JAN, 21, 2011:NWLP
1/18/11
10:35 AM
Page 4
National Labor Relations Board
gives boost to majority sign-up
Local Motion
December 2010
A list of Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces deciding
whether to be union-represented – as reported by the National
Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
Voting in union elections
Date Workplace (Location) Union
Yes
No
12/13 Samaritan Pacific Hospital (Newport) SEIU Local 49
23
3
29
10
12/28 City of Newport PublicWorks Dept (Newport) Newport Emp Assn 11
1
12/29 Baycrest Village nursing home (North Bend)Teamsters Local 206
2
12/17 Fred Meyer all depts but meat (Bend) UFCW Local 555
DECERT
8
Unionizing by majority sign-up
Date Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
12/10 City of Aurora Police (Aurora) Laborers
2
Requesting a union election
Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
First Student school bus drivers (Grants Pass) Teamsters Local 962
DECERT
126
L EGEND
: workers will be union-represented
DECERT :
: : workers will be on their own
: unionized workers vote whether to keep the union
Fired teacher at Portland
French School reinstated
Patricia Raclot was let
go for supporting a
union organizing drive
A federal judge has ordered a private
French language school in Portland to
reinstate a teacher who was terminated
last year after she supported a union
campaign. Portland French School will
offer French citizen Patricia Raclot her
job back, and will renew legal work on
the H-1B visa she needs in order to be
employed legally in the United States.
Raclot will also receive back pay.
The decision resolves a set of unfair
labor practice charges that were filed
by the American Federation of Teach-
ers (AFT)-Oregon in protest of man-
agement misconduct that tainted a
union election held at the school. The
April 16, 2010 election resulted in a 12-
12 loss for the union among teachers,
but that result was set aside in light of
the labor law violations, and the union
could ask for a re-run election at any
time. AFT organizer Eben Pullman
said the group will wait at least until
Raclot is returned.
Last October, Raclot refused an em-
ployer offer of two years salary if she
would settle out of court and give up
PAGE 4
her right to reinstatement.
Federal Administrative Law Judge
William G. Kocal presided over a four-
day hearing on the charges in October.
In his written decision dated Dec. 27,
Kocal found that school management
had committed numerous unfair labor
practices — including forbidding em-
ployees from discussing work condi-
tions; warning that the union would
bring “stigma” to the school; predicting
school closure; and threatening unspec-
ified reprisals against employees if they
supported a union.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — By
a 2-1 vote, the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) has given strong written
support to the use of “majority sign-up”
for union recognition — ironically in a
case involving the same company and
union which the then GOP-dominated
Board used in 2007 to weaken majority
sign-up.
The latest NLRB ruling, just before
the Christmas holiday, upheld the right
of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and
the Dana Corp., an auto parts firm, to
come to a “letter of agreement” about
majority sign-up — also called card-
check recognition — before the union
election at the firm’s St. Johns, Mich.,
plant.
UAW started an organizing drive in
2002 among the 305 workers there, and
negotiated a letter of agreement with
Dana a year later. The NLRB’s general
counsel, along with three anti-union
Dana workers, challenged the letter,
claiming it constituted illegal company
aid to the union.
Dana and the UAW were upfront
that company neutrality and majority
sign-up is what they agreed to, for the
good of both.
“Dramatic changes in the domestic
automotive market created new quality,
productivity and competitiveness chal-
lenges for the automotive component
supplier,” their letter said. “These chal-
lenges will be more effectively met
through a partnership that is more posi-
tive, non-adversarial and with construc-
tive attitudes toward each other.
“Employee freedom to choose is a
paramount concern of Dana as well as
the UAW. We both believe membership
in a union is a matter of personal choice
and acknowledge that if a majority of
employees wish to be represented by a
union, Dana will recognize that choice.
The union and the company will not al-
low anyone to be intimidated or coerced
into a decision on this important matter.
The parties are also committed to an ex-
peditious procedure for determining
majority status.”
Their agreement then set forth the
company’s neutrality promise, other
ground rules for the organizing drive,
and that an independent outside firm
would have to verify whether UAW
won the majority or not. Dana called the
letter a “partnership agreement.”
Majority sign-up with outside verifi-
cation is a key component of the now-
dead Employee Free Choice Act, de-
signed to help level the playing field
between workers and bosses in organiz-
ing and bargaining. The NLRB major-
ity’s decision, by chair Wilma Liebman
and board member Mark Pearce, agreed
with the UAW. Brian Hayes dissented
and Craig Becker recused himself due
to a potential conflict of interest because
he had written a brief supporting the
practice prior to joining the Board.
NLRB Administrative Law Judge
William Kocol tossed out the complaint
by the dissenters and the Bush Board’s
general counsel’s office. The board’s
majority backed Kocol. “The complaint
should be dismissed on the merits,”
Liebman and Pearce said.
Kocol said a company breaks labor
law when it recognizes a minority
union, but Dana didn’t do so. And Ko-
col said that while the Dana-UAW letter
set out subjects for bargaining, and even
agreed to submit disputes to a neutral
arbitrator, they did not agree in advance
on any particular contract term, such as
wages or benefits. Kocol and the Board
called the letter “a far cry from a collec-
tive bargaining agreement.”
Then, providing further backing for
majority sign-up, the Board majority
gave its own general counsel’s office —
which at that time was responding to
the Bush NLRB — a written tongue-
lashing.
“The general counsel’s position is
rooted in the assumption that any em-
ployer conduct having the potential to
enhance an unrecognized union’s status
in the employees’eyes is unlawful. But
that is contrary to our law,” they said in
the Dana case.
“For example, an employer ... may
agree to remain neutral in an organizing
campaign, may agree to voluntarily rec-
ognize the union upon proof of majority
support, and may state its preference for
unionization. In each of those scenarios,
the employer’s cooperation ... could en-
hance the union’s prestige, yet none is
unlawful.The UAW has not claimed
SEIU #49 wins at St. Charles Medical Center
BEND — Workers at St. Charles
Medical Center voted Jan. 5 by a nar-
row margin to unionize with Portland-
headquartered Service Employees In-
ternational Union (SEIU) Local 49.
The tally was 255 to 251, but 34 other
ballots were cast by workers whose
right to vote was challenged. That’s
enough to affect the outcome.
The National Labor Relations
Board won’t certify Local 49 as the
workers’ representative until the chal-
lenges are resolved.
Local 49 said on its web site that St.
Charles management waged a negative
campaign, taking caregivers away from
their patients on several occasions to
take part in one-on-one and group
meetings in which managers tried to
convince workers to vote no.
Local 49 also said St. Charles un-
lawfully limited workers’ speech inside
the hospital. The union planned to file
unfair labor practice charges with the
National Labor Relations Board.
The union said as of November it
had support from a solid majority of
workers at St. Charles, who petitioned
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
management to voluntarily recognize
their union; management insisted on an
election.
Turnout was high, with 506 workers
casting ballots out of 604 workers con-
sidered to be in the proposed bargain-
ing unit. The group includes 69 support
staff job classifications, ranging from
cooks, cashiers and baristas to house-
keepers, pharmacy techs, and recep-
tionists.
Local 49 represents over 7,000
workers in Oregon and Southwest
Washington hospitals.
majority status, let alone presented
proof to Dana, and neither the UAW nor
Dana claims that recognition has taken
place. Adopting the general counsel’s
position would mean extending existing
law in a truly novel way.
“Card-check/neutrality agreements,
long upheld by the Board and the
courts, would be categorically prohib-
ited if they also addressed any substan-
tive issue for future bargaining, despite
disclaiming exclusive recognition and
despite a context free of unfair labor
practices. We decline, as a matter of la-
bor policy, to take that step.”
NLRB: Federal law
pre-empts state
secret-ballot
amendments
WASHINGTON, D.C. —The Na-
tional Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
took steps to enforce workers’ rights as
guaranteed by U.S. law. The Board ad-
vised the attorneys general of Arizona,
South Carolina, South Dakota, and
Utah that so-called secret ballot amend-
ments to their state constitutions are
pre-empted by the National Labor Re-
lations Act, which offers workers two
paths to choosing a union.
The Board also has authorized its
acting general counsel to file federal
lawsuits, if necessary, to stop the states
from enforcing the laws. Voters in the
four states passed measures Nov. 2 to
ban the “card check” method of union-
izing. The amendments have already
taken effect in South Dakota and Utah
and are expected to become effective
soon in Arizona and South Carolina.
Under the federal law, workers may
choose a union by voting in a secret-
ballot election conducted by the NLRB
or they may persuade an employer to
voluntarily recognize the union after a
majority sign authorization cards. Be-
cause the state amendments in question
prohibit the voluntary recognition op-
tion, they “interfere with the exercise
of a well-established federally protected
right,” the NLRB said in a release.
“Governors and state legislators are
trying to eliminate unions and the
voices of working families as payback
to the corporate CEOs that funded their
campaigns,” said Eddie Vale, a spokes-
man for the AFL-CIO. “This letter sim-
ply and clearly states the law: The rules
for how workers choose to join a union
or not is governed by federal law.”
Jonathan Johnson, president of
Overstock.com and a backer of the
Utah initiative, told Bloomberg News
that an NLRB lawsuit won’t block the
state measure. “We paid lawyers to re-
search if this would be pre-empted, and
it will not,” he said.
(Editor’s Note: James Parks of the
AFL-CIO Now news blog contributed
to this report.)
JANUARY 21, 2011