Last week the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions conducted a hearing exploring the role the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) plays in supporting union corporate campaigns.

Chairman Phil Roe (R-TN) noted that a corporate campaign is a “union effort to disrupt an employer’s routine business and the campaigns can take the form of negative advertising, complaints filed against employers with various government agencies, and can even include appeals to political and religious leaders to put pressure on a targeted employer.” These campaigns have a detrimental impact on businesses bottom line and are a threat to employees.

The hearing referenced the recent growth and popularity of corporate campaigns as a preferred tactic of unions for organizing and how the NLRB has taken a number of steps to expand activities for unions that can be employed during a corporate campaign. Some examples include the removal of bannering restrictions previously placed on boycotts of neutral employers, employees of onsite contractors being granted greater access to the property of the contracting employer connected to the organizing activity and the NLRB request for briefs that could allow even greater access to an employer’s property by unions.

David Bego, a witness at the hearing, testified how the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) targeted his business and demanded he sign a neutrality agreement and provide a list of employees in order to avoid a corporate campaign. When Mr. Bego refused in efforts to protect his employees from harassment and the invasion of their privacy and proposed a secret ballot election, which SEIU refused. Mr. Bego spent over $1 million to fight the corporate campaign.

Chet Kamas, another witness testified how he too fought against a corporate campaign and calculated he lost between 20%-30% in sales during the campaign.

Common observations shared by witnesses representing their businesses included the following;

• Corporate campaigns while extremely costly to employers are very cheap for unions to conduct and carry little to no economic consequences for the unions.
• A widely used union tactic is to file frivolous unfair labor practice complaints against businesses they wish to organize. Witnesses suggested that legislation be passed to make the losing party pay for litigation related to accusations of unfair labor practices to deter the filing of frivolous claims.
• Many unsavory tactics employed by unions during corporate campaigns are being legitimized by the NLRB and courts under 1st amendment rights arguments, even if the information used in the campaigns are untrue.

ALFA will continue to monitor the activities of the NLRB, Department of Labor and other entities that seek to allow unions easier means to organize workplaces at the expense of employer and employee rights.

Read more about the hearing: "Corporate Campaigns and the NLRB: The Impact of Union Pressure on Job Creation".

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