Dick Wessels, Firm Founder and Senior Shareholder of Wessels Sherman, has been meeting with clients almost daily concerning this historic change about to come to our labor laws. With a new administration, U.S. businesses are deeply worried about the probability of the pro-union legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, being passed by Congress and signed in to law as early as Spring 2009. As readers of the Client Alert will be aware from Dick Wessels' previous articles, the Employee Free Choice Act is legislation which makes it much easier for unions to successfully take over companies. Under this act (also known as the "Card Check Act"), there will be no secret ballot elections, but rather card signing campaigns under which unions will work to get a majority of cards signed (and shockingly that will be enough to get the union in!).
Probable elements will be:
- Unions can be certified by the NLRB with a card majority - no election!
- After NLRB certification, first contract negotiations must begin within 10 days of the union's request.
- 90 day time frame for bargaining - then FMCS involvement.
- 30 days for FMCS involvement - then an arbitrator is appointed.
- The arbitrator's findings will be mandatory and binding for at least two years.
Wessels Sherman has already worked out an exceedingly simple procedure to inoculate your employees against card signing. This is really not a great deal different from the protocols we at WS use in a typical organizing campaign. There, we often receive advance notice and have the time to put in place a program to stop the card signing. The difference when the labor laws change is that you will need to have your program in place right away. If you don't, there is no way you can possibly react in time. The horse will be out of the barn before you can close the door!
With a short meeting (an hour or so) between your management group and one of our WS counter-organizing attorneys, you should be able to have a workable program in place to inoculate your employees against a card signing blitz.
Give Dick Wessels a call directly if you wish to discuss this. You can reach him at (630) 377-1554, or riwessels@wesselssherman.com.
