Worker Advocate Urges Labor Secretary: Apply Federal Disclosure Law to German Union and VW Works Council
Foreign union boss groups conspire to force workers into union ranks without complying with federal disclosure requirements
Washington, DC (November 17, 2014) – Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, is urging U.S. Labor Department Secretary Thomas Perez to apply federal labor disclosure law to German union and Volkswagen (VW) officials involved in an international push to unionize workers at VW’s Chattanooga, Tennessee facility.
The Foundation – the nation’s premier advocate on behalf of workers who suffer from the abuses of compulsory unionism – assisted several workers who were subjected to coercive card check unionization tactics and pressure from VW management during the United Auto Workers (UAW) union’s multi-year campaign to unionize the workers. The Foundation also assisted some of those workers in filing a federal suit that challenged the company’s assistance to UAW union officials during the unionization campaign as an illegal exchange of «thing[s] of value» under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA).
In a letter to Perez, Mix spells out how officials from the German-based IG Metall union, VW’s Global Group Works Council (GWC), the UAW union, and VW Germany have participated in «high-profile public activities…that trigger Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) reporting requirements.» Mix notes that the U.S. Department of Labor has thus far ignored this fact, and if it continues to do so, union and company officials «may receive de facto immunity for their possible violations of the LMRDA’s criminal and civil protections.»
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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.
