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NLRB Improves Defense of Workers Fired in Organizing Campaigns

October 12, 2010

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Nothing takes the punch out of a union organizing campaign faster than the firing of shop floor leaders who stand up for justice on the job.

Yet workers who are subjected to such unfair firings have often waited months and even years for the National Labor Relations Board to hear their complaints.

On September 30, Lafe Solomon, acting general counsel of the NLRB, announced an initiative to speed up the processing of cases involving unfair firings in organizing drives.

Solomon said the NLRB will increase the approval of federal injunctions that would require employers to put workers fired during organizing drives back to work pending the hearing of their unfair labor practice cases.  Injunctions were added to the National Labor Relations Act in 1947 as part of set of reforms.

Says Solomon:

Firing an employee in the middle of a union organizing campaign can quickly destroy the campaign by creating a climate of fear in the workplace.  It can also have a devastating effect on the employee’s life…These cases go to the very essence of our enforcement responsibilities.

Labor and corporate organizations quickly divided over the new recommendations.   AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said:

While the changes don’t fix a broken system, the least we can do is provide swift justice to workers illegally fired.

Business groups opposed the initiative, saying that it places an unfair burden on employers.  Glenn Spencer, executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative said:

They [unions] are trying to make it easier for unions to organize and harder for employers to defend themselves against union organizers.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user ti.mo.