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.

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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.