Trump’s Anti-Union NLRB (National Labor Relations Board)

Leslie is joined by Tom Conway, President of the United Steelworkers (USW).  They discuss how the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency responsible for protecting workers’ rights, has done the opposite under President Trump by becoming an avenue for silencing workers’ voices and defending corporations. 

Leslie and Tom detail the union-busting tactics of President Trump's NLRB, which have chipped away at long-established rights and practices that allow workers to organize for better lives.
(related blog here by USW President Tom Conway: https://www.usw.org/blog/2020/a-thousand-cuts)

For example:

·         The NLRB imposed additional required steps to the union election procedure solely to stall the process and give employers more time to squash organizing efforts.

·         The NLRB also made it possible for employers to withhold contact information like email addresses of employees, making union communication more difficult.

·         Employers can now legally discipline workers just for mentioning a union drive to a co-worker while at work.

·         The NLRB sought to overturn an Oregon ruling that employers could not force employees to attend anti-union meetings. If that gets overturned, workers will get hit even harder with corporate coercion and fear-mongering, weakening the potential for successful union organizing drives

If the NLRB overturns Oregon’s law, employers will ramp up the coercion and launch anti-union campaigns every bit as brutal as the one Kumho Tire waged against workers in Macon, Ga., three years ago.

After workers began an organizing drive with the United Steelworkers (USW), Kumho forced them into daily anti-union meetings—each lasting up to 90 minutes—in which the company repeatedly threatened to close the plant, haul away the equipment and eliminate their jobs.

Kumho augmented that torture with shop-floor conversations in which supervisors continually bullied workers and demanded to know how they planned to vote. The pressure tactics began the moment workers began their shifts each day, creating an atmosphere of pure hell inside the plant.

These and other unfair rules allow employers to viciously bully workers with anti-union tactics while forcing employees to stay silent or else risk losing their jobs. 

But the pandemic has also fueled the momentum for unions among many in frontline and essential jobs

·         From Whole Foods to Fed Ex and Trader Joe’s, workers have mobilized to gain union protection in the midst of the pandemic

·         The pandemic further widened America’s rampant income inequality and underscored corporations’ indifference to workplace safety, as workers at Cort Furniture and Orlando International Airport discovered when their bosses herded them into anti-union meetings despite the need for social distancing(!)
These and other exploited workers realize that only by organizing can they win family-sustaining wages, decent benefits and safe working conditions.

An NLRB that enforces labor rights is necessary for building better lives for millions of Americans.

·         The president nominates NLRB members and the NLRB general counsel, and the Senate confirms those nominations.

·         The current NLRB leans heavily anti-worker. The five-person board includes the corporate lawyers John Ring and William Emanuel, and GOP congressional staffer Marvin Kaplan.

·         The board’s general counsel, Peter Robb, is a longtime anti-union, management-side attorney, who has set in motion many of the anti-worker stances the current NLRB has taken.

·         To truly fulfill the mission of the NLRB and protect workers, America must have federal officials in charge who truly care about labor rights.

The website for the United Steelworkers is USW.org.  You can follow them on Twitter and Instagram using the handle @steelworkers.

You can also watch this episode here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vJ7wXzoFz-g