Here’s another clear example of why we need the Employee Free Choice Act. For more than six years, Russ Teegardin and Bill Lawhorn have fought to get their jobs back after they were fired for supporting a union at Consolidated Biscuit Co. (CBC) in McComb, Ohio. Even though the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered the company to rehire the workers, CBC all but ignored the order.
Finally, justice will be done at CBC after a federal appeals court on Nov. 14 ordered the company to comply with the labor board’s decision and reinstate the two workers with full back pay with all wages lost, plus compounded interest. If CBC, which makes Nabisco cookies and Kraft products, does not comply with the order, it could face thousands of dollars in fines. Check out Lawhorn talking about his firing in the video above and speaking before Congress here.
The court also ordered a new election for CBC workers to decide if they want to join the union the petitioned for. During the first election in 2002, CBC mounted an aggressive campaign to prevent workers from exercising their freedom to form a union. Even though 650 of 875 employees signed union recognition cards, CBC responded to the workers’ campaign with threats, intimidation, harassment and, in Lawhorn and Teegardin’s case, by firing key union supporters. The company threatened workers with loss of benefits, plant closure and stricter discipline if they voted for the union.
Fear spread like wildfire throughout the company as workers, one by one, became afraid to speak up, then voted against the union. The workers filed more than 40 charges against the company for violations of federal labor laws.
Unfortunately, what happened to Lawhorn and Teegardin is not unusual. Studies show that 91 percent of employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent require immediate supervisors to attend training sessions on how to attack unions; and 79 percent have supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee.