formal comments to the Board's proposed rule. - SEIU

More documents

Recommendations

Info

well-known long before election petitions are filed. Medical Center is illustrative: 69 The testimony of Veronica Tench at St. Vincent As with many representation elections, our employer learned about our campaign long before we filed a representation petition. Hospital managers carefully tracked union activity. The director of human resources asked supervisors and managers to let her know of any Union activity, such as leafleting, home visits, or talking with interested workers in the cafeteria. Supervisors began meeting frequently with employees to advocate against a union. Word got around that the hospital told some workers they’d have to pay more for parking if they joined the union. A department manager told employees that the Union only wanted money from them. Even at this early stage, I don’t think there were any employees who were unaware of St. Vincent’s arguments about the union. We tried to move forward, but hospital management stopped us from every angle. 7° Unfortunately, employers do not limit themselves to the many legal anti-union tactics at their disposal. Research confirms that it is typical for employers to begin committing unfair labor practices long before an election petition has even been filed. Indeed, about half of all serious unfair labor practices occur before the petition is filed. surveillance and harassment are especially concentrated in the weeks before the petition is filed,” 7’ Studies of ULPs have found that “interrogation, suggesting that employers quickly learn of union activity in these campaigns. Trisha Miechur, discussed supra at Part I.C, confirms that employers are well aware of union activity— and aggressively move to kill any campaign—long before any petition is filed. 72 The experience of Another illustrative example of an employer’s pre-petition misconduct occurred in late 2002 at Hillside Acres in Willard, Ohio, where workers at a nursing home attempted to organize with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Over two months before the petition was filed, Hillside initiated its anti-union campaign at the first sign of union activity by disparately enforcing its solicitation policy and making an example of one of the union activists. 73 Throughout the next two weeks—and still over one month before the petition was filed—the employer campaign expanded to other employees, 69 There are also many “third-party organizations [such as the National Right to Work Committee and the Center for Union Facts] whose raison d’être is providing employees with information about and arguments against unionization.” Sachs, Enabling Employee Choice, supra note 19, at 708. ° Written Testimony of Veronica Tench, NLRB Public Hearing (July 18, 2011), at 1-2. 71 Bronfenbrenner and Warren, supra note 7, at 4. Both 47% of ULP charges and 47% of all “serious allegations won through Board or Court decisions or settlements” occurred before the petition was filed.” Id. 72 Bronfenbrenner and Warren, supra note 7, at 7 (emphasis added). Hillside Acres Inc. d/b/a Liberty Hillside of Willard Inc. and United Food and Commercial Workers Union, local 911, AFL-CIO, CA-34217,-8CA-34331, 8-CA-34332; Confidential settlement agreements for discharged and disciplined employees. 16
and committed additional ULPs including interrogation, bribes, onerous assignments for union activity, and another discipline and discharge of a union activist. In the weeks before the petition was filed, the company initiated worker surveillance and threatened wage reductions and plant closure. (Hillside did not allow its campaign to abate once the petition was filed; it fired one employee and disciplining another in retaliation for their participation in NLRB hearing, and continued to make illegal threats and promises leading up to the election.) As the experiences of the workers at Hillside Acres, ManorCare, and St. Vincent’s Medical Center show, the proposed regulation will not hamper employers from communicating in any way. Both now and under the proposed rules, employers can “inundate the workplace with anti-union literature while banning union supporters from doing likewise; supervisors may campaign against unionization all day, every day.” 74 Similarly employers will continue to be able to force workers to attend mass anti- union meetings and require pro-union workers to sit quietly without opening their mouths. Under the law, “[i]f they even ask a question, they can be fired on the spot.” 75 Common techniques of interrogation such as supervisors repeatedly confronting their subordinates with anti-union statements to gauge their reaction will be allowed to continue. 76 Employers also possess complete contact information for all employees from their dates of hire, long before the union will receive the information even under the proposed rules, and can easily and cheaply campaign against unionization at any time by phone, mail, email, or in-person. 77 In this context, the claim that workers will be able to hear only the union’s side of the story if the proposed rules are passed simply cannot pass the laugh test. Finally, it is important to emphasize that Section 8(c) is not an impediment to this regulation, and employers’ claims to the contrary are a red herring. It is clearly established that Section 8(c) has no application to representation cases, only unfair labor practice cases. 78 The Board should also reject any generalized policy considerations underlying Section 8(c) as a bar to the proposed regulation. The Supreme Court has recently acknowledged that the Board has regulatory authority over such speech in special settings such as “imminent [representation] elections.” 79 Indeed, even when the Board has placed express limits on parties in the election context—the prohibition on captive audience speeches with 24 hours of the election 8° or the ban on inflammatory appeals to racial prejudice Lafer, Proposed Rule Changes, supra note 26, at 2. 75 1d. at6. 76 Id. at 3 (“In workplace elections. . —those rules were found 81 . , standard management practice is to have supervisors repeatedly confront their subordinates with anti-union statements, designed to provoke a reaction; supervisors are required to listen, watch, and grade employees’ reactions. Under the direction of outside anti-union consultants, supervisors must repeat these confrontations day after day, until the consultants are confident they have identified the intentions of each voter in the workplace.”). Lafer, Proposed Rule Changes, supra note 26, at 1-2. 78 Kaljn Construction Co., 321 NLRB 649 (1996); Dal-Tex Optical, 137 NLRB 1782 (1962). ‘ Chamber of Commerce v. Brown, 554 U.S. 60, 74 (2008). 80 Peerless Plywood Co., 107 NLRB 427 (1953) SewellMfg. Co., 138 NLRB 66(1962). 81 17
Page 1 and 2: I Stronger Together MARY KAY HENRY
Page 3 and 4: • one-on-one meetings with worker
Page 5 and 6: anti-union messages to subordinates
Page 7 and 8: C. Long delays and ineffective reme
Page 9 and 10: esidents and their families. Manage
Page 11 and 12: appropriate if there were a hearing
Page 13 and 14: The opposition has focused on those
Page 15: III. The Board’s Proposed Timelin
Page 19 and 20: incorporates this requirement and m
Page 21 and 22: We believe that the ability of the
Page 23 and 24: that employers who customarily comm
Page 25 and 26: The requirement for prompt and comp
Page 27 and 28: they should be provided to the unio
Page 29 and 30: home address and the phone number i
Page 31 and 32: V. The Existing Blocking Charge Doc
Page 33 and 34: employee rights. described by one A
Page 35 and 36: F. The blocking charge policy shoul

formal comments to the Board's proposed rule. - SEIU

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?