A citizen of Union Vale, NY, just gave me a tip about a case involving an employee of her town who was subjected to egregious harassment during his effort to organize his fellow highway department employees. 

As a public employee, Christopher Kemlage had to pursue his case with a federal district court since he is not covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). According to the judge, the town’s supervisors responded to Kemlage’s organizing efforts by using racial slurs, denying him the benefit of safety flagmen while he performed road work, and forcing him to remain confined in a truck where he feared for his life. The judge ruled that the supervisors violated several of Kemlage’s constitutional rights, including the right to freedom of association, and ordered the jury to award him damages. The town recently settled the case for $237,500.
 
While Kemlage deserved far more for all the pain he endured, this remedy was much more meaningful than one issued in a recent National Labor Relations Board case, in which an employer who subjected her employees to violent retaliation for their union support was merely ordered to post a notice saying she would not break the law.

The National Labor Relations Board just issued a press release announcing a new policy that the American flag will be displayed at every union representation election, stating:

The display of an American flag will impress upon all the participants to elections — employers, unions, and most importantly voters — the solemnity and importance of the Agency’s election process.

In reality, NLRB elections bear no resemblance to political elections, and fall alarmingly short of the democratic process Americans envision when we use the term "election." Read on for a chart that makes it clear that NLRB elections are undemocratic.

When the National Labor Relations Board shrunk to two members last month, NLRB General Counsel Ronald Meisburg was granted the authority to pursue 10(j) injunctions without needing the approval of the Labor Board.  

Meisburg is now pursuing an injunction that, if approved by a federal district court, will force an employer to offer interim employment to 85 mineworkers that it illegally refused to hire.   These workers could get immediate relief while their case is pending at the Labor Board.  I hope this case is a sign that the NLRB is stepping up as a more aggressive prosecutor on behalf of workers.

I was just starting to appreciate a quieter National Labor Relations Board.  Since Battista’s term expired, the NLRB has been content to uphold the law rather than radically gut it.  Yet with President Bush’s recent renomination of former Labor Board Chairman Robert Battista, the ghost of rulings past is pounding on my door.

For those of you who can stomach it, here are some lowlights from the Battista Board…

President Bush announced Friday that he’s renominating Robert Battista to the National Labor Relations Board, along with Dennis Walsh and Gerald Morales.  That’s right, Battista, the one who doesn’t believe the National Labor Relations Act should promote collective bargaining.

As Senator Kennedy has already pointed out, Battista’s renomination is unbelievable “after he led the most anti-worker, anti-labor, anti-union Board in its history.”  But really, would we expect anything more than an under-the-radar nomination from this administration?

Stay tuned for more from Erin this week on these late Friday nominations.

Nurses of the Salt Lake Regional Medical Center in Utah are the latest victims of the National Labor Relations Board’s three supervisor rulings, which vastly expanded the definition of supervisor and potentially denied millions of workers their freedom of association. 

When the nurses voted on union representation back in 2002, their employer filed an objection with the NLRB claiming that most of the nurses were “supervisors”—which stalled the election process and kept the nurses’ ballots locked up. 

Based on one of the 2006 supervisor rulings, the NLRB regional director recently determined that nearly half of the nurses were supervisors.  The nurses just announced that they are giving up their effort to form a union because of “the current climate with its wild and bizarre interpretation of the rule where everyone can be a supervisor."  Their 5-year-old ballots will remain uncounted.

No, this isn’t a horror movie.  It’s not even the National Enquirer.  It’s a National Labor Relations Board case including an account of an employer who nearly killed her striking employees in an anti-union rampage. 

When the owner of Advanced Architectural Metals in Nevada refused to pay workers the wages and benefits defined in their contract, they decided to strike in protest in July 2006.  The owner responded by firing all the employees and leaving threatening voice mail messages: “I’ve got a gun and if any of yous [sic] are on my property…I’ll shoot you dead.” 

Here’s the administrative law judge’s account of what happened once the employees began picketing:

Irish [the owner] came out of the building, yelled at the employees, and said that she had a big truck and if the employees got in her way, she would run them over. She then got into her truck, and drove directly at Sala [an employee], who was standing on the sidewalk, away from the driveway.  Irish had to veer off the driveway and onto the sidewalk as she drove her truck at Sala. She stopped her truck within inches of Sala’s body. Sala reflexly [sic] put his arms out, and her truck hit his hands. Fortunately, a post in the sidewalk stopped Irish’s further progress at Sala.

While documenting our failing labor law system is crucial making the case for reform, sometimes I have to take a step back. We still need to convince the broader public that unions play a vital role in today’s economy. 

Fresh from the national conference of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), I'm armed with more examples of how unions work to benefit a community larger than their own members:

• A partnership between union members and the Veterans Health Administration allowed crucial input from nurses during collective bargaining, enabling the smooth introduction of a computerized system for administering medication. The new system led to a 70 percent reduction in medication errors. 

• At the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, the labor-management partnership improved quality of care by allowing increased input from front-line workers. Results included a decline in hospital-borne infections and a decrease in response time to patients in trauma.

• Then there’s the untold story of the AFL-CIO's Gulf Coast project. The $1 billion effort to revitalize and rebuild the post-Hurricane Katrina Gulf Coast is a touching example of unions investing resources where they’re needed most—even in areas with very low union membership.

Still need another reason to believe in this country's labor movement? Just ask renowned economist Paul Krugman:

On the eve of his expiring term, the NLRB's Chairman Robert Battista offers a generous parting gift to anti-union employers and a cruel kiss-off to hard-working men and women.  The latest assault on workers by the Bush-appointed majority of the National Labor Relations Board:  a precedent-setting ruling allowing an employer to ban union-related email communications. 

In a 3-2 decision, the Labor Board ruled that use of an employer's email system for union members' communications is no longer a protected right.  Battista and two other Bush-appointed members argued that because the union members can still communicate face-to-face, the employer can decide to ban use of company email for union communications. The dissenting board members argue such communication in today's modern workplace should be protected speech, because email should be no different from " a telephone, a television set, a bulletin board, or a slip of scrap paper."