Are Neutrality Agreements Legal and Enforceable?
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) is expected to rule this fall on the legality of “neutrality agreements” – a device used extensively by unions to successfully organize employees in lieu of the NLRB secret ballot election process.
A typical neutrality agreement between an employer and a union commits the employer to “remain neutral” while the union attempts to organize the employees and further commits the employer to recognize the union if it obtains signed membership cards from a majority of the employees rather than having the matter submitted to a secret ballot election under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Board.
In fact, the employer is hardly “neutral.” It is effectively muzzled from telling its employees some basic unpleasant truths about unions and unionization. Furthermore, under many such agreements, the employer agrees to help the union organize by, e.g. furnishing a list of its employees, their classifications and their home addresses to the union; permitting the union to talk to the employees on the company’s premises, etc.
Why would an employer agree to such commitments? The answer lies in the granting by the union of some “benefit” of importance to the employer such as an agreement not to organize other employees of the employer at the same or other facilities; not to seek certain employee benefits, or increases in existing ones; to assure to the employer that certain “flexibilities” in its operations will not be restricted in the collective bargaining process, etc.
Neutrality agreements are not unlike “backroom” political deals which deprive the electorate of important voting rights. The only interests served by neutrality agreements are those of the employer and the union. The employees are not even at the table. Yet important employee rights to refrain from organizing and the fundamental right to have their future decided by an NLRB secret ballot election rather than by their employer and a minority union are ignored, and hence, eliminated by people intent on pursuing their own agendas.
Clearly an NLRB decision in favor of neutrality agreements would eviscerate the fundamental rights of employees to self-organize or refuse to do so pursuant to Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), thus eliminating the NLRA as a future force in American labor relations.
For more information, contact Will Manuel at wmanuel@bradleyarant.com
