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NLRB Orders New Election at Chinese Daily News
In a decision that has left a workforce of 150 Asian immigrant workers wondering why the laws in the United States don't support them, the National Labor Relations Board has ordered that a date be set for a new representation election for workers at the Chinese Daily News in Monterey Park, Calif., more than four years after their initial election victory.
CWA's reaction: This is a case of justice delayed - and denied for far too long - by a dysfunctional labor law system.
The Chinese Daily News workers, after a vicious antiunion campaign, chose representation by The Newspaper Guild-CWA on March 19, 2001 by a vote of 78-63, with seven challenged ballots.
Management appealed the vote, challenging the makeup of the bargaining unit and claiming specifically that the election was tainted by Book Department Group Leader Ching Shan Lin soliciting authorization cards from the seven workers whose votes it challenged.
The hearing officer in NLRB Region 21 found no objectionable conduct on Lin's part, nor found merit with management's other allegations. After the appeal was denied, the Chinese Daily News appealed to the national board in Washington.
The case languished there for almost four years. Finally, with the normally five-member board down to three because of unfilled vacancies, two Republican appointees seized as precedent a recent board decision - not even in existence at the time of the Chinese Daily News election - as the basis for ruling that Lin had indeed tainted the election.
The one dissenting member, Wilma Liebman, wrote that it was wrong for the board to apply the new decision retroactively. She concluded that the Chinese Daily News case should have been remanded to Region 21 to resolve the ballot challenges, noting that even if they had been resolved in management's favor, there weren't enough to overturn the original election. Ordering a new election, she wrote, "is contrary to the often-cited (NLRB) principle that representation elections should not lightly be set aside."
"So, management has had four more years to harass and intimidate workers who should have long ago had their union," said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen. "This is a prime example of why our labor election system is broken and why we need to make company neutrality and card-check recognition the law of the land through the Employee Free Choice Act."
The positives for the workers in the decision, said TNG-CWA President Linda Foley, are that "the board agreed that the employer's numerous objections to the hearing officer's decisions were spurious, and that the organizing committee can hold its head high and remind the workers they would have won if the board had not changed the rules midstream."
The workers still have a tough fight ahead of them. Throughout the four years the case sat with the NLRB, the Chinese Daily News instilled fear by punishing union leaders. By the end of 2004 it had spent over $600,000 in consulting fees with Labor Information Services, a union-busting law firm also known as the Burke Group.
CWA's reaction: This is a case of justice delayed - and denied for far too long - by a dysfunctional labor law system.
The Chinese Daily News workers, after a vicious antiunion campaign, chose representation by The Newspaper Guild-CWA on March 19, 2001 by a vote of 78-63, with seven challenged ballots.
Management appealed the vote, challenging the makeup of the bargaining unit and claiming specifically that the election was tainted by Book Department Group Leader Ching Shan Lin soliciting authorization cards from the seven workers whose votes it challenged.
The hearing officer in NLRB Region 21 found no objectionable conduct on Lin's part, nor found merit with management's other allegations. After the appeal was denied, the Chinese Daily News appealed to the national board in Washington.
The case languished there for almost four years. Finally, with the normally five-member board down to three because of unfilled vacancies, two Republican appointees seized as precedent a recent board decision - not even in existence at the time of the Chinese Daily News election - as the basis for ruling that Lin had indeed tainted the election.
The one dissenting member, Wilma Liebman, wrote that it was wrong for the board to apply the new decision retroactively. She concluded that the Chinese Daily News case should have been remanded to Region 21 to resolve the ballot challenges, noting that even if they had been resolved in management's favor, there weren't enough to overturn the original election. Ordering a new election, she wrote, "is contrary to the often-cited (NLRB) principle that representation elections should not lightly be set aside."
"So, management has had four more years to harass and intimidate workers who should have long ago had their union," said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen. "This is a prime example of why our labor election system is broken and why we need to make company neutrality and card-check recognition the law of the land through the Employee Free Choice Act."
The positives for the workers in the decision, said TNG-CWA President Linda Foley, are that "the board agreed that the employer's numerous objections to the hearing officer's decisions were spurious, and that the organizing committee can hold its head high and remind the workers they would have won if the board had not changed the rules midstream."
The workers still have a tough fight ahead of them. Throughout the four years the case sat with the NLRB, the Chinese Daily News instilled fear by punishing union leaders. By the end of 2004 it had spent over $600,000 in consulting fees with Labor Information Services, a union-busting law firm also known as the Burke Group.