From the Desk of Steve Cabot:

Having failed to get congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor is now benefitting from proposed new rules issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The new rules will ease the way for organized labor to win union elections by dramatically truncating the period of time from petition to election. It currently takes an average of 57 days from petition to election; under the new rules that period would be reduced to from 10 to 21 days. Of course, union organizers often spend months convincing employees to vote for unionization, prior to the filing of a petition. Now, the newly imposed brief interregnum will significantly curtail a company’s ability to educate employees about the disadvantages of unionization.

As if that were not sufficiently injurious to Corporate America, the NLRB rules would also permit the electronic filing of election petitions, defer litigation about voter eligibility until after an election, require employers to provide a union with the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all employees prior to an election, consolidate all litigious matters into a single post-election appeals action in order to eliminate individual actions that could delay an election.

One can only speculate what additional pro-union rules and regulations the NLRB may issue in the coming months. Certainly issues of wages and benefits will be an enticing subject for the NLRB ideologues to consider.

Corporate America has, thus far, been too complacent, believing that because the number of union members has decreased over the years that unions have been rendered ineffectual. In fact, unions are vigorously preparing for an aggressive assault on Corporate America, and its chief advocate and front-line ally is the NLRB, which is proposing a number of radical threats to Corporate America that should not be ignored.

cabot institute · corporate america · elections · electronic filing · Labor Relations · litigation · National Labor Relations Board · new regulations · new rules · nlrb · organized labor · petitions · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · union elections · union organizers · unionization · Washington · workers

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

While the news media has been focusing on public sector unions in Wisconsin and Ohio, the Obama administration has quietly encouraged the unionization of 45,000 airport screeners.
The Transportation Security Administrator, John Pistole, a pro-union advocate, has been lauded by federal unions, who have wanted to unionize airport screeners for many years.
This is an extraordinary development in light of the anti-public-union sentiment that has swept the county in the last few months.
As the Obama Administration and Democratic legislators gear up for the 2012 elections, they will surely enlist the vast armies of unionized workers to deliver their election victories. As we get closer and closer to 2012, we can expect to see ever-increasing pro-union directives emanating from the White House.

2012 · American people · cabot institute · congressional · Democratic Party · Democrats · economy · elections · government · Labor Relations · municpalities · nationally · presidential · public sector · senatorial · state · states · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Unions · White House · workers

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.

2012 · Arizona · cabot institute · card check · card checks · Democrats · EFCA · election · elections · Employee Free Choice Act · House of Representaives · John Kline · Labor Relations · mandate · mandates · National Labor Relatiions Board · national labor relations act · nlra · nlrb · organized labor · organizers · Republicans · Senate · Senators · South Carolina · South Dakota · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · uniionization · Unions · Utah

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

For several months, I have been writing that the NLRB has been looking for ways to do an end run around the mis-named Employee Free Choice Act. Ideologically disposed to providing whatever support it can to unions, the NLRB’s latest intention is to endorse quickie elections to hasten union representation.
The time from petition to election usually takes 38 days. However, Mark Pearce, a Board member, would like to shorten that period of time to between five and ten days, which is what exists in Canada.
In order for employers to present their side of the unionization story, to educate their employees to what they will be losing if they vote for union representation, they need sufficient time to communicate facts and concepts to employees. And because union organizers usually operate in secret, employers will not know that their employees have been the targets of union propaganda until a petition has been filed. Five to ten days will hardly be adequate time for management to present its case. After all, the union organizers may have been propagandizing workers for weeks, if not months.
A quickie election is indeed an end round around the dormant Employee Free Choice Act. Instead of card checks, union authorization cards will lead to petitions which will lead to quickie elections. Five days later, a union will be in place. Say hello to the Employee Free Choice Act in disguise. It is, therefore, essential that Corporate America pro-actively develop strategies for defeating such scenarios. And the time for doing so is Now!

authorization cards · cabot institute · card checks · corporate america · EFCA · elections · Employee Free Choice Act · employees · employers · Labor Relations · management · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · petitions · pro-active · pro-union · proactive · quickie elections · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · union organizers · unionization · Unions · workers

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is seeking new ways to help unions increase their ability to organize workers. It is doing so by investigating and promoting the possibility of permitting employees to vote via home-based computers and other offsite computers in union representation elections. Electronic voting would clearly hamper goals of management, while significantly broadening the opportunities for organized labor. Here are four problems of electronic voting:

1. Electronic voting would replace paper ballot voting, which is monitored in the workplace. Paper ballot voting has proven successful in eliminating fraud and in preventing union organizers from coercing and intimidating workers.

2. Electronic voting would be a boon to unions, for it would accelerate election procedures and truncate the time during which employers could inform employees of the disadvantages of union membership.

3. If remote electronic voting were to replace paper ballot voting, there would be enormous opportunities for union organizers to coerce and intimidate workers. Furthermore, it would be impossible to determine if people, other than legitimate employees, were doing the actual voting.

4. Votes that have been electronically registered could be altered by hackers, resulting in stolen elections.
The introduction of electronic voting may be the NLRB’s first of several steps to sneak elements of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) into the National Labor Relations Act. Such administrative action is a clever way of helping organized labor achieve its goals, two of which are to increase the number of unionized workers and put more money in union coffers.

cabot institute · EFCA · elections · electronic voting · Employee Free Choice Act · employees · employers · Labor Relations · management · national labor relations act · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · organized labor · paper ballots · stephen cabot · stolen elections · union organizers · Unions · workers