From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Not satisfied with bringing the Detroit automakers to near financial collapse as a result of onerous union rules and regulations, the United Auto Workers (UAW) now wants to impose its typically stifling workplace scenarios on foreign auto makers that have built manufacturing facilities in the United States. Those facilities employ tens of thousands of workers who enjoy middle class salaries and benefits. Their morale and levels of productivity are high.

Nevertheless, the UAW has not only promised to expose so-called human rights violations at those facilities as if shining a light on third world dictatorships, but it also intends to utilize $60 million of its $800 million strike fund to achieve its objectives.

To further the achievement of its goals, the UAW is also demanding that auto makers give up their right to free speech by agreeing not to discuss unionization on company grounds unless UAW representatives can participate. Yet, union representatives can and do visit employee homes where they proselytize for unionization without company representatives being present.

And card checks (as one might have expected) are also included in the UAW strategy. Utilizing card checks, unionization would occur if a majority of employees sign cards signifying that they want to be represented and if the union can claim there has been a history of “anti-union activity.” Once unionization has been established and there is no agreement on a contract after six months, the UAW wants the matter turned over to binding arbitration, which had been an ingredient of the congressionally rejected Employee Free Choice Act.

It is apparent that the UAW is intent on driving up its dues-paying membership rolls, which have dropped from 1.5 million members in 1979 to 400,000 members today. Its $800 million strike fund could be enormously increased by unionizing workers at those entire foreign car manufacturing facilities that are building vehicles in the United States.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has threatened to sue four states for ensuring that workers can enjoy a basic democratic right to cast secret ballots when it come s to the possibility of unionization. The four states, South Dakota, South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah, have mandated the use of secret ballots in union elections.

The NLRB has made the Alice-in-Wonderland assertion that secret ballots violate federal law. Though Congress has refused to pass the Employee Free Choice Act that would have permitted unions to coerce workers into signing “card checks” to ensure union representation, the NLRB has repeatedly looked for opportunities to present unions with opportunities to impose the use of “card checks” on workers, who may not want to join a union.

Indeed, the most effective tactic that workers have against forced unionization is the secret ballot. No union organizer gets to coerce, embarrass, or intimidate a worker to join a union when the workers’ preferences are made oblique by casting secret, anonymous ballots.

We back the efforts of Minnesota Republican Representative John Kline to amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) with the passage of the Secret Ballot Protection Act. While the Republican dominated House of Representatives very well may pass the amendment, the Democrats in the Senate will not pass it. Corporate America, therefore, will have to wait until the election of 2012 to be delivered from the high-handed, pro-union actions of the NLRB. Meanwhile, it is essential that corporations put in place survival strategies that prevent labor relations problems before they arise.

amendment · cabot institute · card check · card checks · corporate america · Democrats · EFCA · Employee Free Choice Act · John Kline · Labor Relations · mandate · mandates · national labor relations act · National Labor Relations Board · nlra · nlrb · Republicans · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · union · unionization · Unions

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has threatened to sue four states for ensuring that workers can enjoy a basic democratic right to cast secret ballots when it come s to the possibility of unionization. The four states, South Dakota, South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah, have mandated the use of secret ballots in union elections.

The NLRB has made the Alice-in-Wonderland assertion that secret ballots violate federal law. Though Congress has refused to pass the Employee Free Choice Act that would have permitted unions to coerce workers into signing “card checks” to ensure union representation, the NLRB has repeatedly looked for opportunities to present unions with opportunities to impose the use of “card checks” on workers, who may not want to join a union.

Indeed, the most effective tactic that workers have against forced unionization is the secret ballot. No union organizer gets to coerce, embarrass, or intimidate a worker to join a union when the workers’ preferences are made oblique by casting secret, anonymous ballots.

We back the efforts of Minnesota Republican Representative John Kline to amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) with the passage of the Secret Ballot Protection Act. While the Republican dominated House of Representatives very well may pass the amendment, the Democrats in the Senate will not pass it. Corporate America, therefore, will have to wait until the election of 2012 to be delivered from the high-handed, pro-union actions of the NLRB. Meanwhile, it is essential that corporations put in place survival strategies that prevent labor relations problems before they arise.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

After years of often provocative and aggressive organizing efforts, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has finally had its efforts circumscribed. While the NLRB had recently informed Corporate America that it must post information about workers’ rights to join unions that same NLRB has surprisingly and uncharacteristically informed the SEIU that it cannot prevent workers, who do not support its activities, from working. At Morehouse College in Atlanta, the SEIU had been trying to organize the workers of Sodexo, which operates the college’s dining facilities.

The NLRB ordered SEIU to post notices that it not “restrain or coerce” employees “in the exercise of their rights guaranteed” under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which includes the right not to engage in union activities.

Following an SEIU organized demonstration at the college, Sodexo had complained to the NLRB that there was an effort by the SEIU to prevent employees, who chose not to participate in the demonstration, from coming to work in the college’s dining facilities.

While this is certainly an unusual action for the pro-union NLRB, one cannot expect the Board to continue being fair and balanced and stick to the letter and spirit of the National Labor Relations Act. The Board’s majority composition remains decidedly pro-union.

Atlanta · cabot institute. labor relations · college · employee · employees · Morehouse · Morehouse College · national labor relations act · nlra · nlrb · Philadelphia · SEIU · Sodexo · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · union · Unions · worker · workers

From Stephen Cabot’s desk in Philadelphia:

In a recent decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has opened its back door ever wider for unions to enact a de facto Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), also known as card checks.
The NLRB decided that an important auto supply company, Dana, in Michigan, can permit the further establishment of unionization amongst its employees through card checks. The UAW already represents workers at a number of Dana facilities. And the union wanted to organize the remaining workers. In an effort to win union concessions without resorting to collective bargaining, Dana agreed to permit the UAW to use card checks to organize those workers who were not represented by a union. No longer will there be secret ballot elections at Dana. Instead, union organizers can now pressure or even intimidate workers into signing card cards.
Dana agreed to the use of card checks and the abolition of secret ballot elections in exchange for the UAW agreeing to maintain the company’s plans to reduce employee benefits and permit mandatory overtime. The UAW further agreed not to call for a strike. And the NLRB gave this unusual deal its stamp of approval!
It may seem like a good deal for Dana, but if labor disputes arise in the future, the UAW can resort to a full assortment of union tactics to win concessions, and it will have the added leverage of representing all of Dana’s workers. In the meantime, the UAW will significantly increase revenues from the union dues of many new members.
Both the NLRB and the UAW have found a clever way to impose card checks on Corporate America and enlist millions of workers into the ranks of unions. It is a bad portent for Corporate America, the American economy, and every American industrial city from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, from Houston to Chicago, from Atlanta to Seattle.

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