Workers at Asplundh Tree Expert Overcome Anti-Union Campaign to Join IBEW Local 716 in Houston
(IBEW Journal, December 2001)
Asplundh management did everything it could to keep the union out. Coercion and intimidation were routine and several employees were fired for their union activity. Asplundh managed to delay the outcome for three months with Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges filed just two days before the election claiming the IBEW had ìcoerced and intimidated employees.î But the NLRB dismissed the charges and upheld the election results. Full Story from IBEW

Wal-Mart's Labor Practices Spur NLRB to Schedule a Court Date
(The Business Journal, 11/09/01)
The National Labor Relations Board thinks Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may be engaging in unfair labor practices at its Harrisonville distribution center. Teamsters Local 955 has been working since March to organize employees at the Harrisonville site. Among the Teamsters' claims are that Wal-Mart is encouraging employees not to talk to union representatives, telling them their jobs may be in jeopardy if they do and engaging in surveillance of employees talking to the union. Full Story

Pennsylvania Hospital hit with NLRB complaint; fired pro-union workers, labor board alleges
(The Herald, 10/05/01)
In its complaint, the NLRB said other Sharon Regional labor practice violations were:

• That on July 5 the manager of the health care provider's rehabilitation unit threatened employees with closing the department if they organized with SEIU Local 627.
• Giving written warnings on various matters to two workers and then later firing them as a result of their union activity and then later refusing to reinstate them. The wife of one of those workers, who is also an employee, was given a downgraded performance appraisal.
• Reduced the working hours of two employees due to their union activities.
• On various dates two Sharon Regional supervisors prohibited workers from wearing union pins while allowing other workers to wear non-union pins. The supervisors also had a rule of prohibiting union solicitations to discourage employees from joining or assisting the union.
• Reduced the number of shifts for its guards because they joined a union. (In March 10 guards at Sharon Regional voted to join the Security Police and Fire Professions of America International Union.)

Full Story

Fighting for the Charleston Five
(The Seattle Times, 07/24/01)
A demonstration of 130 African-American members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Charleston, SC was quickly transformed into a full-scale riot when the workers were met by hundreds of policemen in full riot gear. Now five members of the union have been indicted for incitement to riot and are facing the dogged prosecution of South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon--a candidate for governor in this right-to-work state. Full Story

NLRB Cites MI Country Club for Harassment
(The Detroit News, 07/20/01)
The NLRB issued a complaint against Wabeek Country Club for allegedly harassing and discriminating against employees and refusing to bargain with their union. The action comes in response to unfair labor practice allegations filed by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 24. Full Story

NY Teachers' Union Hails $4 Million Award for Victims of School District's Anti-Union Tactics
(New York Teacher, 06/06/01)
Since 1994, the school board of Children's Village's, a residential school in New York City that serves more than 300 emotionally disturbed boys ages 5 to 16, has engaged in such union-busting practices as firing some teachers it suspected of having union sympathies and assigning others to hours of menial labor.
"We knew all along," said local teachers' union president John Goetschius, "the board's sole purpose was to break our union." Now, with a stunning $4 million judgment against the school board, a jury agrees. Full Story

SEIU Exposes Hospital's Anti-Union Activity in Report
(SEIU Local 285 Press Release, 04/30/01)
A report published by the SEIU shows that Carney Hospital of Boston, MA spent about $273,000 in the year 2000 on anti-union meetings and consultants to defeat an effort by its employees to form a union. This anti-union campaign was largely funded by a $1.5 million emergency "hardship" grant given by the state to allow the hospital to stay open. Full Story

SEIU Organizes CA Nurses Despite Hospital's Union-Busting Campaign
(SEIU Local 535 Dragon, February 2001)
When management at Garfield Hospital discovered that its registered nurses were considering organization, they immediately enlisted the aid of a union-buster and dove into an anti-union campaign. Phase one of the hospital's efforts involved sweet-talking the nurses and offering them wage increases in exchange for their agreement to not join the union. When that didn't work, the hospital launched 10-weeks of harassment and intimidation intended to frighten the nurses into voting against unionization. Full Story

Illinois Machinists Resist Union-Busting
(The Militant, 01/08/01)
In December 2000, 2,700 members of International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 660 walked off their jobs at Olin Corp., a manufacturing company that produces brass coils and sheets for a variety of uses. When Olin tried to crush the workers' efforts by hiring strikebreakers, the unionists opened a strike headquarters just a few doors down from the strikebreaker hiring center. Full Story

Lawyers Blamed for Bitter Union Drive in Slaughterhouse: But firm disputes judge's, others' charges of illegal conduct during labor fight
(The National Law Journal, 01/29/01)
A former supervisor at Virginia-based Smithfield Packing Co. has provided a rare window into how outside lawyers allegedly helped the company commit "egregious and pervasive" labor law violations, according to the decision of an administrative law judge. Full Story

Labor Unions Work Together to Fight Union-Busting by Southern Paper Industry Giant
(Williamette Council Press Release, 12/07/00)
The Willamette Council, an umbrella organization for unions representing over 6,000 employees of Willamette Industries, helped workers to take strike action against what a representative of the Council called "the most anti-union company in the paper industry." One of the main issues being contested by the workers was Williamette's denial of supplemental 401(k) plans to union workers, a benefit that it willingly provided to hourly employees at non-union plants. Full Story
Company Offer Regarding 401K Ratified (02/03/01)

Amazon.com Workers Forced to Send Customers Anti-Union Messages
(Wash-Tech News, 11/17/00)
Management at Amazon.com required that customer service employees send out anti-union messages to any customer expressing concern about working conditions at the company. Such action may be in violation of the rights guaranteed Amazon employees by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Full Story

Washington Turns a Blind Eye to Union-Busting
(CorpWatch, 11/14/00)
After performing nearly ten years of service for a Florida nursing home owner, Marie Pierre was suddenly fired, allegedly for having violated a rule prohibiting Haitian-American employees from speaking in their native Creole language. But in reality, Marie's employer had a far more compelling reason to fire her, for Marie was spearheading an attempt to unionize her fellow workers. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, the federal government isn't doing nearly as much as it should to protect the thousands of workers who face similar discrimination each year. Full Story

Anti-Union Experiment: WA Science Center Tries to Alter Collective Bargaining Unit to Ensure Failure of Union Election
(The Stranger, 08/10/00)
When employees at the Pacifica Science Center in Seattle had collected enough union cards to call for an election, management argued for a larger collective bargaining unit that it planned to stack with clerical workers and temporary employees who would most likely vote against unionization. Full Story

WV Strikers Fight Union-Busting by Coca-Cola Bosses
(The Militant, 06/19/00)
Over 200 West Virginia Coca-Cola employees striking to secure fair wages and better benefits resisted a dogged campaign by the employer to break their strike. Shortly after the strike began, Coca-Cola hired a union-busting security outfit and used scabs and management personnel to carry on operations. But the strikers did not back down; on the contrary, they followed Coca-Cola trucks, picketed their deliveries, and explained to the company's customers the issues in the dispute. Full Story

Midwest Teamsters Locals Struggle to Force Wholesale Grocery Company to Bargain in Good Faith
(Pitch Weekly, 04/20/00)
Despite the willingness of Teamsters locals 955 and 245 to discuss ways to increase the productivity of the workers they represented at Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), a chain of grocery warehouses supplying nearly 850 stores across the Midwest, the company was convinced it could operate most efficiently by outsourcing its warehouse and transportation departments. In other words, the company had no intention of ever bargaining with the union. In April 2000, AWG laid off some 1,200 employees and hired four third-party contractors to supply new, cheaper workers. Full Story
NLRB rules for Teamsters in dispute with Associated Wholesale Grocers (The Kansas City Star, 05/19/00)
Teamsters OK new AWG contract (The Kansas City Star, 06/30/00)

Union Busting 101
(In These Times, 02/21/00)
The University of Vermont sponsored a seminar on "Critical Strategies for Positive Labor Relations" that taught roughly two dozen hospital executives, administrators and nursing directors from around New England "nuts-and-bolts tactics for keeping unions at bay alongside touchy-feely techniques to show employees that management cares." Full Story

Anti-Union Group Tries to Prevent CA Teachers Union from Collecting Fair Share Fees
(California Federation of Teachers Website, 01/25/00)
The conservative National Right to Work Foundation filed suit against the California Federation of Teachers University Council in an attempt to block the union from collecting representation fees from employees in union-represented bargaining units. Full Story
CA State Employees Win Important Legal Round Against Anti-Union Group

Union-Busting at the University of Illinois System
(Professing, 12/17/99)
The Illinois state legislature forced the unionized Sangamon State University to become part of the University of Illinois system. The legislature then increased the size of the collective bargaining unit to include the entire U of I system, thus stripping the union of its collective bargaining rights unless it could convince a majority of faculty members at the other U of I campuses to vote for unionization. Full Story

Has Marriott's Neutrality Agreement Covered Union-Busting?
(David Bacon, 09/19/98)
Eighteen years after the Marriott chain signed its original neutrality agreement and nine years after its San Francisco flagship hotel actually opened, employees of the San Francisco hotel were still working without a union contract. The anti-union tactics employed by the hotel management were so pervasive that the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 2 filed over 100 allegations of illegal conduct with the National Labor Relations Board. Full Story
NLRB Accuses Marriott Of Labor Law Violations (San Francisco Chronicle, 04/20/99)
Workers Strike for Two Days at S.F. Hotel (San Jose Mercury News, 07/31/00)
Union Launches Web Site To Air Grievances Against S.F. Marriott (San Francisco Business Times, 05/04/01)

AT&T Wireless Workers Prevail Despite Anti-Union Campaign
(LaborNet, 09/14/99)
"Despite a full-fledged anti-union campaign by AT&T Wireless management, workers in West Palm Beach, Fla., scored a victory in the first organizing campaign at Wireless using expedited election provisions negotiated last year." Full Story

Union-Busting Manual Used at Borders Bookstores Gets Leaked to the Web
(Mother Jones Magazine, 08/04/98)
Borders, the second largest bookstore chain in the country, has faced organizing drives by such unions as the Industrial Workers of the World, better known as the Wobblies, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). But in September of 1996, the company decided to fight back by sending its store managers a manual containing helpful hints for union-busting. According to an article in Mother Jones Magazine, the manual, written by the company's then-vice president of human resources, "discusses everything from Borders' position on unions (they're not in favor of them) to background information on the Wobblies and UFCW to what managers can or cannot discuss with employees." Full Story

Nationwide Radio Station Operator Hires Union Busters
(Current Online, 06/17/96)
The non-profit Pacifica Foundation, operator of 5 listener-sponsored radio stations nationwide, spent more than $30,000 to retain the anti-union services of The American Consulting Group in its fight against a branch of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). The union represented workers at Pacifica's Los Angeles station, KPFK-FM. The company reportedly viewed its collective bargaining agreements with the union as "contractual impediments" and sought to lay off union staff at the Los Angeles station. Full Story

British International Closes PA Refinery to Avoid Bargaining with Unions
(ICEM Info, Spring 1996)
When workers at a British Petroleum refinery in Marcus Hill, Pennsylvania refused to negotiate massive "givebacks" (cuts in pay and conditions), the company responded by shutting down the refinery. The workers, represented by the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), took their case to the NLRB. Full Story

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Union Campaigns: Busting the Union-Busters

Wal-Mart's Law-Breaking Drawing Intense Labor Board Scrutiny
(UFCW News Release, 09/25/01)
The extent to which Wal-Mart will break U.S. labor laws to prevent its employees from voting on union representation was made shockingly clear within days of the filing of a Union petition for a store-wide election in a Sam's Club store here when the National Labor Relations Board issued two massive complaints against the nation's largest retailer for violating workers' rights. Full Story

UE Takes Deadbeat Electrical Company to Court
(UE News, July 2001)
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) overcame an anti-union campaign of lies and intimidation last year when it successfully organized roughly 250 workers at the Pennsylvania-based Electrical Materials Company (TEMCO). But since then, the company has fired, disciplined and harassed union activists, making it impossible for the union to negotiate its first contract. Now the National Labor Relations Board has issued a formal complaint and scheduled a hearing on over 50 allegations against the company. Full Story

SEIU Thwarts Union-Busting Company By Taking Away its Political Power
(SEIU Local 285 Press Release, May 2001)
SEIU Local 285 has been fighting to protect the rights of nursing home workers at the Wingate at Wilbraham home in Massachusetts for the past two years. The union won a major victory when the state Democratic Party declared that it would no longer accept donations from the anti-union owners of the home.
"We now expect all of our elected officials will also reject contributions from the Schusters [owners of Wingate at Wilbraham] until they put their money where it is most needed -- improving the quality of care and staffing at the nursing homes they own," said Pam Verrocchi, a ten-year veteran LPN at the Wingate home. Full Story

NY Nurses Prepare for Anti-Union Campaign
(Albany Medical Center Registered Nurses, January 2001)
When Albany Medical Center hired Nixon-Peabody, a high-powered union-busting law firm, to combat the organizing efforts of its registered nurses, they decided to familiarize themselves with the techniques usually employed by union-busters. Full Story

IBEW Battles Phone Company that Moved Union Workers to a New, Non-Union Location
(IBEW Local 1837 News, December 2000)
"Apparently slithering through one legal loophole after another, the CMP phone company of Maine merged its non-union Lewiston Phone Center with the union Fairfield Credit Center and set up a new location in Augusta which it declared to be non-union." Full Story

United Steelworkers Gets Scabs Off Public Property
(Canada NewsWire, October 1999)
A Canadian local of the United Steelworkers stepped in and prevented a union-busting employer from using a public baseball field as a meeting place where scabs could gather each morning to be transported via buses to the plant. Full Story

Teamsters Local Puts Brakes on Bosses' Scab Plan
(Workers World News Service, September 1999)
Laidlaw, one of the largest private school-bus transportation companies in the nation, enlisted the aid of scabs and local police to try to squelch a strike by 45 of its employees, members of Teamsters Local 25 of Boston. But the workers "maintained a strong picket line" and forced the company to negotiate a new contract, which included a modest raise. Full Story

Union Busting at Monarch Machine Tool
(LaborNet, March 2000)
"On February 11, Monarch Machine Tool Company in Cortland, NY was sold by its corporate parent to new owners based in nearby Syracuse. The new ownership group only offered employment to 29 of 33 members of UAW Local 802. Locked out were Mark Keith, the Local's President; Ron Powell, a past Local president and current shop committeeman with 21 years seniority; a Local 802 trustee with 26 years' experience; and a 12-year veteran who only recently returned to work through Federal Mediation." Full Story

United Electrical Workers' Union Takes on Giant Steel Multinational
(Activism News Bulletins, February 1999)
The United Electrical Workers' Union (UE) launched a letter-writing campaign to fight union-busting by Kobe Steel, a giant Japanese multinational with plants in the U.S. Full Story

HERE Pickets Anti-Union Restaurant in Minnesota
(Minnesota E-Democracy, August 1998)
When a bid for unionization at the Loring Cafe was narrowly defeated thanks to the union-busting tactics of its owner, HERE Local 17 staged a picket outside the restaurant. Though the NLRB eventually called for a rerun of the election, most of the pro-union workers at the restaurant had already quit or been fired. Full Story

PA Workers Oppose Privitization of State Liquor Stores
(UE News, August 1997)
UE members in western Pennsylvania added their voices to those of state employees, churches and consumers in opposition to the privatization of state liquor stores. The plan, developed and promoted by Republican Governor Thomas Ridge, was viewed as " unionbusting and a political payoff to Gov. Ridge's supporters," because many of the state liquor store workers were represented by such unions as the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), the Independent State Store Union, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Full Story

UNITE Workers Say No To Sweatshops and Union-Busting
(UNITE Regional News, Spring 1997)
"It's not easy being union free, as more than two dozen union busters in training found out in Cincinnati. They were attending a 'union free' seminar at the same hotel where some 250 local union leaders were holding an organizing session a floor above. Deciding to give the would-be union busters a chance to meet organizers face to face, they marched downstairs and into the seminar. That so discombobulated the management toadies, most fled. Dan Radford, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Cincinnati CLC warned management consultants that 'the new breed of union organizers do not plan to let seminars like this one go unnoticed.'" Full Story

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Reports & Studies on Union-Busting

The Anti-Union Bias of U.S. Courts
(The Labor Educator, May 2001)
Companies aren't the only ones who can be found guilty of union-busting. Throughout U.S. history, the federal courts system has done its share to try to cripple the labor movement. This article examines several anti-union decisions handed down by the federal courts. Full Story

Companies and the Government Have Made Organizing a Hellish Obstacle Course
(The Nation, March 1998)
"The United States has the most restrictive labor organizing atmosphere of any of the world's industrialized democracies."
The Nation reporter Marc Cooper examines the anti-union transformation undergone by the National Labor Relations Act since its passage in 1935 and the history of union-busting in America. Full Story

Union Busting 101
(CovertAction Quarterly, Spring 1997)
A brief history of union-busting tactics used by employers and a summary of major anti-union campaigns in the past decade. Full Story

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NLRB & the Courts Punish Union-Busting Employers

Reno Hilton Resorts v. NLRB
(BBP News, Winter 1999)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that a casino operator was engaged in illegal union-busting when it cut loose its in-house security staff in favor of an outside contractor. Full Story | Read the Court's Decision

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If you or your union have been the victim of union-busting practices, let us know about it.