March 2009, John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer This report updates an earlier report from January of 2007, which found a steep rise in illegal firings of pro-union workers in the 2000s relative to the last half of the 1990s. It updates the index of the probability that a pro-union worker will be fired in the course of a union election campaign, using published data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It also takes into consideration the increase in card-check organizing campaigns that began in the mid-1990s and adjusts the index for this factor.

By 2007, pro-union workers involved in union election campaigns faced about a 1.8 percent chance of being illegally fired during the course of the campaign. If we assume that employers target union organizers and activists, and that union organizers and activists make up about 10 percent of pro-union workers, our estimates suggest that almost one-in-five union organizers or activists can expect to be fired as a result of their activities in a union election campaign. Since 2000, illegal firings have marred over one-in-four NLRB-sponsored union elections, reaching 30 percent of elections in 2007.

REPORT

Union Busting 101

Labor Union Resources

Tags: Union Busting, union organizers, Workers Rights, AFL-CIO, pro-union workers, Union Blogs, nlrb, union elections, illegally fired, National Labor Relations Board, Union Avoidance

The employers use is a corrupt union leadership that betrays its members.

I watched the UAW betray the employees at Delco by not allowing sign up cards to be distributed and insisted we use a circulated sign up sheet which frightened the timid into not wanting the management to view the 'suspect' union advocates.

They told us that any attempt to circulate private cards the management wouldn't have opportunity to data base, would be an abandonment of their sponsorship.

Although the hourly workers were successful in their initial self-organized union vote; when the officials of the UAW arrived to 'help' the salaried employees, they sabotaged the whole attempt. The site is now gone, no one works there. Delco Electronics no longer exists in Goleta, Ca. The facility that built the Lunar rover.

The facility that developed the HRG guidance system.

The facility that allowed GM Motorsports to win 4 years in a row at the Indy.

It employed about 2000 people.