Washington, DC – On February 8, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, along with six other employer organizations, filed an amicus brief before the NLRB on a case against Starbucks in which the Board’s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is attempting to eliminate employer speech rights in union organizing drives as well as employees’ right to secret ballots in union representation elections. CDW’s brief condemns the General Counsel’s proposed changes for violating the National Labor Relations Act, the First Amendment, and numerous judicial decisions affirming these fundamental rights.

The following statement can be attributed to CDW Chair Kristen Swearingen:

“The NLRB’s General Counsel wants to force unions on employees who have voted against union representation and silence any debate on the merits of a particular union or union representation generally. In her brief in this case, the General Counsel is demanding that the Board abandon decades of settled law and bring back policies that were soundly rejected by prior Boards, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Not only are the arguments she makes without legal foundation, but the substantive policies she’s pursuing are fundamentally at odds with employees’ right to make an informed choice by secret ballot election, the NLRA’s legislative history, and the First Amendment.

“The Supreme Court, Board, and Congress have routinely protected employees’ right to secret ballot elections, acknowledging that a private ballot election following ‘robust debate’ is by far the best means of ensuring workers can freely choose whether or not they want union representation. The Supreme Court has said our labor laws favor ‘uninhibited robust, and wide-open debate in labor disputes’ and that ‘secret elections are generally the most satisfactory – indeed the preferred – method of ascertaining whether a union has majority support.’ Congress has rejected attempts to eliminate secret ballots in union elections and supported free debate, and President John F. Kennedy said it is essential the law provide for union election campaigns ‘in which both parties can present their viewpoints.’

“The General Counsel is seeking to use her political position to do an end run around the Supreme Court and Congress to force unions on employees that don’t want them and end debate on issues that should be debated. The Board should unequivocally reject this outrageous ideological crusade.”

The fellow amici on the brief were Associated Builders and Contractors, the Chamber of Commerce, Independent Electrical Contractors, International Foodservice Distributors Association, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, and National Retail Federation.