This example from the AFL-CIO Voice@Work staff shows how difficult it is for workers who want to join unions to do so with this country’s broken labor laws. The struggle by Alabama nursing home workers illustrates why we in the union movement are working for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which among other things, would streamline and shorten the process for joining a union.
Ten years after workers at an Alabama nursing home filed unfair labor practice charges after losing a viciously contested union election, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has overturned an order by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requiring the management to recognize the union. In the January decision, the court ruled that too much time had passed to issue a bargaining order.
The NLRB had issued the bargaining order in September 2001 to Cogburn Health Center Inc. in Mobile, Ala., five years after the charges were filed by the unaffiliated United Food and Commercial Workers union.
In 1996, workers at the nursing home presented management with authorization cards signed by a majority of the workers. After the company refused to recognize the union, the workers petitioned for an NLRB election.
According to the court’s decision, in the three months leading up to the election, the nursing home “engaged in a concerted campaign to undermine” support for the union. The nursing home hired 35 off-duty police officers as a “private police force.” They installed surveillance cameras to watch workers distributing union materials. The nursing home held mock bargaining meetings during which workers were forced to read from a script while management representatives rejected every union offer. Supervisors interrogated workers about their support for the union, and workers were prohibited from wearing pro-union symbols. The nursing home threatened the workers with loss of benefits and threatened to close. Six union supporters were fired.
Although the union quickly filed unfair labor practice charges, the workers had to wait two years for an administrative law judge to find the nursing home had acted illegally and another three years for the NLRB to order the nursing home to stop its illegal conduct and reinstate the six fired workers.
After the NLRB ordered the nursing home to recognize the union and begin bargaining in 2001, the nursing home filed a motion to have the bargaining order dismissed due to the amount of time that had passed. The NLRB denied the motion for reconsideration in 2004, and the nursing home filed a second motion, which the NLRB also denied.
Finally, in January, 10 years after management was presented with authorization cards, the appeals court rewarded the nursing home’s delay tactics and ruled that too much time had passed to issue a bargaining order.
The nursing home workers’ story is all too common and is the reason most workers are abandoning the NLRB election process. If the Employee Free Choice Act had been law when these workers were trying to form their union, their employer would have had to recognize their union when presented with cards signed by a majority of the workers. The workers would have been spared the campaign of fear and intimidation. This story confirms that workers need the Employee Free Choice Act now.
