Josh Eidelson of Bloomberg Businessweek details a recent court ruling that gives employers a small victory over organized labor.
More than 70 percent of companies facing union-organizing campaigns bring in consultants to help them figure out how to respond, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The consultants craft talking points for managers to use in discussions with workers. Typically, the workers aren’t told that their supervisors have been professionally coached.
In March the Obama administration moved to change that with regulations requiring employers to disclose such consulting contracts. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says the change would help level the playing field for unions, which are legally required to report their organizing expenditures. In a statement at the time, Perez said, “Workers should know who is behind an anti-union message. It’s a matter of basic fairness.”
Business groups have filed three lawsuits to block the rule. They argue that it would infringe on their First Amendment rights by targeting anti-union speech and association. On June 27 they scored a victory: U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings, a Reagan appointee hearing a case filed in Texas that’s been joined by 10 states, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the rule from going into effect nationwide. He wrote it posed “a substantial risk that attorneys will cease providing certain advice, including some legal advice, and that employers would cease to seek it.”
“The feeling is that the department is trying to set up a situation where all employers must simply disclose everything all the time, and that’s not helpful to anybody,” says Patrick Forrest, vice president for the National Association of Manufacturers, which sued in Arkansas to block the administration rule. “Disclosure is, in our opinion, a ruse for a larger attempt to silence employers and to tip the scales in favor of unionization.”