By Oliver W. Singleton,

AFL-CIO Director, Region 6

Under the 'free speech' amendment to the Act [Labor Management Relations Act], it must always be remembered that the employer has access to captive audience meetings, a complete mailing list, often an intercommunications system, bulletin boards, and a force of supervisors who have continuous contact with the workers

1) He hires an attorney to coordinate his campaign against the union, to advise him on how to violate freely the law against his employees fight to decide freely for or against collective bargaining.

2) He calls together his supervisory forces in numerous clinics on how to defeat the union and the possible will of his employees and requires the supervisors to become active in his anti-union campaign. They work at their task each hour of the campaign.

3) He uses the Company mailing list of his workers as a means of sending out "Dear John" or "Dear Mary" letters asking them to choose between the Company and security, or the union and strike action. And the union has no equal response opportunity. Remember, the Union gets the mailing list, be it correct or incorrect only ten days before the election.

4) The employer turns his plant into an anti-union slogans, pleas for a 'no' vote, pictures of picket lines, photos of closed plants; ad infinitum. And 90% of all slanted material comes from the boiler plate churned out by the mimeographs or presses of his lawyer.

5) The fear campaign is now taking hold. It's time to show the films. Once more its strikes, picket lines, closed plants, isolated instances of violence which are depicted as normal day-to-day practices by all unions.

6) Now the workers are softened up. The plant is in ferment. It's like a pressure cooker. Fear permeates the entire plant, the whole work force. So the time has come to use the ultimate weapon -- the coercive, intimidatory "captive audience free speech." Here he openly or subtly casts aside all morality, all ethics and all respect for the law and threatens punishment. Here he subverts the law.

7) The captive audience is usually addressed by a man who does have the power to discharge. His presentation is a monologue. An opposition view is neither invited nor permitted

8) A study of NLRB election schedules show that a great number of them are held on paydays. Payday is election day, which is advantageous to the employer. On payday he can give out slips saying, "This paycheck shows no deduction for union dues."

9) Its incumbent upon the trade unionist to reject deals in consent elections where he knows such deals are illegal. The trade unionist may suffer, but the principles of law will be maintained by the unionist even if these principles of law are ignored by the lawyers and the NLRB.

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update 24 July 2008