In another blow to workers’ rights, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a union decertification petition can be filed within 45 days after card-check recognition of a union at a workplace. If the petition is signed by as little as 30 percent of the workforce, the NLRB will consider it a valid block to union recognition and contract negotiations.
It is a major reversal of longstanding NLRB policy, which since 1966 guaranteed a “recognition-bar” to prevent a rival
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Card-check recognition is when a company agrees to recognize and negotiate with a union as the workers’ representative and, therefore, forgoes the process of an election after 50 percent of the workforce plus one sign cards indicating they want a union.
Because corporations fight tooth-and-nail to keep unions out, almost all union drives must proceed to a secret-ballot election conducted by NLRB. A company that is the subject of a union drive will inevitably wage an all-out war to intimidate, harass, fire and otherwise stop a union from coming in.
According to researchers Chirag Mehta and Nik Theodore in “Undermining the Right to Organize: Employer Behavior During Union Representation Campaigns,” 51 percent of corporations illegally make workers oppose a union through intimidation or bribes, and 91 percent of workers during a union drive are forced to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with management.
It often takes many months from the time a majority of workers sign cards asking for union-recognition to the time an election takes place. In the meantime, a fierce attack is launched on the union and pro-union workers.
It is easy to see why unions and workers wanting a union would rather bypass the lengthy and effectively undemocratic process of an election.
But in rare cases a company will agree to negotiate a contract without demanding an election, when 50 percent plus one of the workers signs cards for a union. This can happen when the company in a highly-unionized or strategic industry realizes it faces a losing battle in opposing the union.
In this latest attack on unions, on Sept. 29 the NLRB—a five-person federal board with three right-wing members in the current term—decided that a 30 percent minority of anti-union workers can stop those post-card-check negotiations if they sign a petition within 45 days of the time that a company recognizes card check.
The decision was based on card check that was achieved by the United Auto Workers at two auto-parts companies, Dana Corp and Metaldyne Corp. Negotiations were underway when a minority of anti-union workers signed a petition. Although the regional NLRB board upheld the union’s recognition, it was appealed to the NLRB in Washington. Rabid anti-union chairman, Robert Battista, led the majority decision.
The dissenting opinion by NLRB board members Wilma Liebman and Dennis Walsh said that the decision is a “sea change in labor law” that “cuts voluntary recognition off at the knees.” Other major unions and pro-worker organizations also denounced the NLRB decision.
The ruling follows a series of Board decisions that are making unionization increasingly unattainable. This despite the fact that polls show a majority of workers wish they had union representation.
In September 2006, the NLRB automatically disqualified up to eight million workers with minimal lead or instructional work duties from joining unions—including lead workers and registered nurses—classifying them as supervisors. Under the National Labor Relations Act, supervisors are not entitled to union representation.
The Board also invalidated a key union election at the Chinese Daily News in Los Angeles in 2005 when it declared the Communication Workers of America’s union election void just because a supervisor expressed to the workers a favorable view of unions.
Workers and their unions are under growing attack by a concerted effort of big business and the U.S .government. It will take a determined, united struggle of the organized labor movement, in league with non-union workers, documented and undocumented, to push back this offensive.
