Boca Raton, FL (January 19, 2012) – With the help of National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Mardi Gras Gaming employee Martin Mulhall has won the right to proceed with a case challenging a backroom organizing deal between the UNITE HERE Local 355 union and his employer. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s dismissal and remanded the case to Florida District Court for a decision on the merits.

In 2004, UNITE HERE Local 355 and Mardi Gras Gaming entered into an agreement in which union officials promised to spend over one hundred thousand dollars on a gambling ballot initiative and guaranteed not to picket, boycott, or strike against Mardi Gras facilities.

In return, Mardi Gras agreed to hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union operatives access to company facilities during a coercive ‘card check’ organizing campaign, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether its employees unionized.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mulhall sued UNITE HERE in 2008. Mulhall argues that the company’s concessions to the union are of substantial monetary value because they made the union organizing process easier and less expensive.

To prevent backroom deals that undermine employee rights, Section 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) prohibits employers from giving “any money or other thing of value” to unions. Although a Florida District Court dismissed Mulhall’s case on the grounds that the company’s organizing assistance was not a thing of value, the Court of Appeals reversed that decision, noting that the company’s support could be of substantial value to a union.

So-called “neutrality agreements” like the one agreed to by UNITE HERE and Mardi Gras Gaming give union organizers license to browbeat and intimidate workers into acceding to unionization. Armed with employees’ home addresses and access to company facilities, union officials frequently harass and cajole workers on and off the job until they sign cards that are then counted as “votes” for unionization.

“We’re pleased that Martin Mulhall’s efforts to challenge this corrupt bargain – a clear violation of Section 302 of the LMRA – are moving forward,” said Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation. “Federal law is supposed to protect employees from exactly this type of backroom deal, in which union officials sell out worker interests for an agreement that pushes more employees into the union’s dues-paying ranks.”

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 more than 250 cases nationwide per year.