(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Most employers continue to engage in coercive and retaliatory practices to limit Union Activity, a Cornell University Researcher told the U.S. House of Representatives Labor Committee in testimony.

Kate Bronfenbrenner, who serves as Cornell University’s Industrial Labor Relations (ILR) Director of Labor Education Research, discussed preliminary findings from Waiting To Organize: Employer Opposition In NLRB Elections, 2016-2021 - an analysis of employer behavior in 286 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-monitored elections where Workers vote for or against a Union supervised by the NLRB.

Bronfenbrenner presented the paper, co-authored by ILR Alumni Katy Habr and Victor Yengle, as well as Master’s Student Anders Rhodin, at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth conference in mid-September. 

According to the new data, where employers ran Anti-Union Campaigns: 74% of employers brought in one or more management consultants to run the campaigns; 85% of employers forced Workers to attend mandatory captive audience meetings during work hours; 71% of employers had supervisors regularly talk with Workers one-on-one about the campaign; 44% of employers used the meetings to interrogate Workers about their or others’ support for the Union; 32% of employers used the meetings to threaten Workers; 45% of employers threatened Workers with plant closings, outsourcing or contracting out of their work; 49% of employers made promises for workplace improvement in return for not supporting the Union; 36% of employers surveilled Workers using cameras, Social Media, phones and key cards; 23% of employers offered bribes and special favors to Workers for not supporting the Union; 16% of employers discharged Union Activists; 31% of employers ran an aggressive campaign using 10 or more Anti-Union tactics; and 32% of Workers in units where the election was won by the Union do not have a first contract four years after the election.

“The current NLRB is making a courageous effort to restrain the most egregious violators, but they have neither the funding nor the enforcement powers to curtail illegal behavior,” Bronfenbrenner said.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/09/testimony-congress-outlines-employer-anti-union-efforts

And For More, Read: Workers’ Rights Institute Director Testifies at Congressional Hearing on Labor Organizing At www.law.georgetown.edu/news/workers-rights-institute-director-testifies-at-congressional-hearing-on-labor-organizing/