The Scum of the Earth: Union Busting Lawyers

Anti-union lawyers and consultants like Goldschmidt are big business here in Portland. Employers first hire them to fight off organizing campaigns. Once the union is in place, the lawyers do battle with workers at the bargaining table. And even in stable union workplaces, union busters lurk in the shadows, constantly strategizing about how to keep workers down.

The Scum of the Earth: Union Busting Lawyers

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Last month, Portland Public Schools' Superintendent Vickie Phillips caused quite a ruckus by firing Steve Goldschmidt, Executive Director of Human Resources for the District. Much of the commotion was caused by celebrating teachers, support staff, and district unions, who were oh-so-happy to see Goldschmidt get canned. In addition to leaching about $180,000 a year from the district in salary, annuities, and bonuses, Goldschmidt is responsible for the near-strike in 2002. And of course there's the little matter of contracting out the janitorial services at PPS, which cost about 300 workers their family-wage jobs.

Not that Goldschmidt's nasty record begins at PPS... in fact he has a long history of representing school districts in Oregon- including leading the Eugene district in the longest teacher's strike in state history back in 1987. Given these facts, it's easy to see how many district employees think Goldschmidt was hired for a very specific purpose- to break up their unions.

Yep, that's right: he's a union buster. And he's not alone. Anti-union lawyers and consultants like Goldschmidt are big business here in Portland. Employers first hire them to fight off organizing campaigns. Once the union is in place, the lawyers do battle with workers at the bargaining table. And even in stable union workplaces, union busters lurk in the shadows, constantly strategizing about how to keep workers down.

An excellent introduction to the art of union busting is found in the book "Confessions of a Union Buster", written by former buster Martin Levitt. Levitt has planned and executed union busting campaigns at more than 250 businesses across America- from coalmines and factories to airlines and nursing homes. At the height of his very lucrative union-busting career however, Levitt experienced a moral awakening that led him to renounce his very dirty profession. Driven "by horror and remorse", he decided to write a memoir exposing the secret world of union busting to the public.

"Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit", Levitt writes in his prologue. He continues, "A campaign against a union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth... the only way to bust a union is to lie, distort manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack. "

Portland resident Carrie Schneider knows what it's like to be under attack from a union buster. She is a teachers' assistant at the newly organized Early Head Start Family Center of Portland. The organizing campaign lasted for eight months, ending in a landslide election victory last June. Leading the failed anti-union campaign for Early Head Start was local union buster Jackie Damn, of the dreaded Bullard Smith Jernstedt firm. You may remember this firm from such campaigns as Boydston and the Parry Center.

We recently spoke with Carrie and her union organizer, Megan, about their successful battle with a union buster. Based on their experiences, with a little help from Levitt, we then put together the following section describing the many aspects of union busting.

CONTROL:

"The former Executive Director of Early Head Start, Cynthia Wells, fought the organizing drive aggressively, using all the tricks in the book" begins Megan. Carrie agrees, saying "She didn't support our organizing efforts because, as she put it, she wanted to continue to do "what she wanted, when she wanted, and she wasn't about to let some union come in and try to tell her how to do her job."

According to Levitt, this "lust for control" is exactly what moves executives to fight off unions. The purpose of his job as a union buster, writes Levitt, was to make sure that "management would continue to wield absolute control over its workers." To achieve this goal, Levitt learns that it was essential "to gain complete control of a company the moment I walked in the door." It's an ironic statement," comments Megan, "because a common refrain in the anti-union chorus goes something like 'we don't need an outside, third party telling us what's best.'"

MONEY:

As we saw with Goldschmidt, union busters make big bucks! Levitt charged his clients $1000 per day, plus a $10,000 retainer, travel/lodging expenses, and an openended food and drink tab. Early Head Start racked up $50,000 bill for the services of Jackie Damn, whose firm bills between 215 and 295 dollars an hour, before the Board of Directors finally interceded, forcing Ms. Wells to dismiss her attorney and end the hearing quickly. "A critical piece of the workers' campaign was our community organizing. We worked hard to gain the support of the city council, religious leaders, and other stakeholders and channeled that into public pressure on the agency.

It finally paid off when Cynthia Wells had to represent herself on the final day of the hearing," remembers Megan. Employers will often explain this expense by admitting that they know very little about unions and want to be sure that they are upholding all legal obligations. They will use the legal advice to provide employees with important "updates" that emphasize the complications and the ambiguity in law. It is so sweet that workers have employers who are willing to do this difficult research for them so that they are "fully informed on this matter."

DELAY DELAY DELAY:

The process outlined by the NLRB for obtaining a union election seems simple on paper. The union must show that 30% of the workers support organizing and want to be represented for the purposes of collective bargaining. After filing this evidence, usually in the form of 'authorization cards,' with a formal petition, the wait begins for several steps the board must take to confirm which employees will be included and how the election will take place. The employer must agree with the unit as the union defines it or object and trigger a hearing by a board agent.

In the case of Early Head Start, the hearing dragged on for five weeks while Ms. Damn argued that the teachers, close to 1/3 of the bargaining unit, were really supervisors and therefore exempt from voting. Carrie remembers the excitement of talking to her coworkers and gathering enough authorization cards to move forward, and then the stagnation that followed. "It was nearly four months after we filed for an election before a voting date was set. Management did not deserve this extended period of time to intimidate us or try to wear down our resolve."

She points out the tragic efficiency of delay as union busting tool- "the ol' wait 'em out" routine. Thirteen employees (just over ten percent), almost all union supporters, left the agency during the course of the campaign. Management's campaign makes work even more stressful! Megan explained, "the employer will use the days before the election to pressure, stretch, guilt, and harass workers incessantly. That is why most unions will not file for an election unless they are sure that the vast majority of workers are supportive- losing some votes is a sure bet."

DIVIDE AND CONQUER:

It is important to recognize that while union organizers cannot talk to employees at their workplace, paid consultants like Levitt have unlimited worksite access. Levitt discusses at length his strategy of control during an anti-union campaign. The first part of the formula was to immediately recruit and retrain all supervisors to be his anti-union foot soldiers. Levitt uses a combination of group meetings and frequent individual interviews to convince supervisors that it is their responsibility to squash the union. He wants the supervisors to see the union organizing drive as a personal attack on their leadership, and tells them repeatedly that "the workers will not be voting for or against a union, but for or against management, including all of you."

Once Levitt has the supervisors under his control, he uses them to deliver his anti-union "fact-sheets" to their subordinates, asks them to make subtle threats to the workers, and forces them to spy on union supporters. Those supervisors who do not play ball with Levitt are put under immense pressure, made to feel humiliated, and sometimes fired by the Boss. At Early Head Start, Ms. Wells drew her own line in the sand. Those managers who crossed it, and sided with the workers, were forced to "resign" under serious pressure. Later in the campaign they wrote letters to the EHS Board of Directors describing Cynthia's irresponsibility as director of the program.

MAKE IT PERSONAL:

After the campaign became public at EHS, Ms. Wells wasted no time before attacking the vocal union support- ers. At the first all staff training she lost her composure in a heated discussion with her employees, claiming, "don't think that I don't know exactly who is involved in this. I know exactly who you are." She openly announced one employee who had been routinely harassed at work was looking for another job. Her comments had two objectives, to instill fears about job security and to morally isolate the 'troublemakers' as those who do not care about the children and families Head Start serves.

Her efforts to paint the workers on the organizing committee as bad eggs who just want more money came as no surprise to Megan, who explains the ruse. "As much as we tried to prepare them for the boss's campaign against them, Ms. Wells' hateful and inflammatory attitude still shocked them." When teachers at one EHS site wrote and distributed a thoughtful grievance about the episode, Ms Wells' response was equally manipulative. She wrote: "It would be my hope that you reconsider your current position and join the growing list of employees who prefer to work together to build a strong healthy program based on mutual respect."

During the NLRB hearing, Ms Damn's calculated questions brought workers to tears. Megan describes how the whole spectacle seemed designed to demean the workers and question the integrity of the union. "It was an emotional experience for everyone and very tense. It did not have to be that way. Wanting to be part of a union to gain a voice at work isn't personal; it is smart. Yet at every opportunity the employer chose to obstruct the process and redirect the focus onto individuals."

CONSEQUENCES

Surely these nefarious tactics are frowned upon by the authorities? What is the recourse for workers when employers go wild? A long-term labor union attorney in the Northwest spoke to Firebrand about the NLRB process. "It is almost impossible to use the NLRB as a positive device," he says. The ease with which management's side can delay the process, the political nature of the appointed board, and the lack of appropriate remedy for violations means the NLRB offers little protection for workers. It is a burdensome process. "The law does not protect against lies."

For Carrie, "the biggest shock of the campaign for me was the fundamental difference between labor law, and what I'd always imagined law to be. It seems that some people will follow a law only when the perceived consequences of not following the law are sufficiently severe and the prospect of posting a falsely contrite notice on an office door is pretty fucking tame."

It is up to us to expose the busters and their clients.
Ken Beamus
Jackie Damn
Dean Zografos
Kathy Peck
Aiken Blitz

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From Firebrand No 3

Firebrand is a newspaper for rank and file workers in Portland. It's aims are building the power of rank and file workers and fighting the bureaucrats, bosses, and politicians who are our enemies.

To view the paper online, go to www.nafederation.org or download the PDF version from http://www.nafederation.org/issuethree.pdf

Firebrand is a publication of the Firebrand Collective, a member collective of the Northwest Anarchist Federation.