NLRB: Why it Matters

CLARENCE ADAMS,
CWA Local 1109
Cablevision

Clarence Adams is a 14-year employee of Cablevision. He's also a Marine and Iraq veteran, and a father.

"Last January, 21 co-workers and I were illegally fired and locked out by Cablevision. Why were we fired? We took management at its word when it said there was an open door policy to talk about workplace issues. We wanted to talk about getting a fair contract. Cablevision decided that it didn't want to talk about anything and fired us.

"I was out of work for at least a month and a half and that's a very scary prospect. I worried about taking care of my family, worried about paying my bills and worried about getting my job back. My union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board and the NLRB filed a complaint against the company. If it wasn't for the NLRB, I probably wouldn't be at work right now."

A year earlier, in January 2012, about 280 Brooklyn Cablevision workers, including Clarence, voted to join CWA. They voted for a union voice despite threats from the company.

After two regional directors issued complaints against Cablevision, and elected officials and community activists rallied around the 22 workers, the workers were reinstated.

Now Cablevision has filed a suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asking the court to stop the Board from pursuing complaints against it. The company claims that decisions made by the Board and its New York and Brooklyn regions are invalid.

"Working people need the NLRB. It's the only way to enforce the law and get companies like Cablevision to do the right thing. Without the NLRB, we're nowhere. Cablevision won't bargain fairly and there won't be any agency that can make it bargain. I don't want to lose my job again and have no protection. We need a fully functioning NLRB."

TYRONE RIGGS
CNN

Tyrone Riggs worked at CNN and Team Video Services for 14 years before he and his co-workers were terminated in 2003. CNN fired 110 workers outright and all 250 workers, even those whom CNN kept on, lost bargaining rights, wages and benefits and their union.

Riggs was forced to reapply for his job; he was replaced by a nonunion worker. "This was the week before Christmas 2003. I have two sons, they were 12 and 9 when this happened. I lost my home, I lost vehicles, I lost my health."

In November 2008, an NLRB judge ruled that CNN violated federal law and had discriminated against employees who tried to get work at other CNN bureaus. The judge's order was clear: CNN must reinstate all 110 workers who were fired, and restore working conditions, lost earnings and other benefits to all 250 employees who worked for Team Video Services.

Riggs said, "I was out of work for about two years, then picked up some freelance work at another network. I'm working now part-time at the House of Representatives recording studio.

"When I'm working on the House floor, I hear members of Congress talk about 'what they're here to do for the American people.' Well, I'm the American people and I have been 10 years waiting for justice.

"I'm hoping we all can get justice and that we all can put our lives back together, financially as well as mentally."

DEBORAH ZABARENKO,
TNG-CWA Local 31003
Thomson Reuters

The NLRB protects workers' right to discuss their working conditions with colleagues, whether in person or on social media.

Deborah Zabarenko is a 27 year-employee and reporter with Thomson Reuters. During contract negotiations between the Newspaper Guild and Thomson Reuters, Zabarenko was officially reprimanded by her bureau chief for tweeting that the company should deal honestly with the Guild.

Her reprimand came even as management encouraged reporters to use Twitter to discuss how to make Reuters the best place to work.

Zabarenko had a way to fight. The NLRB investigated and found that her right to communicate with her colleagues about working conditions had been violated. As a result, Thomson Reuters negotiated a new social media policy with TNG-CWA that makes clear workers can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to discuss working conditions.

JEN TRAVIS,
CWA Local 13000
Verizon

Jen Travis of Pittsburgh, a 15-year Verizon employee and mother of three with a perfect record at work, was one of 85 Verizon strikers who were suspended or fired after CWA's two-week strike against the company in the summer of 2011.

Jen did her part to support the cause during the strike, and did picket line duty. Verizon claimed the 5'2" mom, with one of her children in tow, kicked a manager. The company suspended and then fired her. She then was out of work for 14 months. She went into debt and suffered health issues due to the stress.

The NLRB investigated and filed a complaint against Verizon for illegally firing Jen and her co-workers. When CWA settled the Verizon contract in 2012, Jen got her job back.

NEGEDE ASSEFA,
CWA Local 7777
Super Shuttle

"Thanks to the NLRB, I have my job and I have my union," said Negede Assefa.

Working conditions at Super Shuttle in Denver were grim. "SuperShuttle would just fire people, left and right without any excuse because they didn't like you. Management was verbally abusive. We were constantly getting fined and written up for no good reason."

Everything was controlled by the company.

"So we approached CWA to see how we could improve our working conditions. And we decided the best way to do this was to prove we are employees -- not just independent contractors -- and to get organized and get a real contract.

"It only took a day and a half to get our petition filed. But soon the company started to figure out who was behind the organizing campaign."

Assefa was fired, and drivers still on the job were hit with huge increases in franchise fees, from $1,000 to $3,500, to penalize them for wanting to join CWA. SuperShuttle tried to block the drivers from forming a union by claiming they were "independent contractors," but the NLRB found otherwise.

About eight months, the drivers overwhelmingly voted for CWA. CWA prevailed in seven unfair labor practice complaints filed against management, and the NLRB ordered Super Shuttle to refund the drivers $65,000 in franchising fees.

"I got my job back after the NLRB decided I had been terminated just because my union activity. That's why the NLRB is so important."

ROBERT NELSON
California Institute of
Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory

In 2011, Robert M. Nelson and other scientists at CalTech's NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory were issued letters of the highest level disciplinary reprimand for using their NASA email accounts to discuss the implications of a recent Supreme Court decision on the working conditions at the lab.

The scientists had filed a lawsuit and won a temporary injunction in federal court to stop CalTech's "unconstrained and intrusive background investigations into the most intimate details of our private lives." Because they used JPL's internal email system to argue their case to colleagues, "six of us received the highest level of disciplinary reprimand from our employer, the California Institute of Technology, which administers the JPL contract with NASA," Nelson said.

The scientists then filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board which found Caltech to have committed an unfair labor practice. Caltech appealed, but earlier this year an administrative law judge ruled that Caltech was indeed in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. The judge ruled that employees could use an open company email system to communicate with other employees about the nature and conditions of their employment. Without the support of the NL RB, "Caltech would have been free to issue a gag order against all communications between employees -- a truly bizarre situation for Caltech which prides itself as a research institute dedicated to free and open inquiry," Nelson said.