Good laboratory practice

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_laboratory_practice 

In the experimental (non-clinical) research arena, good laboratory practice or GLP is a quality system of management controls for research laboratories and organizations to ensure the uniformity, consistency, reliability, reproducibility, quality, and integrity of products in development for human or animal health (including pharmaceuticals) through non-clinical safety tests; from physio-chemical properties through acute to chronic toxicity tests.

GLP was first introduced in New Zealand and Denmark in 1972, and later in the US in 1978 in response to the Industrial BioTest Labs scandal. It was followed a few years later by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Principles of GLP in 1992; the OECD has since helped promulgate GLP to many countries.

GLP applies to non-clinical studies conducted for the assessment of the safety or efficacy of products in development (including pharmaceuticals) for people, animals, and the environment. GLP, a data and operational quality system, is not the same as standards for laboratory safety - appropriate gloves, glasses and clothing to handle lab materials safely. The principles of GLP aim to ensure and promote safety, consistency, high quality, and reliability of chemicals in the process of non-clinical and laboratory testing. GLP is not limited to chemicals and also applies to medical devices, food additives, food packaging, colour additives, animal food additives, other non-pharmaceutical products or ingredients, biological products, and electronic products.

History

GLP was first introduced in New Zealand and Denmark in 1972. GLP was instituted in US following cases of fraud generated by toxicology labs in data submitted to the FDA by pharmaceutical companies. Industrial BioTest Labs (IBT) was the most notable case, where thousands of safety tests for chemical manufacturers were falsely claimed to have been performed or were so poor that police investigators could not piece together what work had been done...even though IBT superficially delivered the test results their contracts with the manufacturers specified.

These issues were made public in the hearings at the US Congress, which led to the FDA's publication of Proposed Regulations on GLP in 1976, with establishment of the Final Rule in June 1979 (21 CFR 58). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had also encountered similar problems in data submitted to it, and issued its own draft GLP regulations in 1979 and 1980, publishing the Final Rules in two separate parts (40 CFR 160 and 40 CFR 792) in 1983.

The OECD

Following Decision C(97),186/Final of the OECD Council, data generated in the testing of chemicals in one OECD Member Country, in accordance with OECD Test Guidelines and the Principles of GLP are accepted in all other OECD Member Countries. OECD: ENV/MC/CHEM(98)17 part two

GLP is a quality system concerned with the organizational process and conditions under which non-clinical health and environmental safety studies are planned, performed, monitored, recorded, archived and reported.

GLP principles include

1. Organization and Personnel
   • Management-Responsibilities
   • Sponsor-Responsibilities
   • Study Director-Responsibilities
   • Principal Investigator-Responsibilities
   • Study Personnel-Responsibilities
2. Quality assurance program
   • Quality Assurance Personnel
3. Facilities
   • Test System Facilities
   • Facilities for Test and Reference Items
4. Equipment, reagents and materials
5. Test systems
   • Physical/Chemical
   • Biological
6. Test and reference items
7. Standard operating procedures
8. Performance of study
   • Study Plan
   • Conduct of Study
9. Reporting of results
10. Archival - Storage of Records and Reports

OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals

OECD publishes OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals, which are guidelines that usually have to be followed for GLP compliance. They are widely required by agencies doing risk assessments of chemicals.

The US FDA

The United States FDA has rules for GLP in 21CFR58. Preclinical trials on animals in the United States of America use these rules prior to clinical research in humans.

Research in the US not conducted under these restrictions or research done outside US not conducted according to the OECD Guidelines (or FDA rules) might be inadmissible in support of a New Drug Application in the US.

European Union

Since 1987 the European Council had adopted two basic Directives and a Decision relating to the application of the GLP principles. Directive 2004/10/EC has replaced Directive 87/017/EEC as of 11 March 2004; Directive 2004/9/EC has replaced Directive 88/320/EEC as of 11 March 2004.

• " Directive 2004/10/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 on the harmonisation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the application of the principles of good laboratory practice and the verification of their applications for tests on chemical substances."

This directive lays down the obligation of the Member States to designate the authorities responsible for GLP inspections in their territory. It also comprises requirements for reporting and for the internal market (i.e., mutual acceptance of data).

• " Directive 2004/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 on the inspection and verification of good laboratory practice (GLP)".

The Directive requires that the OECD Revised Guides for Compliance Monitoring Procedures for GLP and the OECD Guidance for the Conduct of Test Facility Inspections and Study Audits must be followed during laboratory inspections and study audits.

• 89/569/EEC Council Decision of 28 July 1989 on the acceptance by the European Economic Community of an OECD decision / recommendation on compliance with principles of good laboratory practice.

There are also 'Product Oriented Directives' referring to GLP obligations:

• REACH Regulation of 18 December 2006 and Directive 2006/121/EC of 18 December 2006
• Medicinal products; Directive 2001/83/EC on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use of 6 November 2001 as amended by Commission Directive 2003/63/EC
• Veterinary Medicinal Products; Directive 2001/82/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 November 2001 on the Community code relating to veterinary medicinal products
• Cosmetics; Council Directive 93/35/EEC amending for the 6th time directive 76/768/EEC
• Feedingstuffs; Regulation (EC) No 1831/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2003 on additives for use in animal nutrition
• Foodstuffs; Directive 89/107/EEC
• Novel Foods and novel food ingredients; Regulation (EC) No 258/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 1997 concerning novel foods and novel food ingredients
• Pesticides; Council Directive 91/414/EEC of 15 July 1991 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market
• Biocides; Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 1998 concerning the placing of biocidal products on the market
• Detergents; Directive 98/8/EC Regulation (EC) No 648/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on detergents
• EC Ecolabel; Commission Decision 2005/344/EC of 23 March 2005; establishing ecological criteria for the award of the Community eco-label to all-purpose cleaners and cleaners for sanitary facilities

In the meantime the EU has concluded Mutual Acceptance Agreements in the area of GLP with Israel, Japan and Switzerland. By means of the Treaty of the European Economic Area of 13 September 1993, the European Regulations and Directives also apply to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Non-OECD member countries

An inspection in non-member economies by OECD inspectors will not guarantee that data generated in compliance with GLP will be accepted in other member countries than the one to which they are submitting data and which has thus sent inspectors to verify the accuracy of their compliance statement.

Klimisch score

The Klimisch score system tries to rank the reliability of toxicity studies for use by risk assessors (regulatory agencies). It was published in 1997, by BASF (a chemical company) authors.^[7] Studies performed according to GLP are assigned the top rank of 1 (reliable without restriction) and are preferred by agencies. When no GLP study is available for a particular endpoint, a study with a rank of 2 is usually accepted by an agency. Lower ranks typically require a new study to be performed. Klimisch scoring is very widely used in chemical risk assessments. Critics say it is a self-interested bias on objectivity, that a quality system from the regulated party gives their own GLP-complying studies the top rank.

Automated systems

In many instances, the optimal recommended "no-argument" means of implementing GLP is to develop an automated approach to both sample preparation and sample measurement. GLP compliance then generally entails including an overarching "chain of custody" sample history and data flow, combined with adequate standard operating procedures for calibration and linearization of measuring tools.

History of union busting in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States 

 

Pinkerton guards escort strikebreakers in Buchtel, Ohio, 1884.

The history of union busting in the United States with which made from back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century which produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved away from farm work to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks. Children and women worked in factories and generally received lower pay than men. The government did little to limit these conditions. Labor movements in the industrialized world developed that lobbied for better rights and safer conditions. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the early years of the battleground between unions and management were adversarial and often identified with aggressive hostility. Contemporary opposition to trade unions known as union busting started in the 1940s and continues to present challenges to the labor movement. Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe the activities that may be undertaken by employers, their proxies, workers and in certain instances states and governments usually triggered by events such as picketing, card check, worker organizing, and strike actions. Labor legislation has changed the nature of union busting, as well as the organizing tactics that labor organizations commonly use.

Strike breaking and union busting, 1870s–1935

Hiring agencies specialising in anti-union practices has been an option available to employers from the bloody strikes of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, until today.

Working with owner John D. Rockefeller, Charles Pratt's Astral Oil Works in 1874 began to buy refineries in Brooklyn to decrease competition. Around this time, the coopers' union opposed Pratt's efforts to cut back on certain manual operations, as they were the craftsmen who made the barrels that held the oil. Pratt busted the union, and his strategies for breaking up the organization were adopted by other refineries.

Creative methods of union busting have been around for a long time. In 1907, Morris Friedman reported that a Pinkerton agent who had infiltrated the Western Federation of Miners managed to gain control of a strike relief fund, and attempted to exhaust that union's treasury by awarding lavish benefits to strikers. However, many attacks against unions have used force of one sort or another, including police action, military force, or recruiting goon squads.

Physical attacks against unions

Unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were devastated by the Palmer Raids, carried out as part of the First Red Scare. The Everett Massacre (also known as Bloody Sunday) was an armed confrontation between local authorities and IWW members which took place in Everett, Washington on Sunday, November 5, 1916. Later, communist-led unions were isolated or destroyed and their activists purged with the assistance of other union organizations during the Second Red Scare.

Artist's depiction of the Haymarket Square riot

In May 1886 the Knights of Labor were demonstrating in the Haymarket Square in Chicago, demanding an eight-hour day in all trades. When police arrived, an unknown person threw a bomb into the crowd, killing one person and injuring several others. "In a trial marked by prejudice and hysteria" a court sentenced seven anarchists, six of them German-speaking, to death - with no evidence linking them to the bomb.

Strikes also took place that same month (May 1886) in other cities, including in Milwaukee, where seven people died when Wisconsin Governor Jeremiah M. Rusk ordered state-militia troops to fire upon thousands of striking workers who had marched to the Milwaukee Iron Works Rolling Mill in Bay View, on Milwaukee's south side.

In 1914 one of the most bitter labor conflicts in American history took place at a mining colony in Colorado called Ludlow. After workers went on strike in September 1913 with grievances ranging from requests for an eight-hour day to allegations of subjugation, Colorado governor Elias Ammons called in the National Guard in October 1913. That winter, Guardsmen made 172 arrests.

The strikers began to fight back, killing four mine guards and firing into a separate camp where strikebreakers lived. When the body of a strikebreaker was found nearby, the National Guard's General Chase ordered the tent colony destroyed in retaliation.

"On Monday morning, April 20, two dynamite bombs were exploded, in the hills above Ludlow ... a signal for operations to begin. At 9 am a machine gun began firing into the tents [where strikers were living], and then others joined." One eyewitness reported: "The soldiers and mine guards tried to kill everybody; anything they saw move". That night the National Guard rode down from the hills surrounding Ludlow and set fire to the tents. Twenty-six people, including two women and eleven children, were killed.

Union busting with police and military force

For approximately 150 years, union organizing efforts and strikes have been periodically opposed by police, security forces, National Guard units, special police forces such as the Coal and Iron Police, and/or use of the United States Army. Significant incidents have included the Haymarket Riot and the Ludlow massacre. The Homestead struggle of 1892, the Pullman walkout of 1894, and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903 are examples of unions destroyed or significantly damaged by the deployment of military force. In all three examples, a strike became the triggering event.

• Pinkertons and militia at Homestead, 1892 - One of the first union busting agencies was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which came to public attention as the result of a shooting war that broke out between strikers and three hundred Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike of 1892. When the Pinkerton agents were withdrawn, state militia forces were deployed. The militia repulsed attacks on the steel plant, and prevented violence against strikebreakers crossing picket lines, causing a decisive defeat of the strike, and ended the power of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers at the Homestead plant.
• Federal troops end the railroad blockades by the American Railway Union, 1894 - During the Pullman Strike, the American Railway Union (ARU), out of union solidarity, called out its members according to the principle of industrial unionism. Their actions in blocking the movement of railroad trains were illegal but successful, until twenty thousand federal troops were called out to ensure that trains carrying US mail could travel freely. Once the trains ran, the strike ended.
• National Guard in the Colorado Labor Wars, 1903 - The Colorado National Guard, an employers' organization called the Citizens' Alliance, and the Mine Owners' Association teamed together to eject the Western Federation of Miners from mining camps throughout Colorado during the Colorado Labor Wars.

Anatomy of a corporate union buster

Main article: Corporations Auxiliary Company

Corporations Auxiliary Company, a union buster during the first half of the 20th century, would tell employers,

Our man will come to your factory and get acquainted... If he finds little disposition to organize, he will not encourage organization, but will engineer things so as to keep organization out. If, however, there seems a disposition to organize he will become the leading spirit and pick out just the right men to join. Once the union is in the field its members can keep it from growing if they know how, and our man knows how. Meetings can be set far apart. A contract can at once be entered into with the employer, covering a long period, and made very easy in its terms. However, these tactics may not be good, and the union spirit may be so strong that a big organization cannot be prevented. In this case our man turns extremely radical. He asks for unreasonable things and keeps the union embroiled in trouble. If a strike comes, he will be the loudest man in the bunch, and will counsel violence and get somebody in trouble. The result will be that the union will be broken up.

In the period 1933 to 1936, Corporations Auxiliary Company had 499 corporate clients.

College students as strikebreakers in the Interborough Rapid Transit strike of 1905

Following a walk out of subway workers, management of the trains Interborough Rapid Transit in New York City appealed to university students to volunteer as motormen, conductors, ticket sellers and ticket choppers. Stephen Norword discusses the phenomenon of students as strikebreakers in early 20th Century North America: "Throughout the period between 1901 and 1923, college students represented a major, and often critically important source of strikebreakers in a wide range of industries and services. ... Collegians deliberately volunteered their services as strikebreakers and were the group least likely to be swayed by the pleas of strikers and their sympathizers that they were doing something wrong."

Jack Whitehead, the first "King of Strike Breakers"

There were a significant number of strikes during the 1890s and very early 1900s. Strikebreaking by recruiting massive numbers of replacement workers became a significant activity.

Jack Whitehead saw opportunity in labor struggles; while other workers were attempting to organize unions, he walked away from his union to organize an army of strikebreakers. Whitehead was the first to be called "King of the Strike Breakers"; by deploying his private workforce during strikes of steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Birmingham, Alabama, he became wealthy. By demonstrating how lucrative strikebreaking could be, Whitehead inspired a host of imitators.

James Farley inherits the strikebreaker title

After Whitehead, men like James A. Farley and Pearl Bergoff turned union busting into a substantial industry. Farley began his strikebreaking career in 1895, and opened a detective agency in New York City in 1902. In addition to detective work, Farley accepted industrial assignments, specializing in breaking strikes of streetcar drivers. Farley hired his men based in part upon courage and toughness, and in some strikes they openly carried firearms. They were paid more than the strikers had been. Farley was credited with a string of successful strikebreaking actions, employing hundreds, and sometimes thousands of strikebreakers. Farley was sometimes paid as much as three hundred thousand dollars for breaking a strike, and by 1914 he had taken in more than ten million dollars. Farley claimed that he had defeated thirty-five strikes in a row. But he suffered from tuberculosis, and as he faced death, he declared that he turned down the job of breaking a streetcar strike in Philadelphia because this time, "the strikers were in the right."

Bergoff Brothers Strike Service and Labor Adjusters

Pearl Bergoff also began his strikebreaking career in New York City, working as a spotter on the Metropolitan Street Railway in Manhattan. His job was to watch conductors, making certain that they recorded all of the fares that they accepted. In 1905 Bergoff started the Vigilant Detective Agency of New York City. Within two years his brothers joined the lucrative business, and the name was changed to the Bergoff Brothers Strike Service and Labor Adjusters. Bergoff's early strikebreaking actions were characterized by extreme violence. A 1907 strike of garbage cart drivers resulted in numerous confrontations between strikers and the strikebreakers, even when protected by police escorts. Strikers sometimes pelted the strikebreakers with rocks, bottles, and bricks launched from tenement rooftops.

Anti-union cartoon in monthly magazine The American Employer depicting the AFL as a fly on the wheel, 1913

In 1909, the Pressed Steel Car Company at McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania fired forty men, and eight thousand employees walked out under the banner of the Industrial Workers of the World. Bergoff's agency hired strikebreaking toughs from the Bowery, and shipped vessels filled with unsuspecting immigrant workers directly into the strike zone. Other immigrant strikebreakers were delivered in boxcars, and were not fed during a two-day period. Later they worked, ate, and slept in a barn with two thousand other men. Their meals consisted of cabbage and bread.

There were violent confrontations between strikers and strikebreakers, but also between strikebreakers and guards when the terrified workers demanded the right to leave. An Austro-Hungarian immigrant who managed to escape told his government that workers were being held against their will, resulting in an international incident. In addition to kidnapping, strikebreakers complained of deception, broken promises about wages, and tainted food.

During federal hearings, Bergoff explained that "musclemen" under his employ would "get... any graft that goes on", suggesting that was to be expected "on every big job". Other testimony indicated that Bergoff's "right-hand man", described as "huge in stature, weighing perhaps 240 pounds", surrounded himself with thirty-five guards who intimidated and fleeced the strikebreakers, locking them into a boxcar prison with no sanitation facilities when they defied orders.

At the end of August a gun battle erupted, leaving six dead, six dying, and fifty wounded. Public sympathy began to swing away from the company, and toward the strikers. Early in September the company acknowledged defeat and negotiated with the strikers. Twenty-two had died in the strike. But Bergoff's business was not hurt by the defeat; he boasted of having as many as ten thousand strikebreakers on his payroll. He was getting paid as much as two million dollars per strikebreaking job.

Anti-union vigilantes during the First Red Scare

Unlike the American Federation of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World opposed the First World War. The American Protective League (APL) was a pro-war organization formed by wealthy Chicago businessmen. At the height of its power the APL had 250,000 members in 600 cities. In 1918, documents from the APL showed that ten percent of its efforts (the largest of any category) were focused on disrupting the activities of the IWW. The APL burgled and vandalized IWW offices, and harassed IWW members. Such actions were illegal, yet were supported by the Wilson administration.

Spies, "missionaries", and saboteurs

Anti-union cartoon in monthly magazine The American Employer depicting the AFL as a cannon aimed at a government building, 1914

Strikebreaking by hiring massive numbers of tough opportunists began to lose favor in the 1920s; there were fewer strikes, resulting in fewer opportunities. By the 1930s, agencies began to rely more upon the use of informants and labor spies.

Spy agencies hired to bust unions developed a level of sophistication that could devastate targets. "Missionaries" were undercover operatives trained to use whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors to create dissension on the picket lines and in union halls. The strikers themselves were not the only targets. For example, female missionaries might systematically visit the strikers' wives in the home, relating a sob story of how a strike had destroyed their own families. Missionary campaigns have been known to destroy not only strikes, but unions themselves.

In the 1930s, the Pinkerton Agency employed twelve hundred labor spies, and nearly one-third of them held high level positions in the targeted unions. The International Association of Machinists was damaged when Sam Brady, a veteran Pinkerton operative, held a high enough position in that union that he was able to precipitate a premature strike. All but five officers in a United Auto Workers local in Lansing, Michigan were driven out by Pinkerton agents. The five who remained were Pinkertons. At the Underwood Elliott-Fisher Company plant, the union local was so badly injured by undercover operatives that membership dropped from more than twenty five hundred to fewer than seventy-five.

General strikebreaking methods

During the period from roughly 1910 to 1914, Robert Hoxie compiled a list of methods used by employers' associations to attack unions. The list was published in 1921, as part of the book Trade Unionism in the United States. These methods include counter organization, inducing union leaders to support management, supporting other pro-business enterprises, refusing to work with pro-union enterprises, obtaining information on unions among others.

Hoxie summarized the underlying theories, assumptions, and attitudes of employers' associations of the period. According to Hoxie, these included the supposition that employers' interests are always identical to society's interests, such that unions should be condemned when they interfere; that the employers' interests are always harmonious with the workers' interests, and unions therefore try to mislead workers; that workers should be grateful to employers, and are therefore ungrateful and immoral when they join unions; that the business is solely the employer's to manage; that unions are operated by non-employees, and they are therefore necessarily outsiders; that unions restrict the right of employees to work when, where, and how they wish; and that the law, the courts, and the police represent absolute and impartial rights and justice, and therefore unions are to be condemned when they violate the law or oppose the police.

Given the proliferation of employers' associations created primarily for the purpose of opposing unions, Hoxie poses counter-questions. For example, if every employer has a right to manage his own business without interference from outside workers, then why hasn't a group of workers at a particular company the right to manage their own affairs without interference from outside employers?

Strikebreaking and union busting, 1936–1947

Employers in the United States have had the legal right to permanently replace economic strikers since the Supreme Court's 1937 decision in NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co.

Meanwhile, employers began to demand more subtle and sophisticated union busting tactics, and so the field called "preventive labor relations" was born. The new practitioners were armed with degrees in industrial psychology, management, and labor law. They would use these skills not only to manipulate the provisions of national labor law, but also the emotions of workers seeking to unionize.

Nathan Shefferman (Labor Relations Associates), 1940s–1950s

After passage of the Wagner Act in 1935, the first nationally known union busting agency was Labor Relations Associates of Chicago, Inc. (LRA) founded in 1939 by Nathan Shefferman, who later in 1961 wrote The Man in the Middle, a guide to union busting, and has been considered the 'founding father' of the modern union avoidance industry. Shefferman had been a member of the original NLRB, and became director of employee relations at Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck and Company. Sears had been engaged in blocking unions from the AFL Retail Clerks union throughout the 1930s. Sears provided $10,000 seed money to launch LRA. In 1957 during hearings conducted by the United States, Congress, and Select Committees on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field. Nate Shefferman was questioned by Robert Kennedy and testimony revealed that Teamsters union "top brass" were regularly sent to meet with him. An article written by Victor Riesel for Inside Labor on May 28, 1957  reveals that Dave Beck, President of the Teamster's Union in that era, worked closely with Nate Shefferman on many deals not the least of which may have been his influence at Sears to discourage employees from joining the AFL Retail Clerks union which was trying to raid the Teamsters membership to join them instead. An indicator of the close relationship between the Teamster's President David Beck and Shefferman (excerpted from the article): "Beck dispatched Shefferman to Jim Hoffa last year (1956) to offer Hoffa the union's presidency if Hoffa would first help re-elect Beck and then wait 6 months for Beck to resign on grounds of ill health". The article asks "Why did Beck and the multi-million dollar Shefferman work so closely—and on what?"

By the late 1940s, LRA had nearly 400 clients. Shefferman's operatives set up anti-union employee groups called "Vote No" committees, developed ruses to identify pro-union workers, and helped arrange sweetheart contracts with unions that would not challenge management. Consultants from LRA "committed numerous illegal actions, including bribery, coercion of employees and racketeering."

Shefferman built "a daunting business on a foundation of false premises", of which "perhaps the most incredible—and most widely believed—is the myth that companies are at a disadvantage to unions organizationally, legally, and financially during a union-organizing drive." What businesses sought to accomplish through such propaganda was for Congress to amend the Wagner Act.

One of Shefferman's associates defined his technique simply by saying: "We operate the exact way a union does," he said. "But on management's side. We give out leaflets, talk to employees, and organize a propaganda campaign."

Strikebreaking and union busting, 1948–1959

In 1956, Nathan Shefferman defeated a unionizing effort of the Retail Clerks Union at seven Boston-area stores by employing tactics that Walter Tudor, the Sears vice-president for personnel, described as "inexcusable, unnecessary and disgraceful". At a Marion, Ohio, Whirlpool plant, an LRA operative created a card file system which tracked employees' feelings about unions. Many of those he regarded as pro-union were fired. A similar practice took place at the Morton Frozen Foods plant in Webster City, Iowa. An employee recruited by LRA operatives wrote down a list of employees thought to favor a union. Management fired those workers. The list-making employee received a substantial pay increase. When the United Packinghouse Workers of America union was defeated, Shefferman arranged a sweetheart contract with a union that Morton Frozen Foods controlled, with no participation from the workers. From 1949 through 1956, LRA earned nearly $2.5 million providing such anti-union services.

In 1957, the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management (also known as the McClellan Committee) investigated unions for corruption, and employers and agencies for union busting activities. Labor Relations Associates was found to have committed violations of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, including manipulating union elections through bribery and coercion, threatening to revoke workers' benefits if they organized, installing union officers who were sympathetic to management, rewarding employees who worked against the union, and spying on and harassing workers. The McClellan Committee believed that "the National Labor Relations Board [was] impotent to deal with Shefferman's type of activity."

Post-1960s

Illegal union firing increased during the Reagan administration and has continued since.

There is little evidence that employers availed themselves of anti-union services during the 1960s or the early 1970s. However, under a new reading of the Landrum-Griffin Act, the Department of Labor took action against consulting agencies related to filing of required reports in only three cases after 1966, and between 1968 and 1974 it filed no actions at all. By the late 1970s, consulting agencies had stopped filing reports.

The 1970s and 1980s were an altogether more hostile political and economic climate for organized labor. Meanwhile, a new multi-billion dollar union buster industry, using industrial psychologists, lawyers, and strike management experts, proved skilled at sidestepping requirements of both the National Labor Relations Act and Landrum-Griffin in the war against labor unions. In the 1970s the number of consultants, and the scope and sophistication of their activities, increased substantially. As the numbers of consultants increased, the numbers of unions suffering NLRB setbacks also increased. Labor's percentage of election wins slipped from 57 percent to 46 percent. The number of union decertification elections tripled, with a 73 percent loss rate for unions. The political environment has included the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Department of Labor failing to enforce the law against companies that repeatedly violate labor law.

Labor relations consulting firms began providing seminars on union avoidance strategies in the 1970s. Agencies moved from subverting unions to screening out union sympathizers during hiring, indoctrinating workforces, and propagandizing against unions.

By the mid-1980s, Congress had investigated, but failed to regulate, abuses by labor relations consulting firms. Meanwhile, while some anti-union employers continued to rely upon the tactics of persuasion and manipulation, other besieged firms launched blatantly aggressive anti-union campaigns. At the dawn of the 21st Century, methods of union busting have recalled similar tactics from the dawn of the 20th Century. The political environment has included the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Department of Labor failing to enforce the labor law against companies that repeatedly violate it. 

Case Farms built its business by recruiting immigrant workers from Guatemala, who endure conditions few Americans would put up with. From 1960 to 2000 the percentage of workers in the United States belonging to a labor union fell from 30% to 13%, almost all of that decline being in the private sector. This is despite an increase in workers expressing an interest in belonging to unions since the early 1980s. (In 2005, more than half of unionized private-sector workers said they wanted a union in their workplace, up from around 30% in 1984.) According to one source—Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson—a change in the political climate in Washington DC starting in the late 1970s "sidelined" the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Much more aggressive and effective business lobbying meant "few real limits on ... vigorous antiunion activities. ... Reported violations of the NLRA skyrocketed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Meanwhile, strike rates plummeted, and many of the strikes that did occur were acts of desperation rather than indicators of union muscle."

In neighboring Canada, where the structure of the economy and pro or anti-union sentiment among workers is very similar, unionization was steadier. From 1970 to 2003, union density in the US declined from 23.5 percent to 12.4 percent, while in Canada the loss was much smaller, going from 31.6 percent in 1970 to 28.4 percent in 2003. One difference is that Canadian law allows for card certification and first-contract arbitrations (both features of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act promoted by labor unions in the United States). Canadian law also bans permanent striker replacements, and imposes strong limits on employer propaganda."

According to David Bacon, "Modern unionbusting" employs company-dominated organizations in the workplace to forestall organizing drives.

History of labor legislation

Railway Labor Act, 1926

The Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926 was the first major piece of labor legislation passed by Congress. The RLA was amended in 1936 to expand from railroads and cover the emerging airline industry. At UPS, the mechanics, dispatchers, and pilots are the labor groups that are covered by the RLA. It was enacted because Railroad management wanted to keep the trains moving by putting an end to "wildcat" strikes. Railroad workers wanted to make sure they had an opportunity to organize, be recognized as the exclusive bargaining agent in dealing with a company, negotiate new agreements and enforce existing ones. Under the RLA, agreements do not have expiration dates; instead they have amendable dates which are indicated within the agreement.

Wagner Act, 1935

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), often referred to as the Wagner Act, was passed by Congress July 5, 1935. It established the right to organize unions. The Wagner Act was the most important labor law in American history and earned the nickname "labor's bill of rights". It forbade employers from engaging in five types of labor practices: interfering with or restraining employees exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively; attempting to dominate or influence a labor union; refusing to bargain collectively and in "good faith" with unions representing their employees; and, finally, encouraging or discouraging union membership through any special conditions of employment or through discrimination against union or non-union members in hiring. Before the law, employers had liberty to spy upon, question, punish, blacklist, and fire union members. In the 1930s workers began to organize in large numbers. A great wave of work stoppages in 1933 and 1934 included citywide general strikes and factory occupations by workers. Hostile skirmishes erupted between workers bent on organizing unions, and the police and hired security squads backing the interests of factory owners who opposed unions. Some historians maintain that Congress enacted the NLRA primarily to help stave off even more serious—potentially revolutionary—labor unrest. Arriving at a time when organized labor had nearly lost faith in Roosevelt, the Wagner Act required employers to acknowledge labor unions that were favored by a majority of their work forces. The Act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), with oversight over union elections and unfair labor practices by employers.

Taft–Hartley Act, 1947

The Taft–Hartley Act was a major revision of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and represented the first major revision of a New Deal act passed by a post-war Congress. In the mid-term elections of 1946, the Republican Party gained majorities in both houses for the first time since 1931. With the Truman administration initially taking no stand on the bill, it passed both houses with strong bipartisan support. In addition to overwhelming Republican support, a clear majority of House Democrats voted for the bill, while Democrats in the Senate split evenly, 21–21.

The Taft–Hartley Act was vehemently denounced by union officials, who dubbed it a "slave labor" bill. Truman vetoed the bill with a strong message to Congress, but despite Truman's all-out effort to stop the veto override, On June 23, 1947, Congress overrode his veto with considerable Democratic support, including 106 out of 177 Democrats in the House, and 20 out of 42 Democrats in the Senate. However, twenty-eight Democratic members of Congress declared it a "new guarantee of industrial slavery".

Management always had the upper hand, of course; they had never lost it. But thanks to Taft–Hartley, the bosses could once again wage their war with near impunity.

— Martin J. Levitt, 1993, Confessions of a Union Buster

Taft–Hartley gave the National Labor Relations Board the power to act against unions engaged in unfair labor practices; previously, the board could only consider unfair practices by employers. It defined specific employer rights which broadened an employer's options during union organizing drives. It banned the closed shop, in which union membership is a precondition of employment at an organized workplace. It allowed state "right to work" laws which prohibit mandatory union dues.

The act required union officials to swear that they were not communists. This provision was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1965.

The act gave the president the power to petition the courts to end a strike if it constitutes a national emergency. Presidents have invoked the Taft–Hartley Act thirty-five times to halt work stoppages in labor disputes; almost all of the instances took place in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, under presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, after which the provision fell into disuse. The last two times the emergency provision was invoked were in 1978 by Jimmy Carter and 2002 by George W. Bush.

Landrum–Griffin Act, 1959

The Landrum–Griffin Act of 1959 is also known as the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) defined financial reporting requirements for both unions and management organizations. Pursuant to LMRDA Section 203(b) employers are required to disclose the costs of any persuader activity as it regards consultants and potential bargaining unit employees.

Martin J. Levitt's interpretation is as follows:

The law regulates labor unions' internal affairs and union officials' relationships with employers. But the law also required companies to report certain expenditures related to their anti-union activities. Fortunately for union busters, loopholes in the requirements allow management and their agents to ignore the provisions aimed at reforming their behavior. The loopholes require consultants to file if they communicate with employees either for the purpose of persuading them not to join a union, or to gain knowledge about the employees or the union that may be passed on to the employer. However, most consultants accomplish these goals by indirect means, using supervisors and management as their first line of contact with employees. Even before the Act was passed, labor consultants had identified front-line supervisors as the most effective lobbyists for management.

Landrum–Griffin also seeks to prevent consultants from spying on employees or the union. Information is not to be compiled unless it is for the purpose of a specific legal proceeding. ccording to Martin Levitt, "It is easy for consultants to use this provision as a cover for "all kinds of information gathering".

According to Levitt, "because of Landrum–Griffin's vague language, attorneys are able to directly interfere in the union-organizing process without any reporting requirements. Therefore, "young lawyers run bold anti-union wars and dance all over Landrum–Griffin." The provisions of Landrum–Griffin allowing special rights for lawyers resulted in labor consultants working under the shield of labor attorneys, allowing them to easily evade the intent of the law."

Levitt stated:

With the help of our trusted attorneys, our anti-union activities were carried out [under Landrum-Griffin] in backstage secrecy; meanwhile we gleefully showcased every detail of union finances that could be twisted into implications of impropriety or incompetence.

— Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, Confessions of a Union Buster

Union busting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting 

 

Pinkerton guards escort strikebreakers in Buchtel, Ohio, 1884.

Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or prevent the formation of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace.

Union busting tactics can refer to both legal and illegal activities, and can range anywhere from subtle to violent.

Labor laws differ greatly from country to country in both level and type of regulations in respect to their protection of unions, their organizing activities, as well as other aspects. These laws can affect topics such as posting notices, organizing on or off employer property, solicitations, card signing, union dues, picketing, work stoppages, striking and strikebreaking, lockouts, termination of employment, permanent replacements, automatic recognition, derecognition, ballot elections, and employer-controlled trade unions.

Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) declares that everyone has a right to form and/or join a trade union. The provision is, however, not legally binding and has, in most jurisdictions, no horizontal effect in the legal relation between employer and employees or unions.

There are many labor relations consultancies in the United States and worldwide. They specialize in industries such as entertainment (radio, television and motion picture), hospitality (culinary and food service), communications, manufacturing, aerospace, utilities, and healthcare. Although many operate only in the United States, trade union organizing takes place multi-nationally. According to the AFL-CIO, "one of the largest U.S. firms, Labor Relations Institute (LRI),^[3] offers a “Guaranteed Winner Package”: if the corporation does not "win", it does not pay.^[4] In both the US and Europe, organizing campaigns increasingly involve immigrant non-English speaking workers.^{[citation needed]} Internationally, compliance with labor laws within developed countries can be vastly different from emerging countries. Both trade union organizers and management must know the law and avoid unfair labor practice (ULP) charges.

Application and adherence to labor laws may differ worldwide, but labor laws continue to expand into new countries such as the Labour Law of the People's Republic of China and the Indian labour law. Trade union organizing often starts with workers who are untrained or unaware of labour law. Due to the changing global and multinational employment environment and labor relations/employment laws, the modern labor movement turns more and more to professional guidance. Internationally, laws differ in how a bargaining unit is defined for workers with job descriptions involving supervision or management. Because the operative word is “law”, trade unions and workplaces may retain legal counsel to navigate the complexities of local and/or international labor laws in order to avoid unfair labor practice charges.

History

Great Britain

Following the repeal of the Combination Laws in 1824, workers were no longer prohibited from forming labor organizations or collective bargaining, although significant restrictions remained. In 1832 the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers was formed in Dorset to challenge declining wages. The members of the organization agreed to only work for wages greater than a certain amount. In 1834 a landlord complained, and key members were charged and convicted under laws prohibiting the swearing of secret oaths. The sentence of seven years penal transportation to Australia prompted a movement to defend the members, known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs (referring to the village where the organization originated), who were eventually released in 1836 and 1837.^[5]

Presently, UK labor laws are defined within the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA) and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and give workers no right to strike^{[citation needed]}. In the UK and EU, trade union opposition may occur during automatic recognition campaigns and ballot elections. Workers in the UK may have union memberships that they retain job to job, potentially resulting in workers for the same employer having different union memberships. When a union is seeking to gain control of the collective bargaining at a place of employment without a ballot, workers with either individual and/or different union memberships working for that same employer may oppose that union.

Consultation is the process by which management and employees (or their representatives) jointly examine and discuss issues of mutual concern. It involves seeking acceptable solutions to problems through an exchange of views and information. Consultation does not remove the right of managers to manage, but it does impose an obligation that the views of employees be sought and considered before decisions are taken. The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), is the UK government's independent agency for advice and conciliation. Although the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and their member unions oppose the use of consultancies during recognition campaigns, calling it a union busting tactic, ACAS takes a different stance, "Employee communications and consultation are the lifeblood of any business.^[6] which "aims to improve organizations and working life through better employment relations".^[7]

Derecognition of a trade union, while legal, may be referred to as union busting by trade unions. Derecognition must be accomplished according to statutory guidelines. Workers may derecognize a union which either no longer has support from its members, or if union membership falls below 50%. Employers may derecognize a union if they no longer employ 21 or more workers. If the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) accepts an application, and the union in question has either lost support or the membership level falls below 50% of the workers, the CAC can declare that a derecognition ballot be held."^[8]

2005 Heathrow union busting

One of the most significant cases of mass dismissals in the UK occurred in 2005, involving the termination of over 600 Gate Gourmet workers at Heathrow Airport. Gate Gourmet provides in-flight meals and had been owned by Texas Pacific since 2002. The company had been in talks with the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) over redundancies and changes to overtime pay to try and stem losses when it hired 130 seasonal staff on lower wages than the permanent workers. Seeing this as a threat to their jobs, one shift refused to go back to work. Because this was seen as unofficial strike action, the workers were sacked, reportedly with only three minutes notice.^[9][10] The TUC later reported that the dispute had been engineered by the company to allow it to replace staff with workers on worse contracts.^[11]

This mass dismissal was viewed by some as a union busting tactic,^[12][13] and caused a great deal of media scrutiny. The terminations prompted a walkout by British Airways ground staff that paralysed flights and stranded thousands of travellers in the UK.^[13][14] The BBC reported that Andy Cook, Gate Gourmet's director of human resources at the time, said "the company had not been looking to cut the size of the protests, only stop the minority engaged in harassment."^[15] Cooke continues to direct labor relations activities from his UK labor relations consultancy.^[16]

A deal was brokered between Gate Gourmet and the TGWU by the TUC in September 2005.^[17]

United States

Main articles: History of union busting in the United States and Right to Work

 

History of illegal union firings in the United States

Union busting in the United States dates at least to the 19th century, when a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities caused a migration of workers from agricultural work to the mining, manufacturing and transportation industries. Conditions were often unsafe, women worked for lower wages than men, and child labor was rampant. Because employers and governments did little to address these issues, labor movements in the industrialized world were formed to seek better wages, hours, and working conditions. The clashes between labor and management were often adversarial and were deeply affected by wars, economic conditions, government policies, and court proceedings.

Companies may influence unions through bargaining, labor relations, and by other means, but employer-controlled unions in the United States have been outlawed since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The act prohibits supervisors from joining unions as well as prohibiting employers from assisting (as in the event of unions competing in the organization of a company), or dominating any labor organization. Additionally, the two laws, passed in 1947 and 1959, respectively, were the Taft–Hartley Act and the Landrum–Griffin Act. These statutes guarantee the rights of private employees to form and join unions in order to bargain collectively. The vast majority of states have extended union rights to public employees. The Chamber of Commerce has a long history of anti-union lobbying and union-busting in the United States at the local and federal level.

In 1962 US President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order #10988 which established the right for public sector employees to form unions with certain limitations regarding collective bargaining and a special caveat making it illegal to strike (United States Code: Title 5,7311, U.S.). In 1981 the public sector union PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) went on strike in violation of Kennedy's executive order. President Reagan exercised his power and fired all the striking members, causing the dissolution of the union. Although the firing was legal, he was criticized by labor organizations for union busting. PATCO reformed to become the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

In the US, unlike the UK and several other countries, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) provides a legally protected right for private sector employees to strike in order to gain better wages, benefits, or working conditions without the threat of termination. However, striking for economic reasons (i.e., protesting workplace conditions or supporting a union's bargaining demands) allows an employer to hire permanent replacements. If hired, the replacement worker can continue in the job, while the striking worker must wait for a vacancy. However, if the strike is due to unfair labor practices, the strikers replaced can demand immediate reinstatement at the end of the strike. If a collective bargaining agreement is in effect, and it contains a "no-strike clause", a strike during the life of the contract could result in the firing of all striking employees, and the dissolution of that union. Although legal, it is viewed by labor organizations as union busting.

Germany

The first German union of restaurant and food workers, NGG in 1999 used the notion of union busting to characterize the practices of McDonald's in Germany to kick out employees' representative bodies (Betriebsrat) and to prevent the voting of such representative bodies. However, only the study Union Busting in Deutschland (Union Busting in Germany) by Werner Rügemer and Elmar Wigand introduced the notion and presented an analysis of union busting. The study was commissioned by the largest German union, the metal workers union IG Metall and has been published in 2014.

Rügemer and Wigand also referred in their study to US authors such as John Logan, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Martin Jay Levitt, and Joseph McCain. Subsequently, the authors published a much expanded and updated version in form of a book with the title Die Fertigmacher. Arbeitsunrecht und die professionelle Bekämpfung der Gewerkschaften (Union Busting, Labor Injustice and The Professional Fight Against Trade Unions). After this, the notion union busting is used routinely in the media and by all German unions.

Rügemer and Wigand defined union busting in the following sentences: "Union Busting is the purposeful application and modular combination of practices to prevent employer-independent organization and advocacy in a company. Another point is to prevent (sabotage) the industry. Union Busting is operated both to attack the achieved status quo of collectivity, participation and labor protection. As well as to end organizing efforts of employees already in the initial stage."

Later, Rügemer and Wigand founded the non-profit association Action Against Labour Injustice. The organization works for dependent employees and in particular works-councils. The target group are the people affected by union busting and other forms of work inequalities. The association helps the victims with public actions and by legal. Prominent examples for union busting in Germany are Amazon.com, Birkenstock, Legoland, Haticon, Nora Systems, United Parcel Systems, Charité/Vivantes, Neupack, Edeka, DURA Automotive Systems, Median, Maredo, H&M and OBI.

Derecognition or decertification of trade unions

Derecognition (UK) or decertification (US) of a union may be done lawfully, though these may be referred to as union busting by trade unions, even when it is initiated by members of the union.

Workers in the UK may derecognize a union that no longer has support from members or if union membership falls below 50%. Employers may derecognize a union if they no longer employ 21 or more workers. Generally, in the UK, an application for derecognition must be made to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), which declares that a derecognition/decertification ballot election will be held. However a company may decide to unilaterally derecognize, as long as it has a non-CAC recognition agreement in force.

In the US, the process is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Employees may file a petition seeking a decertification election to determine whether or not the employees wish to retain the union. Like an election petition, a petition for decertification can only be filed during certain timeframes, specifically when a contract has expired or is about to expire.

In Canada all provinces have laws setting out provisions for employees to decertify unions. In most cases the governments have made it mandatory that employers post information for its employees on how to decertify the union.

Labor attorneys and consultancies

Organizations retain labor/employment attorneys and consultancies based on experience, track record, language skills, and reputation. Additionally, since labor laws differ from one nation to another, an organization might also consider experience with international labor laws within multinational corporations.

When trade union organizing occurs, labor attorneys are generally contacted for advice and often turn to consultants with whom they work on a regular basis who can do supervisory training on site. Some companies keep labor relations consultants and attorneys on retainer while others use external labor/employment lawyers and/or consultancies on an hourly per diem basis.

Many labor lawyers and consultants find clients by monitoring government offices such as the NLRB regional offices, where US trade unions are required to file RC (Representation Certification) or RD (Representation Decertification) petitions which are public record. These petitions reveal the names of organizations undergoing concerted activity and the name of the union seeking recognition or an election. These petitions are also used by organizations to conduct demographic studies of concerted activity regionally in order to prepare supervisory training in anticipation of organizing. Some companies maintain libraries and offer petition logs online as a courtesy for companies which cannot conduct the research themselves.

Similarly, UK trade unions are required by the ERA 1999 to adhere to specific procedures regarding trade union recognition, such as filing a "Letter of Intent" to the CAC, which simultaneously notifies not only the CAC but the employer as well. The filing then becomes public record which labor lawyers and consultancies can access in order to market their services.

Unions as union busters

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), as an employer, refused to negotiate in 2011 with a group of its own union organizer employees who voted to form a union called the Federation of Agents and International Representatives (FAIR). On 29 August 2012, after being found guilty of unlawfully union busting their own employees' union, the IBT posted a notice that, according to an agreement approved by a regional director of the Obama administration's NLRB, that they would stop union busting. The notice assures Teamster employees that they will no longer be prevented from exercising their rights.

In an action involving the Retail Clerks International Association (RCIA, a part of the AFL-CIO), they lost their case when the NRLB found that the RCIA violated the NLRA by refusing to bargain with the representative of certain of its employees and by threatening employees with loss of their jobs unless they resigned from the union. The Board further found that the RCIA had violated Section 8(a) (1) by engaging in coercive conduct with respect to certain of its own employees.

In the book Labor Organizations as Employers: Unions Within Unions, the author explored three different unions and the struggle of their workforces to organize. Prompted largely by the same concerns which motivate employees of private and public employers to seek union protection, employees within several unions, the United Transportation Union (UTU), the Garment Workers (ILGWU), and the Textile Workers (TWUA) were thwarted in their attempts to organize.

Main article: Union raid

Another recent example of union busting tactics used by one union against the other is the SEIU vs CNA conflict, where each union was battling for the others' members. In a press release dated March 10, 2008 Andy Stern of the SEIU accused the CNA of union busting: "The California Nurses Association has launched an anti-union campaign against nurses and other healthcare employees in Ohio, seeking to derail a three-year effort by the workers to unite in District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union." Central to the SEIU-CNA dispute were accusations by both organizations of raiding each other's members and campaigns, as well as disagreements about the direction of the labor movement. The SEIU is focused in its mission to organize workers at any cost, provoking criticism for its consolidation of smaller locals into mega unions.

Intelligence operations

Some corporations have sought to learn of union activities by employing informants, the same way that unions employ salts to infiltrate a non union organization to gather propaganda and sow discord to gain union support. A plant or salt can be used to disrupt meetings, question the legitimacy and motives of either the union or management, and report the results of the meetings to their superiors. Disruption or reporting on union meetings is illegal, but can be difficult to prove in ULP hearings.

In 1980, the author of Confessions of a Union Buster, Martin J. Levitt, reported that he conducted a counter-organizing drive at a nursing home in Sebring, Ohio. He assigned confederates to scratch up cars, then blamed it on the union. Similar activities have not been reported by others, yet Levitt said that creating and exploiting a prolonged climate of fear was key for him destroying the union's credibility.

In the United States, the US Supreme Court has upheld the decision of the National Labor Relations Board that employer espionage or an employer's use of spies or agents within labor unions is an unfair labor practice under the Wagner Act.

Legal actions

Labor consultants, union organizers, and attorneys use rules and regulations to gain control of organizing drives. Most employers oppose union plans for card check elections and employ tactics to insure secret ballot elections instead. If the union focuses on one division of the company, employment lawyers may disrupt such plans and dilute the vote by petitioning the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to include other divisions. If the union seeks to include foreman or "junior supervisor" positions in a bargaining unit to increase membership, the definition of what constitutes a supervisor under the NLRA will often be challenged by employment. Even the jurisdiction of the NLRB to oversee an organizing drive may be challenged. Delays can turn an organizing campaign into a protracted struggle, and according to Martin J. Levitt such battles are almost always won by management.

Many of the methods for defeating unions have been practiced for a very long time. Harry Wellington Laidler wrote a book in 1913 which reported the use of delaying tactics and provocation by an undercover operative of one of the largest known agencies of the time called Corporations Auxiliary Company. They would tell prospective employers,

Once the union is in the field its members can keep it from growing if they know how, and our man knows how. Meetings can be set far apart. A contract can at once be entered into with the employer, covering a long period, and made very easy in its terms. However, these tactics may not be good, and the union spirit may be so strong that a big organization cannot be prevented. In this case our man turns extremely radical. He asks for unreasonable things and keeps the union embroiled in trouble. If a strike comes, he will be the loudest man in the bunch, and will counsel violence and get somebody in trouble. The result will be that the union will be broken up.

Lockouts

Employers may put pressure on a union by declaring a lockout, a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working until certain conditions are met. A lockout changes the psychological impact of a work stoppage and, if the company possesses information about an impending strike, can be enacted prior to the strike's implementation.

Use of public funds in the United States

Although nonprofit hospital workers were covered by the original Wagner Act of 1935, they were excluded in 1947 with the Taft–Hartley amendments. However, during the 1960s, hospital workers at nonprofit hospitals wanted to form unions in order to demand better pay and working conditions. Major American cities were also experiencing hospital strikes which raised awareness of both labor leaders and the government regarding how to continue life-sustaining patient care delivery during work stoppages. Hospital workers and labor leaders petitioned the government to amend the NLRA. In 1974, under President Richard Nixon, the NLRA was amended to extend coverage and protection to employees of non-profit hospitals. According to the Obama administration NLRB, “When the new legislation was considered by the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, it was recognized that labor relations in the health care industry required special considerations. The Senate Labor Committee sought to fashion a mechanism which would insure that the needs of the patient would be met during contingencies arising out of labor disputes. The new law represented a sound and equitable reconciliation of these competing interests.”

Taxpayer funds provide state treasuries the monies for public employee salaries from which public employees pay union dues. At one time state laws did not allow government contracts to provide public money to labor relations consultancies. One such law, passed in Wisconsin in 1979, was struck down by the United States Supreme Court in the decision Wisconsin Dept. of Industry v. Gould. In effect, the 1986 Supreme Court decision meant that federal punishments are the maximum allowed, regardless of their limitations. Critics charged that, in effect, "federal labor law forces states to hire unionbusters."

In 1998, Catholic Healthcare West, the largest private hospital chain in California and a major recipient of state Medicaid funds, conducted a campaign against the SEIU in Sacramento and Los Angeles at a cost of more than $2.6 million. After the Catholic Healthcare West campaign, the California state legislature passed a law prohibiting employers receiving more than $10,000 in state funds from engaging in anti-union activities. However, the 2007 US Supreme Court decision in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al. vs. Brown, Attorney General of California et al., the court ruled 7–2 that federal labor law pre-empted a California law that limited many employers from speaking to their employees about union-related issues. Justice John Paul Stevens stated that Federal labor law had embraced "wide-open debate" about labor issues, as long as the employer did not try to coerce employees into accepting its point of view. Consequently, the state law is incompatible with federal labor law.

Other efforts to restrict anti-union activities by recipients of state funds have also been struck down. A major recipient of state Medicaid funds, the Center for Cerebral Palsy in Albany, New York, hired a law firm to fight a UNITE organizing drive. In 2002 the State of New York passed a labor neutrality act prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars for union busting. The law was passed as a direct result of the campaign against UNITE. In May 2005, a district court judge struck down the labor neutrality law in a ruling that the legal representatives of the Center for Cerebral Palsy described as "an enormous victory for employers".

Industrial psychologists as union busters

Nathan Shefferman introduced some basic psychological techniques into the union avoidance industry and the complementary service of union prevention. Building upon his work, professionally trained psychologists in the 1960s began using sophisticated psychological techniques to "screen out potential union supporters, identify hotspots vulnerable to unionization, and structure the workplace to facilitate the maintenance of a non-union environment." These psychologists provided companies with psychological profiles and conducted audits concerning a firm's susceptibility to unionization.

Between 1974 and 1984, one firm trained over 27,000 managers and supervisors to "make unions unnecessary" and surveyed almost one million employees in 4,000 organizations.

Anti-union employers' organizations in the United States

Main article: Anti-union organizations in the United States

In the United States shortly after 1900, there were few effective employers' organizations that opposed the union movement. By 1903, these organizations started to coalesce, and a national employers' movement began to exert a powerful influence on industrial relations and public affairs.

For nearly a decade prior to 1903, an industrial union called the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) had been increasing in power, militancy, and radicalism in response to dangerous working conditions, the imposition of long hours of work, and what members perceived as an imperious attitude on the part of employers. In particular, members of the WFM had been outraged by employers' use of labor spies in organizing efforts such as Coeur d'Alene. The miners' frustrations had occasionally exploded in anger and violence, although they had also tried peaceful change. For example, after winning a referendum vote for the eight-hour day with support from 72 percent of Colorado's electorate, the WFM's goal of an eight-hour law was still defeated by employers and politicians.

In 1901, angry WFM members passed a convention proclamation that a "complete revolution of social and economic conditions" was "the only salvation of the working classes". Colorado employers and their supporters reacted to growing union restlessness and power in a confrontation that came to be called the Colorado Labor Wars. But fear and apprehension on the part of employers, who felt unions were threatening to their businesses, were by no means limited to Colorado. Across the nation, the first elements of a network of employers' organizations that would span the coming century were just beginning to arise.

Anti-union organizations played increasingly prominent roles in American politics. In April 1903, David M. Parry spoke to the annual convention of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), delivering a speech critical of organized labor, asserting that trade unionism and socialism differ only in method, with both aiming to deny "individual and property rights". Parry asserted the natural laws which governed the nation's economy, and he decried any interference with those laws, whether by legislative or other means. Parry asserted that the goals of the unions would inevitably lead to "despotism, tyranny, and slavery", and the "ruin of civilization".

To control this threat to the status quo, Parry advised that the NAM begin organizing employers and manufacturers' associations into a great national anti-union federation. The NAM convention agreed to the recommendation, and created an employers' organizing committee with Parry in charge. Parry began the organizing effort at once. The prospect of a federal eight-hour law was particularly objectionable to the NAM, which declared it a "vicious, needless, and in every way preposterous proposition."

The NAM has fought against organized labor for more than a century through affiliated organizations. However, the organization once sought to moderate its image. After the 1937 La Follette Committee investigated employers and their anti-union allies, uncovering widespread abuses, the NAM denounced "the use of espionage, strikebreaking agencies, professional strikebreakers, armed guards, or munitions for the purpose of interfering with or destroying the legitimate rights of labor to self organization and collective bargaining." The brief nod to union rights did not last.

Other anti-union organizations have also made vocal contributions to anti-union discourse and union busting activities. The Citizens' Alliance was an employers' organization formed early in the 1900s specifically to fight trade unions. It worked with the NAM to strengthen anti-union movements in the early 20th century in the United States. The Council on Union Free Environment (CUE) had the specific mission of defeating President Carter's labor law reform bill that was designed to make union-organizing efforts more successful by, among other provisions, allowing for elections to occur within 15 days of filing a petition. The Labor Law Study Group, later called the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable, introduced dozens of labor law reform bills in the US Congress, but their primary focus was repealing state and federal laws that established minimum wage standards on publicly funded projects. Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) is the construction industry's voice and is funded chiefly by non-union builders and related businesses and promoted the "merit shop" which sought to pay each employee according to his qualification and performance. While the group insisted it was not anti-union, the system would preclude workers from exercising many of the worker-related benefits of a union.

Other groups, such as the National Right to Work Committee, has lobbied for laws prohibiting the union shop. Similarly, the US Chamber of Commerce's core purpose is to fight for free enterprise before Congress, the White House, regulatory agencies, the courts, the court of public opinion, and governments around the world and has actively lobbied against the Employee Free Choice Act. The NLPC makes a case for the end of the use of union dues for political purposes. The Center for Union Facts maintains an anti-union website that provides financial and other records about unions.

Guide to modern union busting

Nathan Shefferman published The Man in the Middle, a 292-page account of his union busting activities, in 1961. Shefferman described a long list of practices which he viewed as tangential to union avoidance activities but which his detractors have labeled as support operations for these activities. Among these were the administration of opinion surveys, supervisor training, employee roundtables, incentive pay procedures, wage surveys, employee complaint procedures, personnel records, application procedures, job evaluations, and legal services. As part of his union busting strategies, all of these activities were performed with the goal of maintaining complete control of the work force by top management. Shefferman's book not only provided the concepts that animated all future union busting techniques, he also provided language that pro-labor supporters believe mask the intent of the policies.