Union Discrimination

Union Discrimination THE NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK LEGAL Defense Foundation is one of several anti-union organizations that have been active in recent years. The "right to work," in this context, means the alleged right of an individual to work without being obliged to join a union or pay union dues. To put it the other way around, it means that companies cannot sign contracts with unions agreeing to hire only workers who are willing to join the union or at least to pay the equivalent of union dues. What follows is one of the Foundation's advertisements, titled "Job Discrimination . . . It Still Exists":96 Paul Robertson is not a member of a persecuted minority. But he has experienced blatant discrimination all the same because he has chosen not to join a union. Paul Robertson is a working man, a skilled licensed electrician with more than twenty years' experience. He found out the hard way how a big company and a big union can discriminate on the job. Paul was hired by the Bechtel Power Corporation to work on their Jim Bridger Power Plant project in the Rock Springs, Wyoming, area. Only three months later, he was fired, supposedly because of a reduction in force. But during the week preceding his discharge, Bechtel hired at least nineteen union electricians referred by the local union and retained at least sixty-five unlicensed electricians. A determined Paul Robertson filed unfair labor practice charges against the company and the union. An administrative law judge ruled and was upheld by the full National Labor Relations Board that the union and the employer had indeed discriminated. The judge ordered that Robertson and seven other electricians be given the back pay they would have earned if they had been treated fairly. The NLRB later reversed part of its decision, but Paul Robertson did not give up. With the help of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, he appealed the Board's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals, arguing that hiring hall favoritism is discriminatory and unlawful. Paul Robertson was fortunate. He found experienced legal help-all important because the case dragged on for nearly four years in the courts and the union still refused to obey the NLRB's back-pay order. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is helping everyone it can-currently in more than seventy-five cases involving academic and political freedom, protection from union violence, and other fundamental rights. But it would like to do even more. If you'd like to help workers like Paul Robertson write to: The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. . .. . What are the conflicts of the cases clearly? What are the data relevant to the conflicts in detail? Solutions or preventive measures for conflicts. . Examples or cites cases that are very relevant to the cases and that are related to the topic