Barlow’s charges.
“After enduring workplace discrimination at the hands of OAPSE officials, Janet Barlow and her colleagues finally said enough was enough and removed union bosses’ dues-collecting privileges,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Although these bus drivers successfully curtailed compulsory unionism in their workplace, employees should not be forced to undertake such an arduous campaign just to get rid of union bosses’ forced dues powers.”
“The real solution is to stop forced unionism before it starts by giving employees the protection of a Right to Work law that makes union membership and dues payment fully voluntary,” concluded Semmens.
Senate Hearings Today on Obama’s Radical, Pro-Coercion Labor Board Nominee
Yesterday in Roll Call, Bret Jacobson noted the importance of today’s Senate hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Service Employee International Union General Counsel, Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.
Thus, we have today’s hearing for Becker, a longtime strategist and lawyer for organized labor. If they can’t get “card check” through a broad, participatory legislative process, they’ll push to grab a similar victory through the federal board’s ability to regulate without approval of the people’s Representatives.
As such, this hearing — demanded by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is troubled by Becker’s blatantly anti-employer views — signals that we have officially hit plan B on the administration’s strategy for pandering to the organized labor lobby. This new course will focus on the quiet job-killer of regulation and card check by fiat.
But the real problem isn’t that Becker is anti-employer — it’s that his career as a diehard union boss apologist reveals an extreme hostility to the very employees the union bosses claim to represent. Last October, National Right Work president Mark Mix took to the pages of the Washington Times to make this very point:
In fact, as a former AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer, Mr. Becker is solely responsible for forcing tens of thousands of workers under union boss control.
In one case, reports from a Los Angeles SEIU local union revealed that almost 63,000 people rejected membership in the union in 2007, but thanks to Mr. Becker, were still forced to pay dues.
And Mr. Becker’s own words explain why. He was even so bold as to say unions were "formed to escape the evils of individualism and individual competition … their actions necessarily involve coercion."
With that kind of anything-goes attitude, it’s no surprise Mr. Becker supports "home visits," in which union militants repeatedly harass workers at home until they sign union-authorization cards, and even advocates letting Mr. Obama’s handpicked arbiters impose contracts on workers, without even allowing the workers to vote on their own contract.
Contrast Craig Becker’s radical, pro-coercion views with the words of Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor: "No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion."
For more on Becker, see this post from the National Right to Work Committee’s blog and visit their action center here.
Federal Labor Board Rejects Frivolous Teamster Union Charges Against National Right to Work Foundation
Federal Labor Board Rejects Frivolous Teamster Union Charges Against National Right to Work Foundation
Fearing a lack of support, union bosses attempt to abuse process to prevent employee election
Seattle, WA (February 2, 2010) – The National Labor Relation Board’s (NLRB) regional office in Seattle has dismissed as unwarranted and unsupported frivolous charges filed by Teamsters union officials against the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Teamsters Local 117 union bosses filed the unfair labor practice charges against the Foundation in a desperate attempt to stall an employee vote at Alan Ritchey, Inc. which would allow the employees to rescind the union hierarchy’s forced dues privileges – which requires employees to pay union dues and fees as a condition of keeping their jobs.
After reviewing the charges, the NLRB regional director in Seattle outright rejected the charges as unwarranted and unsupported.
Federal Labor Board Rejects Frivolous Teamster Union Charges Against National Right to Work Foundation
Seattle, WA (February 2, 2010) – The National Labor Relation Board’s (NLRB) regional office in Seattle has dismissed as unwarranted and unsupported frivolous charges filed by Teamsters union officials against the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Teamsters Local 117 union bosses filed the unfair labor practice charges against the Foundation in a desperate attempt to stall an employee vote at Alan Ritchey, Inc. which would allow the employees to rescind the union hierarchy’s forced dues privileges – which requires employees to pay union dues and fees as a condition of keeping their jobs.
After reviewing the charges, the NLRB regional director in Seattle outright rejected the charges as unwarranted and unsupported.
In November, Alan Ritchey employees Gayle May and Patricia Allen contacted the Foundation after union bosses circulated a letter threatening that they would be subject to discharge in 2-3 days unless they notified the union whether their status was as members or objecting nonmembers who do not wish to pay for the union’s activities such as political activism, legislative lobbying and union social events. However, May, Allen and other employees were already on record with the union as being nonmember objectors. Thus, it appeared that union officials were simply trying to intimidate them.
With help from Foundation attorneys, May and Allen – acting for dozens of other similarly-situated employees of the mail transportation equipment repair and service center – filed unfair labor practice charges against Local 117 in November.
About the same time, other Alan Ritchey employees filed a petition seeking a deauthorization election, which could void the forced union dues clause in the contract with their employer. In a move seemingly designed to prevent the election, Local 117 union bosses filed the charges against the Foundation, which blocked the employee vote.
“With Teamsters Local 117 union bosses focusing their energies on harassing independent-minded employees who exercise their rights, it’s little wonder these employees want to strip the union bosses of their forced dues privileges,” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director of the National Right to Work Foundation.
Foundation attorneys won private-sector employees the right to refrain from funding non-bargaining union boss activities in the 1988 Communications Workers of America v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision. However, only through the protection of a Right to Work law is an employee’s decision whether to support a union with their hard-earned money fully voluntary.
