Union-Free! MC Custom Sheet Metal Celebrates

Union-free!  Fifteen months after being served with a National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) petition for representation, MC Custom Sheet Metal of West Berlin, NJ is union-free! The Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers, Local 19 (“Local 19”) disclaimed interest and abandoned the bargaining unit on July 16, 2019.

History

Mike Car founded MC Custom Sheet Metal Fabrication, Inc. in 1985 in West Berlin, New Jersey. The company conducted business union-free for thirty-three (33) years.  Franchi Holdings, Inc. acquired the company in 2013, and on March 27, 2018, after a “salting” campaign MC Custom lost an NLRB-held union representation election.

What is “Salting”

“Salting” is when a union sends paid union organizers to illicitly apply for work with a contractor and attempt to get hired.  “Salts” apply for jobs, but not to actually work for the company.  Their only objective is unionizing that company, and they use many tactics simultaneously.  First, as an employee, they are now an automatic union vote.  Second, they work to sow discord in the employee ranks most often by spreading rumors and lies.  Third, “salts” engage in activities protected under the law such as picketing and other protests, but just as often, they engage in behavior that is at best questionably legal.  This includes engaging in secondary boycotts, unlawful slowdowns, blue flu call-ins, and distributing libelous and slanderous statements about the company.

Local 19 and MC Custom

MC Custom’s “salts” engaged in a tried and true method of organizing, namely proliferating lies and empty promises.  Employees began to complain after the union’s lies were revealed, and its promises remained unfulfilled after a year of good faith bargaining by the company.

On June 19, 2019, the employees filed a decertification petition with the NLRB asking it to hold an election to remove the union as the representative of MC Custom’s employees thus making the company union-free again!.  The union polled the workers and realized it no longer had the support of the workforce.  It disclaimed interest in the bargaining unit, and it walked away from the workers.  It chose this action instead of facing what was sure to be a landslide loss at the ballot box.

NLRA’s Three (3) Step Bargaining Strategy

NLRA and its three (3) step bargaining strategy set the stage for MC to become union-free.  NLRA ensures no union ever forces or bullies a company into unacceptable contract terms and it protects the company.  The company doesn’t agree to a bad deal, and employees gain critical time to feel buyer’s remorse over their choice.

Step One – Agree to Bargain

A union that wins an NLRB election only wins the right to bargain collectively over terms and conditions of employment.  It does not win automatic increases, nor does it win automatic power.

The first reaction to many companies after a union loss is to refuse to bargain with the union.  The union has just executed a hostile takeover of the company workforce, but refusing to bargain is the wrong move.  Here’s why.

United States law requires that both parties must bargain.   Refusing to bargain is a plain violation of the law.

Step Two – Bargain in Good Faith

The law also requires both the union and the company to bargain in good faith.  Good faith has many requirements.  Generally, the parties must meet at reasonable times and intervals with an intent to reach an agreement.  The parties must make proposals and counter-proposals and respond to the same from the other, but cannot engage in “surface bargaining”.  Parties are guilty of surface bargaining when their actions frustrate bargaining or prevent the reaching of an agreement.

Step Three – Bargain Hard

The United States Supreme Court in H.K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 391 U.S. 99, 104 (1970) held: “It must be stressed that the duty to bargain collectively with a union does not carry a duty to reach agreement.”  The U.S. Court of Appeals held “just as surely as an employer may increase benefits in bargaining, he may take them away.”

This is the final piece on the employer’s bargaining arsenal.  These cases have been the law of the land for almost forty years, and they protect a company from a bad union contract.  Translated, these cases say a company may legally refuse to agree to any terms of a collective bargaining proposal that are not in its best interest!

This was the formula that allowed MC Custom to return to the union-free status it enjoyed for thirty-plus years and as a result, employees regained control of their working lives.  NLRA negotiators James Allen and Nathan Sweet met with Local 19, bargained in good faith, and held to the best interests of the company.  The inevitable frustration over the union’s broken, empty promises set the stage for decertification of the union.

MC Custom, Union Free, & NLRA’s Role

False Accusations

It is unlawful for any employer or any agent or representative of the employer to encourage or assist employees in the decertification of a union.  The union leveled these allegations at MC, and it filed several unfair labor practice charges to block the employee’s petition.  However, the NLRB’s Philadelphia Regional Office investigated and it determined the charges did not have the substance and facts necessary to block the employee’s petition.

True Villain

The real culprit in Local 19’s fall from grace with the employees – the union.  It was not some trumped-up allegation of unlawful assistance or some imagined illicit meddling by the employer.  It was the union’s incompetent, impersonal representation of those employees.  The union refused communication with several MC Custom employees because it considered them “too old.”  The union created a toxic recipe and it cooked its future at MC Custom!

More False Promises

MC Custom retained NLRA shortly following its election loss to the union.  MC indicated an openness to an agreement with the union, and the owner met several times with union leaders as bargaining was getting underway.  The union leadership made multiple promises of millions of dollars in purchase contracts for the company.  However, before providing any of the promised information, the union demanded the company sign its master agreement.  Finally, the union admitted its intention not to provide any details, but rather asked MC to trust them!  Therefore, the promises proved to be nothing but hot air just like the heatwave of the summer of 2019.

The union’s promises to company ownership proved to empty even more than its promises to the workers.  MC Custom asked NLRA what it could do because signing the master agreement was not an option.  The master agreement forces companies to raise prices on goods to cover exorbitant union wages and as a result, alienate customers.  MC determined to protect its customer base of thirty-plus years!

NLRA’s Union Free Strategy for MC

NLRA responded with its Three-Step Strategy.  It met with the union several times, bargained in good faith, and it refused to make any agreements that were not in the company’s best interests.

Several times throughout the bargaining process the union verbally accused the company of bad faith.  It made veiled threats against the company and even picketed an unrelated business venture of the owner.  The union engaged in all these efforts to intimidate MC into signing the master agreement.

MC stood strong and it weathered all these impotent attempts to convince it to forfeit its rights.  It was the union that was guilty of bad faith bargaining because it refused to consider any company proposal.  It was the union that engaged in an unlawful secondary boycott of an unrelated business, and it was the union that discriminated against MC’s older employees.

NLRA defended MC’s rights at the bargaining table, and it was this course that was key to allowing the employees to see the truth of Local 19.  NLRA’s tactics complied to the letter of the law.

The Union’s Deception and Fall

Local 19’s organizers acted like proverbial used car salesmen.  A little shiny wax and a great tale about the union all designed to get the employees to buy (vote for) what it was selling.  The employees voted for the union, and as a result of the sales pitch, they locked into that status for one year.

The employees fell victim to the old bait and switch, so when they took the union experience for a spin it was less than satisfying.  The experience proved to be a broken-down, unreliable, lemon.  However, like the rash of “lemon laws” passed over the last several decades, federal law has an equivalent in the union context.  The employees exercised their right to cancel the “purchase” of the union as their representative.  Sorry Local 19, but in this case – NO SALE!

Conclusion

Congratulations to the employees of MC Custom Sheet Metal.  The NLRB heard their voices, and as a result, they are free to work and grow with the company absent union interference and discrimination.  Here’s to many productive and successful years of creating quality merchandise in a merit-based shop.

Have you recently lost a union election, but you want to know your options moving forward?  Have you been unionized for awhile and wish to be union-free, but you do not know where to start? Reach out to NLRA today.  The process to become union-free must be done carefully and correctly, but it is not a pipe dream. When done correctly you will have the full force of the law behind you.  For this or any of your labor relations needs, click here or call 844-4-NO-UNION [844-466-8646].