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Cutting edge insights into the RLA as it effects transportation workers in today’s economy, co-written by LRI vice-president Russ Brown. Read the full transcript here.
With Congress having rejected changing the law to favor unionization, the Obama administration is now pursuing unionization through regulation, which will benefit no one other than the administration’s union allies. Circumventing the people’s elected representatives is unacceptable. Congress needs to hold National Mediation Board accountable for any attempt to do so. In addition, Congress should reform the Railway Labor Act to make the election process more responsive to workers.
The choice of whether to join a union or not should belong to the workers, not union organizers or government bureaucrats.
  
 Labor Relations INK
In this issue:
Union Bailout Update New, Useful Websites Say Goodbye To More NJ Teamsters Scoreboard, Social Media Spotlight, Only In A Union and more…
Union Bailout Update
 The fur is beginning to fly as new administrations, both in D.C. and in many of the states, begin to tie union issues to budget problems, and work to unravel the choke hold that Big Labor has had on legislative and regulatory processes the last few years. The NLRB backed down when 4 state Attorneys General rebuffed the NLRB General Counsel’s threat to sue. In a letter back to the
Continue reading INK: February 25, 2011
Labor Relations INK
In this issue:
EFCA Update Social Media Savvy Campus Heat Scoreboard, ULP Charge of the Month, Sticky Fingers and more…
EFCA Update  The Administration is using another federal agency to bring pressure on health care organizations. The goal is to subject these heavily regulated organizations to further legal scrutiny, which can in turn be used by Big Labor in organizing and/or corporate campaigns. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is trying to use hospitals’ status as a TRICARE network provider (TRICARE is the Defense Department’s healthcare program for uniformed service members and their families) to qualify them as “subcontractors”
Continue reading INK: November 18, 2010
The SEIU has for several years declared themselves as the fastest growing union in the United States with over 1.9 million members. This may be about to change if the employees in California’s Kaiser Permanente health care chain have. About 45,000 members are hoping to vote with their feet by getting rid of SEIU in favor of NUHW. Employees of anything to do with it Kaiser and the SEIU have not had a honeymoon relationship since the union took over. One union member summed it up about the SEIU’s lies by saying, “when SEIU took over our local, they said nothing would change. But one of the first things they did was remove stewards and other elected leaders.” This will be a huge blow to the SEIU. The bigger question is whether this mass exodus from SEIU members in California will spill across the rest of the country.
Union free elections are lost for many reasons. As we discussed in Part 3, one reason companies lose elections is because they break the Labor Board rules. That’s why our number one rule for consultants and clients is don’t cheat. We have never committed an unfair labor practice in thousands of elections because we follow these rules.
Here are some bonus tips on how to avoid these problems (by the way, the easy way to remember the rules is to remember the word TIPS). These slip-ups often lead to unfair labor practices and overturn elections.
Threats: A common error is threatening employees. Any threat that a bad thing will happen if an employee votes for the union is unlawful. It’s also a bad campaign strategy. A manager who threatens an employee is making a terrible assumption. He assumes that the threatened employee will do what he wants. This often backfires.
Threats
Continue reading Union Free: How to Lose A Union Election – Bonus TIPS
Union free elections are tough to win. Management wins less than 7 out of 10 elections these days. One reason they lose is because of who they choose to deliver the company message.
“Never send the arsonist to put out the fire.” That’s one of my Dad’s favorite lines, and it is great advice in a union free election campaign. In almost every case local managers are the reason the union is there in the first place. Yet many clients rely on them to deliver the company message. This is a great way to lose an election.
Don’t confuse my advice. There is nothing wrong with asking managers to say they regret the union campaign happened, or that they are want to work directly with employees. This is an important part of any winning union free election.
The problem is relying on this group to deliver the entire campaign message.
Continue reading How To Lose A Union Free Election: Part 2 – Sending the Arsonist to Put Out the Fire
Interesting article about how the SEIU would rather see employees at USC University Hospital have no union representation at all then to let them participate in fair elections with the NUHW.
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