Business Unfairly Fire Union Organizers… or Maybe not

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Center for Union Facts has done some research to dispel a common union lie. Union activists claim that businesses unfairly fire workers attempting to organize the work place and that this is a contributing factor in why unions are falling in membership. Apparently, however, this claim does not seem to compare well with the truth as a new booklet from the CUF reveals.

Since its peak in the 1950s, union membership in the private sector has steadily dropped. To explain the decline, labor leaders have scapegoated businesses for intimidating employees during organizing campaigns. To justify the claim, they cite statistics from union-affiliated researchers which suggest that a significant number of employees are fired in the organizing process. But data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) do not—in any way—substantiate the notion that tens of thousands of employees are wrongly fired each year.

By logically linking organizing campaigns with Unfair Labor Practices, we determined that only 2.7 percent of union organizing campaigns feature an employee illegally fired (and offered reinstatement, typically with back pay). Furthermore, we demonstrate that other research on the subject relies on outdated assumptions that do not represent current NLRB data on the issue.

Download the whole booklet in pdf format HERE.


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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston


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