With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Kerry Hunsberger and her coworkers at Latrobe Specialty Metals Company have successfully freed themselves from the unwanted “representation” of United Steelworkers (USW) union officials. Hunsberger and her coworkers voted to remove USW officials from their facility in December, following USW officials’ claim that no vote should occur because union officials secretly “ratified” a union contract that workers had overwhelmingly voted down twice.
USW officials outrageously argued before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that their covert signing of a tentative contract triggered a non-statutory policy known as the “contract bar” that prevented Hunsberger and her coworkers from voting the union out. However, Hunsberger’s Foundation-provided attorneys successfully defeated this union maneuver in November, which cleared the way for the vote to proceed. The “contract bar” is a non-statutory NLRB policy that arbitrarily immunizes unions from being “decertified” for up to three years after union officials and management conclude a contract. […]
“If USW officials had merely added valid dates to their unpopular contract, the NLRB would have likely enforced the deceptive union scheme to trap workers in union ranks against their will for three more years, as the ‘contract bar’ permits,” added [National Right to Work Foundation President Mark] Mix. “And these workers would have been forced to pay dues for those three years or be fired, as Pennsylvania is not a Right to Work state.”
“This is yet another demonstration that the ‘contract bar’ destroys union accountability, as union bosses can rush to ‘ratify’ unpopular contracts in secret, safe in the knowledge that a three-year shield from being voted out awaits them,” Mix added.
NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK LEGAL DEFENSE FOUNDATION
All contents from this article were originally published on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Website.
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