NLRB Does Not believe in Freedom in the Workplace

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According to the National Right to Work Foundation the National Labor Relations Board just destroyed thousands of ballots.

From Mark Mix at NRTW:

The NLRB is bulldozing its way through workers’ rights and the Board’s own precedents to hand Big Labor as many new special privileges as it can before the 2012 elections.

• Plotting to eliminate thousands of Boeing jobs in Right to Work South Carolina.
• Proposing a scheme to ambush workers with union certification elections.
• Forcing its way into every workplace in the country with biased notices that serve as a roadmap to coerced unionization.

The Obama Labor Board is on a war path against worker freedom. And the hits just keep on coming.

Last week, three former union lawyers on the National Labor Relations Board voted to overturn the Board’s pivotal 2007 ruling in Dana Corp.  The Foundation-won Dana case was one of the most important victories for workers’ rights at the Board in recent years, securing for employees the right to challenge union card check organizing campaigns with a secret ballot vote. Workers often sign so-called “union authorization cards” due to union organizers’ intimidating tactics or even outright lies about what signing a card means.  In fact, many workers across the country — like the Dana Corp. workers from Albion, Indiana (see video below) — have used Dana elections to kick out unwanted unions, demonstrating the unreliability of card check instant organizing.  But now thousands of workers who cast secret ballots in similar elections won’t even have their votes counted. The NLRB is actually destroying the votes!

Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism Bill stalled in Congress due to widespread opposition from the American public to eliminating the secret ballot — and incumbents who supported card check faced the wrath of the voters in the 2010 midterm elections.  So instead the union bosses turned to the NLRB — where Barack Obama conveniently installed former union lawyers. Most notably, Obama installed former SEIU and AFL-CIO union lawyer Craig Becker as a recess appointee to the Board.  Becker infamously called the secret ballot “profoundly undemocratic” and in his time on the Board has repeatedly demonstrated his blatant pro-forced unionism bias and disregard for ethics.  In fact, Becker refused to recuse himself from the decision to overturn Dana even though he co-authored a brief for the AFL-CIO in the original case!

Overturning Dana on its own would be bad enough, but what makes it even more troubling is how it goes hand-in-hand with the Board’s other recent power grabs.  Take the proposed ambush elections rules, for instance.  If the rules are implemented, union operatives will be able to ambush workers with quick-snap elections just days after union organizers turn in “union authorization cards” from a mere 30 percent of the workforce.  And to make it even easier for union operatives to steamroll their way into workplaces, the Board would also force companies to hand over to union organizers the name, address, phone number, email address, and shift schedule of each employee, exposing workers to “home visits” and other intimidation tactics.

But if union bosses get wind of the possibility that they could lose the election by secret ballot, the new rules would allow them to withdraw their petition but save the personal contact information of each worker for a full-scale card check campaign at a later date.  By overturning Dana, the Obama Labor Board just eliminated the one protection remaining for workers against abusive card check campaigns.  In fact, the NLRB is making card check an even more powerful weapon against workers and job providers alike.

This is about freedom.  Workers deserve the right to be informed and choose for themselves whether unionizing is best for them and should never have to worry about intimidation or bully tactics that seem all to common in the union world.

Related articles

• Daily Benefactor News – Obama NLRB Eliminates Secret Ballot Elections, Making Card Check Forced Unionism A Reality (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• Obama Labor Board Kills Important Secret Ballot Precedent (greenmountainscribes.wordpress.com)
• NLRB agrees to new rules that will harm workers, job creation (hotair.com)
• http://www.nrtw.org