Bold Rulings, Better Lives

By DAVID McCALL

Bobcat’s management forced Ethan Fitch and his co-workers into a series of mandatory town-hall meetings and then subjected them to anti-union harangues aimed at thwarting their union drive.

The attacks unsettled workers at the Rogers, Minn., plant, just as the bosses intended. But Fitch and other activists continued to rally workers around the need for a union, succeeded in building solidarity, and ultimately led the group into the United Steelworkers (USW) last year.

While he always remained confident that the union drive at his factory would succeed in spite of the company’s scare tactics, Fitch welcomed a new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that spares other workers the kind of fearmongering and bullying his colleagues overcame.

The NLRB—an agency charged with enforcing labor rights—ruled Nov. 13 that Amazon illegally compelled warehouse workers to attend anti-union captive-audience meetings that it used to divide workers and crush organizing drives.

It’s the latest in a series of decisions safeguarding organizing and bargaining rights under the stronger, more vigilant NLRB put in place by President Joe Biden.

“Ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National Labor Relations Act,” wrote board Chair Lauren McFerran in the ruling against Amazon.

“Captive-audience meetings—which give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or discharge—undermine this important goal,” she added.

The groundbreaking decision ends one of corporate America’s most prevalent and despicable union-busting tactics, helping to even the scales for workers. Companies across the country annually dropped hundreds of millions of dollars on hired-gun “union-avoidance consultants” to run these brainwashing sessions and conduct other anti-worker activities.

“It takes a lot of stress off of people,” Fitch said of the NLRB ruling, noting organizers of the captive-audience meetings strive to divide workers and undermine the solidarity that’s the bedrock of union power.

Workers in Rogers knew that their counterparts at Bobcat’s plant in Gwinner, N.D., benefited from a USW contract and that their peers at the company’s Bismarck, N.D., site also joined the USW in 2022 to improve pay, benefits and safety.

Within a couple of months of their own plant opening in summer 2022, Fitch and his co-workers decided they also needed a union to ensure fair treatment.

“I wanted to do the right thing. That’s what prompted me to join,” recalled Fitch, who now serves his co-workers as president of USW Local 9011.

“It was just kind of frustrating,” continued Fitch, noting company representatives inaccurately told workers during the mandatory meetings that they’d have fewer opportunities, lower pay and other setbacks with a union. “Obviously, that teed a lot of people off.”

While Fitch and his co-workers stayed the course, captive-audience meetings played a role in killing countless union drives across the country.

At a previous employer many years ago, for example, Dave Smith saw support for an organizing campaign die when the company held captive-audience meetings to threaten workers and vilify unions.

Smith, now a trustee for USW Local 2660 on Minnesota’s Iron Range, praised the new ruling because it will not only limit the damage employers do with disinformation campaigns but prevent them from using group sessions to target union activists.

“It’s a great thing,” he said of the decision, pointing out that Congress created the NLRB to serve as a backstop for exactly these kinds of corporate abuses.

The current NLRB, he said, has lived up to the task, not only protecting workers’ rights during organizing campaigns but ensuring employers obey the law and meet contract obligations once workers organize.

In August 2023, for example, the board reaffirmed union members’ right to a voice on the job when it reinstated a worker who’d been improperly fired for raising concerns about his company’s inadequate COVID-19 protocols. It found the worker’s remarks to be “protected concerted activity,” permissible speech intended to improve bargaining unit working conditions.

The NLRB also issued a decision in 2023 potentially paving the way for more gig workers to unionize. This ruling takes a tough stance with employers who try to classify delivery drivers and similar workers as “independent contractors,” rather than employees, to pay low wages, skimp on safety and avoid unions.

In other recent rulings, the board also cracked down on employers who make workers jump through unnecessary, costly hoops to form a union and prohibited companies from forcing laid-off workers to give up labor rights in exchange for severance pay.

And these are just a few examples of the NLRB’s impact. A duty-minded board serves as a check on employer misconduct in numerous ways every day, observed Smith.

“It’s been a lot easier to get through our grievance process the past four years,” he said, noting employers are more likely to follow the rules and settle disputes when they know the alternative is a fight before a board committed to upholding the law.

“It just makes enforcing our contract much easier for us. Now, they’re willing to work with us,” he said.

Smith fears losing this fairer system as Biden, the most pro-labor president in history, leaves office. Biden not only appointed conscientious members to the NLRB but boosted the agency’s resources to ensure it fulfilled its critical mission.

Fitch, already in the middle of his second contract with Bobcat, knows he’ll need a strong NLRB going forward. While the union provides a mechanism for standing up to management, he pointed out, the NLRB plays an essential role as referee.

“At the end of the day, they’re just trying to make sure everything is fair,” he said. “They’re kind of like your leverage, your iron shield. They’re a great resource to have in your back pocket.”

David McCall is International President of United Steelworkers. See the blog at USW.org.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2025

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