From the desk of Steve Cabot:

It has always suited union bosses to paint employers as privileged ogres getting rich off the backs of their workers. Envy and resentment are emotions easily stoked and manipulated, and Big Labor has been shameless in using “us/them” rhetoric to distract the rank-and-file from the real workplace abuses, namely their loss of individual rights.

Times are changing, however. Workers have begun to shake off their shackles and support measures restoring their liberty. One of the key pieces of legislation codifying these reforms is the Employee Rights Act (ERA), introduced in August 2011. The measure has been bottled up in committee by the Democrat majority in the Senate, but there appears to be a renewed groundswell of support for its passage, with at least 70% of union households now endorsing its key provisions. (See my September 2011 blog entry below for more specifics.)

While passage of an intact ERA is unlikely before this fall’s elections, supporters in Congress will attempt to attach individual elements to other legislation destined for a presidential signature. I’ll keep you posted on the latest developments as they unfold.

In other encouraging news, freedom of choice for employers and their workers got a big boost when Indiana became the 23rd right-to-work state, the first in the “rust belt” to do so. Unfortunately, the pushback against forced unionism has hit resistance elsewhere in union strongholds like Wisconsin, where the threat (and actuality) of recall elections has weakened the resolve of some reformers.

Whatever the political developments this year, however, we know the Obama administration will continue to push its anti-employer agenda – with or without constitutional authority. And should you find your organization needing assistance with any labor relations matters, I encourage you to call me directly on my cell phone (215-990-3423) or contact Georgetta McCabe, my administrative assistant, on her direct line: 800-655-2042.

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From the desk of Steve Cabot:

I wasn’t too surprised when Organized Labor decided to throw in with the motley mobs currently laying siege to cities across the country. After all, they have a lot in common. The anti-capitalist, redistributionist rhetoric coming from the agitators is standard fare at union rallies, and the paramilitary tactics of intimidation, disruption, and forcible occupation of public and private property are right out of the SEIU handbook.

The truth is, this is a natural – if unholy – alliance:  the demonstrators want to weaken corporations and demonize profits, and the labor unions are more than happy to provide logistical and financial assistance as a means of building their own public support and political power. For them, this is simply another step toward their goal of reestablishing workplace hegemony.

This is an ongoing saga, one with significant long-term implications. If you’re interested in learning more about the state of Organized Labor today and its impact on our economy, I invite you to read a compelling special report just released by Human Events entitled, “The Big Labor Stranglehold:  Killing Jobs & Hurting America.” Written by Dr. Carl F. Horowitz, project manager for the National Legal and Policy Center, this 26-page report looks beyond the well-publicized but misleading statistics about declining union membership and documents the strategies, goals, impact, and prospects of Big Labor in America.

To receive your complimentary copy, simply click here or on the image below to go to the Human Events website. Once you register, a pdf version of the report will be sent directly to the email address you specify.

For assistance with any labor relations issues, I encourage you to call me on my cell phone (215-990-3423) or contact Georgetta McCabe, my administrative assistant, on her direct line: 800-655-2042.

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From the desk of Steve Cabot:

Businesses across America are suffering at the hands of an aggressively pro-union National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As a result, 86 national business associations and 131 state and city associations have formed the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace. The Coalition’s mission is to amend the National Labor Relations Act, so that businesses can operate at maximum rates of productivity and profitability.

The Coalition supports the Job Protection Act, H. R. 1976, which would, according to an article in the P J Tattler, clarify the NLRA “with respect to state right to work laws, reining the agency in after a series of unprecedented actions that heavily tilt toward Big Labor.”

From allowing micro unions to organize to preventing Boeing from operating in a right-to-work state, from permitting union organizers to trespass on private corporate property to promoting card checks, the NLRB has been proving to be one of the most injurious institutions to the health and growth of American businesses.

We urge all readers of the Cabot Institute of Labor Relations blog to contact their congressional representatives and voice their support for the Job Protection Act, H R 1976.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Just before Americans were to celebrate the unofficial beginning of summer over the Memorial Day weekend, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to make Catholic educators unhappy. It declared that St. Xavier University was not sufficiently religious to be exempt from federal jurisdiction. That ruling followed an earlier one against the Christian Brothers’ Manhattan College.

Though a Court of Appeals has twice ordered the NLRB to cease harassing religious institutions, the NLRB – in its aggressive pro-union actions – has ignored the court. It hasn’t mattered to the Board that in 2002 and 2008, the court reversed the NLRB, thus exempting religious institutions from the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The Board insists that it has the right to determine if a religious institution has a “substantial religious character.” And if it doesn’t meet the Board’s criteria, then the Board can impose its policies. This dispute is likely to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

It becomes increasingly apparent that the NLRB will do whatever is necessary to advance the agenda of organized labor, even if that means obviating federal law when it comes to religious institutions. College faculty members, after all, represent a huge pool of potential dues-paying union members.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

If there was ever any doubt that the Obama Administration is pro-union, that doubt can now be extinguished. The President’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has stated it wants all companies to post notices and perhaps even disseminate e-mails informing employees of their right to join unions.
So determined is the administration to do big labor’s bidding that this is the first time since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 that the NLRB has demanded that employers post such a pro-union notice.
Organized labor, which supported the election of President Obama to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, has been frustrated that congress has not passed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). As a result, the NLRB has been diligently working to enhance opportunities for unions to organize the workers of as many companies as possible. This latest move by the NLRB is just one of many acts designed to promote the ongoing unionization of American workers.

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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.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

According to an article on the website of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce (www.chamberpost.com), the Chamber noted that the implementation of an Executive Order will gag contractors when doing business with the federal government. They will be restricted from exercising their rights of free speech when it comes to union organizing efforts.

President Obama’s Executive Order will prohibit contractors from using funds to persuade employees “to exercise or not to exercise, or concerning the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of the employees’ own choosing.”
In other words, federal contractors will be bound by an Executive Order to gag themselves financially so that they cannot influence the outcome of a union organizing attempt of their employees. Not only will employees be hurt by not being permitted to hear both management and union’s sides of an argument, but so will employers who will be left helpless when confronting organizing efforts. In addition, a basic right, guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution, will be foully and flagrantly flouted as will the basic concepts of debate ensured in the National Labor Relations Act.
This is an outrageous attack on democratic institutions and traditions, one that will
damage our economy and make a mockery of free speech.

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