Pottstown, PA (July 21, 2006) – In response to charges brought by two local workers with free legal help from the National Right to Work Foundation, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC ordered the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Local 619C to retract threats against workers’ jobs intended to discourage them from continuing to work during a union-ordered strike against Cabot Supermetals in 2005.

Both David Cameron and Walter Reigner, chemical workers at the Cabot Supermetals factory in Boyertown, lost their jobs in November 2005 as part of a union-negotiated strike settlement between Cabot and ICWUC union officials. In the agreement, union officials explicitly demanded that Cabot management fire Cameron and Reigner, in addition to two other similarly-situated employees, for exercising their legal right to resign their formal union memberships and continue working during the strike. Cabot then handed their jobs over to less skilled and less senior workers.

The NLRB General Counsel issued a formal complaint in April, and agreed to prosecute the union for threatening to order workers fired. While the charges have awaited final resolution by the NLRB, Cabot has since rehired Reigner, but not Cameron. The General Counsel inexplicably refused to issue a complaint on the actual firings to bring the issue before the full NLRB.

In issuing its order, the NLRB cited an illegal union posting that threatened all workers at the Cabot facility stating, “If you are thinking about crossing the line remember this; if we win an unfair labor practice and you crossed the line YOU will be looking for a job for you will not be working for ‘scabot’ and maybe not for any union shop!”

“Union officials made an example of these workers to discourage others from refusing to toe the union line,” said Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason. “How the NLRB General Counsel can find the threats of firings to be illegal but, at the same time, fail to address whether making good on those threats is also illegal is beyond comprehension.”

Cameron, Reigner, and their two colleagues exercised their right under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Patternmakers v. NLRB to resign from formal union membership and continue working during a strike. The workers alleged that their firings violated the National Labor Relations Act and the duty of fair representation, which are supposed to protect employees from union retaliation or coercion.

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 about 200 cases nationwide per year.