What Intimidation?
[guest post by Dana]
Giving unions more power – even the power to intimidate at one’s home,
The Obama administration is poised to change regulations to allow for union “ambush elections” in which workers have less time to decide whether or not to join a union — and in which workers’ phone numbers and home addresses are provided to unions.
The administration’s National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposed rules would allow for union elections — in which workers at a company vote whether or not to unionize — to be held 10 days after a petition is filed. And what, exactly, would be happening to the unions during those 10 days? The new rules require employers to disclose workers’ personal information, including phone numbers, home addresses, and information about when they work their shifts.
Workforce Fairness Institute spokesman Fred Wszolek points out the troubling obvious: [I]f you’re going to give access to unions any personal email addresses a company has, fine. But let’s protect the privacy of workers by no longer requiring companies to give to the union the home addresses of workers. It’s very hard to intimidate or coerce a worker by email. But it’s much easier to intimidate or coerce a worker when you’re standing on their doorstep.
Of course, union members showing up on an employee’s porch to intimidate is nothing new.
This poses several questions:
-Do employees have an expectation of privacy once their shifts end and they are back in their personal homes and lives?
-Understanding that employers are required to provide such information, *if* they refuse, based on the employee’s wishes, what penalties can they face?
-What recourse does an employer and employee have in light of being compelled to release said information?
–Dana
It’s a variation on “card check.” With a short period before an election, the union can bring in out of town
goonsvolunteers to, er, make contact with workers personally at their homes.The whole and entire purpose of “card check” is to eliminate secret ballot union votes. If a union steward and his burly “driver” show up at your house at dinner time with a card for you to sign, noting how cute your kids are, you are likely to sign it. And that card becomes your “vote.”
Democrats would love to do the same thing for all elections. Remember the Black Panthers with bats outside the Philly poll in 2008?
Estragon (ada867) — 4/21/2014 @ 10:29 pmten days is plenty of time to decide you don’t want to become a disgusting whiny thuggy thuggy union whore
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/21/2014 @ 10:40 pmFirst the gaystapo came for Brendan Eich.
Then the union mafia came for the non-unionized shops…
Folks, this is going to get ugly. It already has gotten ugly. I was referred to this excellent article earlier.
Cults In Our Midst: Patty Hearst And The Brainwashing Of America
Schools are ideal environments for this. We laugh at the foolishness of school administrators and their brain dead zero tolerance policies. They would be brain dead, if they were about school safety. But rule no. 1 is to keep the person unaware of the actual agenda. No one has ever been killed with such non-guns or fingers.
“Really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”
But then, so is the military. It’s ideal an ideal environment for creating all the conditions.
US Naval Institute: From the Deckplates – Do Not Use on the Job
Individual circumstances don’t matter; all outcomes that benefit whites are the result of institutional racism. The chapter on “Power and Privilege” comes with a warning. “FOR TRAINING PURPOSES ONLY” and “DO NOT USE ON THE JOB.” The equal opportunity instructors are told how to incorporate the concepts and conclusions from the chapter white privilege into the EO training they’re supposed to use on the job. The agenda just is supposed to be hidden from the students. Remember, rule no. 1.
This also works on mass audiences, as the author goes onto explain.
Steve57 (013200) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:07 pmI forgot to mention poptarts. Nobody has ever been killed by even a gun shaped poptart. Of course, as I recall the story the kid was trying to chew it into the shape of a mountain. It didn’t matter; the teacher saw her opportunity to indoctrinate the kid and everyone else who witnessed the event to think about guns in a “vastly different way.
This is why six year old boys get charged with sex crimes for kissing their “girlfriend” on the cheek at school. And why your daughter is going to have to shower next to a boy who “identifies” as a girl.
None of this has any connection to safety. You can’t instill new the new behaviors and attitudes required to “queer” schools unless you aggressively suppress old heteronormative behaviors and attitudes.
Steve57 (013200) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:16 pmThe SEIU’s harassment of the California Nurse’s Association is typically thuggish of them, but I am not going to shed any tears for the CNA since they have an ugly history of hardcore left-wing activism, and maybe their members should learn to take it seeing as how they are willing to dish it out.
JVW (9946b6) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:21 pmamerican teachers are very abusive to children
it’s a thing
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:23 pmThe unions might want to remember that more and more states have gone to the Castle Doctrine and showing up to intimidate someone might be a quick way to get sent to the ER with extra ventilation added and a serious case of lead poisoning.
JP Kalishek (e539ed) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:29 pmThe NLRB should include a note with all that info to the unions reminding them which of the 57 states are “Shall Issue”, have a “Castle Doctrine”, and “Stand Your Ground” laws.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:29 pmIf it will save the life of just one union thug….
Here’s what I don’t get: If I wanted a company to give me the names, home addresses, and phone numbers of all of its workers so that I could sell them mutual funds or aluminum siding or something, they could and probably would rightly tell me to go pound sand. Why then should they be required to furnish that information to a union, and what rights does a worker have to prevent his or her personal contact information from going to union goons? After all, just like the guy selling mutual funds or aluminum siding, the union is trying to sell the worker on a service — maybe they would even call it an “investment” — that the worker may not be interested in.
JVW (9946b6) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:38 pmThey can have my name, address, and phone number as soon as I get the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all current union members including officers, employees, consultants, lobbyists, and politicians receiving endorsements, assigned “volunteer workers,” campaign contributions or speaking fees. No problem.
ropelight (57ee84) — 4/22/2014 @ 3:24 amWith a short period before an election, the union can bring in out of town goons volunteers to, er, make contact with workers personally at their homes.
The whole and entire purpose of “card check” is to eliminate secret ballot union votes. If a union steward and his burly “driver” show up at your house at dinner time with a card for you to sign, noting how cute your kids are, you are likely to sign it.
Belerophon killed the last chimera a long time ago. Who comes up with this nonsense? Both my parents were Teamsters, and if any goon tried to intimidate my mother she wouldn’t even call on her husband, three sons, three brothers-in-law and five nephews. She knew how to turn 300lb. pigs into bacon all by herself.
nk (dbc370) — 4/22/2014 @ 4:13 amThis is the real way the unions will intimidate:
“You’re making $7.25/hr. Join us and we’ll get you $12.00 to start, half-hour lunch and two 15-minute breaks included, time and half over 40 hours/week, double time over 60 hours/week and on Sundays and holidays (Good Friday and Elvis’s birthday will be considered holidays), and a pro rata bonus for exceeding the production rate on top of that. And that’s just to begin with now.”
nk (dbc370) — 4/22/2014 @ 4:33 amnk (#12) seems to have forgotten what comes after “just to begin with now”: the company goes bankrupt and their pay goes down to $0.00/hr, though their holidays expand to cover every day of the year.
Dr. Weevil (6f9902) — 4/22/2014 @ 6:07 am==Belerophon killed the last chimera a long time ago. Who comes up with this nonsense? Both my parents were Teamsters, and if any goon tried to intimidate my mother she wouldn’t even call on her husband, three sons, three brothers-in-law and five nephews. She knew how to turn 300lb. pigs into bacon all by herself.==
nk–don’t play Emily Litella and pretend we’re talking about “violins” here. There is plenty of documentation about the history of union violence and intimidation–at people’s homes–especially immigrants’ homes. Just from being acquainted with your parents’ son here on-line, I’m almost certain that had they not had to belong to the Teamsters in order to be hired/employed at their jobs, they’d have done just fine in life without a union “representing” them.
Has anyone forgotten already the out of town union thugs that poured into Wisconsin in their big rigs ever so recently? Has anyone forgotten their tactics? It’s always about the dues. And survival of the union. And it’s never about friendly persuasion or needing a cuppa when “the guy from the union” stops by to “meet” the wifey while the husband’s at work, nor is it checking on the kids’ wellbeing when they are approached by the union guy with a clipboard on their way home from school.
elissa (8c73eb) — 4/22/2014 @ 6:49 amMy parents’ factory first went 50% automated when the technology came along, and then went to Mexico when NAFTA came along. That’s business. I was talking about intimidation.
nk (dbc370) — 4/22/2014 @ 6:49 amshow up on my property, at my front door, without an invitation, and see what you get.
you’ll be doing a pants check as you GTFO my land…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 4/22/2014 @ 7:00 amred has the right attitude. My parents were already employed when their factory was unionized. She testified in an NLRB hearing about undue influence during the process. She wasn’t quite sure what they were asking. The only ones who could influence my mother were my father and my baby brother. And I’m not all that sure about my father.
nk (dbc370) — 4/22/2014 @ 7:05 amWonder how that meshes with the Privacy Act requirements. Violations can cost up to $5K per incident. Not a lawyer but it seems that an Act trumps a regulation until the Act is changed…
vor2 (88b92d) — 4/22/2014 @ 7:37 amThis makes an interesting contradiction when viewed against the background of Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-Oakland, CA) legislation intended to form the Department of Peacemaking.
@5- Point of order: CNA is cannibalistic. Some of their members become victims of their efforts to improve working conditions…. In general, however, your initial impression is correct.
Gramps, the original (0cdf49) — 4/22/2014 @ 7:48 amYes, nk, the nice union folks will just show up and explain all the benefits in terms of higher pay to unionizing. I especially enjoyed that line about performance bonuses for exceeding quotas. That was good for a laugh.
Don’t know where you’ve been. Meanwhile, in the real world.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/philadelphia-union-thugs-arrested-on-charges-of-arson-intimidation/article/2544272
One thing to keep in mind is that Obama may be doing this to provoke a Constitution-shredding response.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-latinos-punish-your-enemies-voting-booth_511932.html
That may be what he said in a radio interview, but it’s naive to harbor any doubt that the only enemies Obama truly hates is his domestic opposition. And based upon what we’ve seen from his weaponized federal agencies he doesn’t think of just punishing them at the voting booth.
Remember, never let a crisis go to waste. Even if you have to create it.
Steve57 (013200) — 4/22/2014 @ 1:36 pmComment by JVW (9946b6) — 4/21/2014 @ 11:38 pm
Why are businesses required to hand over that info to unions?
askeptic (8ecc78) — 4/22/2014 @ 1:58 pmI believe it has something to do with the Wagner Act (1935).
Yes, nk, the nice union folks will just show up and explain all the benefits in terms of higher pay to unionizing. I especially enjoyed that line about performance bonuses for exceeding quotas. That was good for a laugh.
That’s because you don’t know what you’re talking about. My parents had a production rate that they had to meet and if they exceeded it they got what was in effect a temporary raise in pay for that day. And Good Friday and Martin Luther King’s birthday were holidays under their union contract ten years before MLK day became a federal holiday.
nk (dbc370) — 4/22/2014 @ 2:42 pm“The new rules require employers to disclose workers’ personal information, including phone numbers, home addresses, and information about when they work their shifts.”
What amazes me about this is the brazenness of it. These cretins act as if playing fast and loose with personal information is no big deal. If a government agency in a Republican administration were to try something like this, the screeching from the Left would likely be overwhelming.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque (85adb3) — 4/23/2014 @ 6:16 pm