A Death Penalty for Employees and Employers

Dave Bego and The Devil at My Doorstep on Capital Hill Thursday to debate the NLRB’s Proposed Shortened Elections

Unable to pass “Card Check” through legislative means, the Obama Administration and the NLRB is intent on achieving similar ends through the NLRB’s regulatory authority. This was previously discussed in my previous blogs, Card Check through Regulation vs. Legislation, Americans: Beware of Rogue NLRB and last week’s Rule by Fiat.

This Thursday, July 6, I will accompany Mr. Larry Getts, a Dana Corporation employee who witnessed, firsthand, the ruthlessness of a corporate campaign, to Washington D.C. and provide testimony before Congress on the horrors these campaigns impose upon employees and how they deprive them of the opportunity to learn an alternative viewpoint. Larry and his fellow employees were forced into unionism when Dana Corporation signed a Neutrality Agreement; the employees petitioned to decertify the union and had ample time (42 days) to meet with fellow employees and the employer to learn the truth absent of intimidation. Because there was ample time to allow the employee’s to become fully educated, he and his fellow employees were successful in their decertification petition

Under the regulatory changes proposed last week by the NLRB, the time period between the filing of the petition and the hearing would be changed to 10 days or less. Under that scenario, Larry and his fellow employees may not have had a time to educate the masses, and may have lost the decertification vote. This fact, however, is known to the NLRB, and is being disregarded by them as they promote their pro-labor agenda.  Even now, the decertification decision in the Dana case is being challenged by the rogue NLRB!

My company, EMS, also faced the challenges of a union vote, as detailed in the last chapter of The Devil at My Doorstep, and most likely would have lost under recently proposed NLRB regulation changes. Please read the following excerpt from my book and you will realize that employees are already intimidated and misinformed into voting for the union before the union petitions an election! Less than ten days is not enough time to reverse the intimidation and expose the truth!

Excerpt from The Devil at My Doorstep:

When the union replaced our workers with twice as many steel workers, the cleaning was not done properly and our workers were asked to return to their jobs. The Machinists Union did not care for this turn of events and decided to attempt to organize our employees. Quietly union organizers had been recruiting EMS employees to sign union cards as they promised the moon and pressured/intimidated our defenseless employees into signing union cards. Fortunately since EFCA is not law yet, the Machinists Union petitioned for a secret-ballot election, a procedure which provided EMS ample time (42 days till a secret ballot election) to speak to the employees about the EMS position while not degrading the union. If EFCA would have been law we would have been negotiating a contract instead of preparing to meet with our employees concerning the upcoming election. Then they would have heard only one side of the story, the union side.

As required by law, the election would be held within 42 days. According to the mandates, we chatted with the employees during meetings while the union took them out, according to one of our employees, for chicken wings and beer, a couple of nights a week. I wondered if we should have bought some beer (something not permissible by law on our side) as well but the union had the evening hours all tied up. We were very careful not to promise anything in contrast to the union’s ability to do so. And we had to document everything said so as to keep a record; the union did not.

Through several sources, we had discovered that many of our employees were being followed all day by an organizer named Roy. We worried that his influence and pressure would win out. This had caused many to sign the union cards along with promises of double the wages, an unrealistic promise if ever there were one.

During the first meeting, I read a letter prepared by the attorneys, but I hated doing so, because it was so impersonal. It seemed to fall on deaf ears, something I could have predicted. The next time I used a prepared outline with more personal words about why I loved EMS and why I thought the employees did not need the union when we were dedicated to protecting their rights all down the line.

As the employees listened to me, it was evident in their eyes they did not realize that just because they signed cards they were not committed to voting for the union during the private secret-ballot election…

Every member of Congress will receive a copy of The Devil at My Doorstep that morning, along with a personal letter from Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Committee. The Devil at My Doorstep and Mark’s letter, combined with Larry’s testimony during the hearings will beg the question, When Will Congress and the Main Stream Media Wake Up? It is time to reign in the rogue NLRB!

Additional Related Links:

NLRB Published Summary and Fact Sheet  

Red-Lined Proposed Regulatory Changes                        

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in Federal Register