NLRB Busted for Keeping Information Secret Documenting Employee Objections to Card Check Organizing
In 2007, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys persuaded the National Labor Relations Board to establish new rights for workers through the landmark Dana/Metaldyne decision. The ruling empowered workers to call a vote to kick out an unwanted union during a 45-day window period following a successful "card check" organizing drive.
The ruling was a rebuke of union organizers and their coercive tactics, as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) acknowledged the abuses, and determined that employees needed a way to challenge the imposition of a union workplace monopoly via card check by obtaining a secret ballot decertification election.
Prior to the Obama Administration, the NLRB maintained an online database of all card check recognitions and any subsequent union decertification elections. The NLRB, however, stopped updating this information last spring. Foundation attorneys recently demanded the NLRB to update the database regularly, and NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman responded last week. Although she blamed the General Counsel’s office for the neglect, she stated the agency would post new information monthly going forward.
While this information doesn’t prevent coercive card check organizing on the job – an increasingly common union tactic even without passage of the pending EFCA legislation in Congress – it does help the public see how widely used this abusive union organizing actually is… and which companies have blocked their employees’ access to secret balloting.
Perhaps even more importantly, this data reveals the nasty little fact that card check signing does not represent employees’ true wishes. For in many cases, the very union bosses who came in through card check were sent packing — only days later — after employees obtained a secret ballot vote.
AFL-CIO Czar Trumka: Card Check Forced Unionism Will Pass
Last week, AFL-CIO union czar Richard Trumka (download the Foundation’s Fact Sheet on his history of condoning union violence and corruption) made headlines by predicting that the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill will pass in early 2010. The heated debate over the health care overhaul legislation has kept the public eye off this other union boss power grab for a few months, but Trumka’s prediction makes it clear Big Labor’s high command haven’t forgotten about their highest priority.
The Card Check Forced Unionism Bill would effectively eliminate workers’ right to a secret ballot in workplace unionization drives and replace it with overt union intimidation:
Under the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that refer to the secret ballot election would be rendered a dead letter, even though they are not technically stricken from federal law.
Big Labor spin artists can claim all they want that the workers can still "choose" to have a secret ballot election, but there simply is no way by which workers can force union bosses to file for a secret ballot election — and it is union bosses, not workers, who are in possession of the cards. Reporters who repeat this union boss talking point owe their readers a correction.
Read the full analysis here. Union bosses prefer card check instant organizing because it puts all of the power in their hands — free from the meddling interference of government election supervisors and the workers themselves.
Fortunately, we already know what card check campaigns look like. Unfortunately, we only know this because hardworking Americans have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, and coercion by union bosses to get them to sign cards. In the video below, Dana Corporation employees in Albion, Indiana, shared their stories with the National Right to Work Committee.
The National Right to Work Committee warns to beware of any bogus compromises under the guise of protecting the secret ballot. One of the most dangerous aspect of the "compromise" talks is the lack of focus on the other toxic provision of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill: mandatory binding arbitration.
Under the bill, workers won’t just lose the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether or not to form a union. Even those who choose to join a union’s ranks may see their voting rights severely limited, as mandatory binding arbitration would allow government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers. That means union members may not even be able to vote to ratify their contracts: Whatever the government says… goes.
Even Far Left icon George McGovern knows this is a terrible idea. And as Reason Foundation analyst Shikha Dalmia detailed in the Wall Street Journal, states’ experiments with mandatory binding arbitration and public sector unions have led to atrocious results — including out of control budgets and fiscal mismanagement.
Worker Advocate Seeks Biased Agency Members’ Recusal on Controversial Transportation Union Rule Change
Worker Advocate Seeks Biased Agency Members’ Recusal on Controversial Transportation Union Rule Change
Former airline union officials should not use federal power to help their unions corral tens of thousands of workers into union membership
Washington, DC (January 19, 2010) – Citing substantial legal precedent, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a motion with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking the recusal of the two former union officials who are behind a dramatic rule change proposal on how a union is imposed on non-union railway and airline industry workers.
The NMB, the federal agency tasked with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, is quietly rolling back 75 years of precedent and changing labor union organizing regulations, greasing the skids for union organizers to lock industry workers into union ranks.
The two board members who now comprise the majority of the board, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, were both appointed by President Barack Obama and were executive officers for two of the very unions pushing for the changes.
Worker Advocate Seeks Biased Agency Members’ Recusal on Controversial Transportation Union Rule Change
Washington, DC (January 19, 2010) – Citing substantial legal precedent, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a motion with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking the recusal of the two former union officials who are behind a dramatic rule change proposal on how a union is imposed on non-union railway and airline industry workers.
The NMB, the federal agency tasked with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, is quietly rolling back 75 years of precedent and changing labor union organizing regulations, greasing the skids for union organizers to lock industry workers into union ranks.
The two board members who now comprise the majority of the board, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, were both appointed by President Barack Obama and were executive officers for two of the very unions pushing for the changes.
Hoglander was a union official with the Air Line Pilots Association union and Puchala was an officer of the Association of Flight Attendants union. Both unions are a major part of an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) union-led coalition urging the NMB to discard its policy of requiring a true majority of all workers within a collective bargaining unit to decide for themselves if they wish to be represented by a union. The new procedure would stack the deck in favor of unionization by requiring only a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to make that decision for the whole group.
The members voted 2-1 to preliminarily support the controversial change, and NMB Chair Elizabeth Dougherty has criticized the hasty actions of the two members.
“President Obama’s appointed Big Labor operatives on the National Mediation Board should recuse themselves from this controversial effort to give union bosses the upper hand over independent-minded workers,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of National Right to Work. “If these members do not recuse themselves, the NMB’s actions will betray the integrity of government decision-making as well as President Obama’s pledge that his personnel would avoid these very violations of ethics.”
Foundation attorneys have previously appeared before the NMB asking for the proposed change to be rejected because it would make it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine, particularly since these campaigns must be run across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units. The proposed change also imposes a greater burden on employees who wish to refrain from union membership by forcing them to either take affirmative action to oppose the union or otherwise potentially allow far less than a majority to make that decision for them.
Right to Work on Glenn Beck: Obamacare’s Big Labor Giveaways
Right to Work President Mark Mix discusses Big Labor hand-outs embedded in pending health care legislation:
Right to Work Podcast: Union Discrimination and Employees of Faith
Recently, Right to Work Vice President Stefan Gleason appeared on the Frank Beckmann Show to discuss the Foundation’s efforts to fight union discrimination against religious employees. 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.
Right to Work on Glenn Beck: Forced Unionism Threatens National Security
Right to Work President Mark Mix explains how forced unionism at the Transportation Security Administration threatens to undermine national security:
Jim DeMint: «Let’s keep our focus at TSA on security, not politics.»
Pro-Right to Work Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has a post up on RedState explaining how monopoly bargaining for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees could interfere with the agency’s ability to effectively respond to threats.
DeMint points out that union monopoly control of border patrol agents, and the wasteful and inefficient rules preferred by the union bosses, has made it difficult for the government to discipline, reassign, or terminate employees.
To best protect our national security, the government must have the resources to remove egregious offenders from the positions and allocate resources as efficiently as possible. DeMint outlines how monopoly bargaining for TSA agents could weaken our national security:
- Requiring TSA to get union bosses’ permission before implementing security and workforce changes. If the unions decided the changes were too burdensome on their employees, weeks or months of negotiations could ensue, causing unacceptable delays in implementing new safety protocols.
- Requiring TSA managers to promote based on seniority, not merit, and making it more difficult to discipline failing employees.
- Requiring TSA to share sensitive intelligence information to third parties during negotiations with union bosses, making future leaks of classified material more likely.
"Lets keep our focus at TSA on security, not politics," DeMint concludes.
Read the full post here. And don’t forget, along with the important policy concerns raised by the Senator, union monopoly bargaining powers represent a fundamental violation of the rights (pdf) of all individual employees, TSA agent, or anyone else.
FEC Fails to Investigate Teachers’ Complaint of NEA Union Money Laundering Scheme
FEC Fails to Investigate Teachers’ Complaint of NEA Union Money Laundering Scheme
Employee rights advocate weighs federal lawsuit
Washington, DC (January 5, 2010) – Apparently without conducting a field investigation, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) dismissed a complaint against one of the most politically active unions in America after evidence surfaced that union officials deposited illegally laundered dues money into its political action committee (PAC).
Citing in part lack of sufficient funding to enforce the law, the FEC junked a complaint filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and two Alabama teachers who discovered a union scheme to divert convention reimbursements into the National Education Association (NEA) union’s PAC.
When attending the NEA’s 2004 national convention, Daphne Middle School science department chair Claire Waites was deceived into supporting the NEA’s PAC and was determined that it would not happen again. However, Waites and Assistant Principal Dr. Jeanne Fox, both members of the Baldwin County Education Association (BCEA), Alabama Education Association (AEA), and NEA unions, discovered the practice continues.
FEC Fails to Investigate Teachers’ Complaint of NEA Union Money Laundering Scheme
Washington, DC (January 5, 2010) – Apparently without conducting a field investigation, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) dismissed a complaint against one of the most politically active unions in America after evidence surfaced that union officials deposited illegally laundered dues money into its political action committee (PAC).
Citing in part lack of sufficient funding to enforce the law, the FEC junked a complaint filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and two Alabama teachers who discovered a union scheme to divert convention reimbursements into the National Education Association (NEA) union’s PAC.
When attending the NEA’s 2004 national convention, Daphne Middle School science department chair Claire Waites was deceived into supporting the NEA’s PAC and was determined that it would not happen again. However, Waites and Assistant Principal Dr. Jeanne Fox, both members of the Baldwin County Education Association (BCEA), Alabama Education Association (AEA), and NEA unions, discovered the practice continues.
In July 2008, Waites and Fox attended the NEA’s annual convention in Washington, DC as delegates of the BCEA. According to their sworn testimony, BCEA union president Saadia Hunter informed the educators that contributions in their names were made to a “children’s fund” using money included in their expense reimbursements for their trip to the convention.
Although Hunter told Waites that these contributions were not political in nature, they actually went to the NEA’s PAC. Hunter later admitted that the money would be contributed to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. AEA union bosses also admitted to the educators that the PAC contributions were paid with BCEA members’ dues.
Foundation attorneys are considering a lawsuit against the FEC for shirking its duty of upholding the integrity of the political system, particularly since it is suspected this scheme affected many other teacher delegates to the union convention.
“The FEC made a conscious decision to not take these charges seriously,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We suspect this scheme could involve many more teachers – potentially to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
It is illegal for union officials to encourage and solicit contributions under false pretenses and without informing workers of their right to refuse to contribute without any reprisal. Federal law also forbids campaign contributions made in the name of another person.
