Court Victories Could End Card-Check Scheme

Court Victories Could End Card-Check Scheme

Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism scheme is based on a simple carrot-and-stick approach. The prize for labor union bosses is a thing often referred to as a “neutrality agreement” – an employer agrees to give away employees’ rights to hold a secret ballot certification election and provides the employees’ personal information to union bosses.  A major flaw in this Card Check scheme is that the so-called “neutrality agreement” creates an inescapable “thing of value” and violates the Taft-Hartley Act.  Now, the Eleventh Circuit Court has repeatedly agreed that this neutrality agreement indeed violated the law.

In what is likely another National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation precedent-setting case, Mulhall v. UNITE HERE, the court held:

“that organizing assistance can be a thing of value that, if demanded or given as payment, could constitute a violation of § 302.” The majority reasoned that “ground rules for an organizing campaign . . . can become illegal payments if used as valuable consideration in a scheme to corrupt a union or to extort a benefit from an employer.”

Two amicus curiae briefs in support of the union’s petition for rehearing were subsequently filed and rejected, one by the AFL-CIO and other unions and the second by the Obama Administration.  The Obama Administration’s attempts to slow this case down before it goes before the Supreme Court, should UNITE-HERE request Supreme Court review, were quickly rejected by the 11th Circuit Court.

UNITE HERE union bosses have until July 24th to seek the Supreme Court’s review of the case.  Should the Supreme Court hear the case and agree with the 11th Circuit’s position, the Card Check scheme will effectively become neutralized.

(click here for a summary of the NRTW case)

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