Labor Board to ponder "neutrality agreements".

A "neutrality agreement" is a legally enforceable contract between an employer and a union in which the employer agrees to refrain from resisting union organizing through speech and conduct it would otherwise be entitled to engage in under the National Labor Relations Act.

These agreements

Many of the nation's largest unions have obtained and/or proposed neutrality agreements with employers, including the Communication Workers of America, the United Auto Workers, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees and the Service Employees International Union, which represents employees in the building service industry around the country.

According to Charles Cohen, a former member of the National Labor Relations Board, "neutrality agreements represent the national labor movement's attempt to jumpstart union organizing, reverse the steadily declining influence that union's hold among the private workforce and ensure union success."

Some employers, particularly in heavily unionized industries, have found such agreements acceptable (or even advantageous).

In exchange for union agreement to a desired management initiative, to avoid long, drawn-out proceedings at the Labor Board, or simply to maintain labor peace, some very significant employers--Verizon, AT&T, Alcoa and DaimlerChrysler, to name a few--have entered neutrality agreements.

Many other employers, however, have staunchly resisted them, even in the face of considerable union pressure.

As the term suggests, a "neutrality agreement" typically encompasses an agreement by the employer to refrain from speaking out against the union or otherwise attempting to persuade employees not to seek or vote for union representation.

The term "neutrality agreement," however, can and often does refer to a number of related agreements.

Neutrality agreements, for example, often go hand-in-hand with a "card check" agreement, whereby an employer waives its right to seek a secret ballot election administered by the Labor Board and instead agrees to recognize a union as the collective bargaining representative of employees at a particular location or facility based upon a showing that union authorization cards have been signed by a majority of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit.

The current General Counsel of the Labor Board, however, calls such card check procedures "a pale substitute for the gold standard of a Board election."

Neutrality agreements sometimes also contain provisions requiring employers to meet promptly with the union to determine an appropriate unit; provide names and addresses of employees working in an agreed-upon unit; provide access to the employer' facilities so that that union representatives can meet with employees; or extend the neutrality agreement to other subsidiaries or affiliates controlled by the employer.

In June 2004, the Labor Board decided to review consolidated cases, Dana Corp. and Metaldyne Corp., to determine whether an employer's voluntary recognition of a union under a neutrality agreement should bar for a "reasonable period of time" an employee petition to have the Board schedule an election in which the employees may vote to "decertify" or oust the union, or whether such petitions should instead be permitted at any time, even immediately after the employer recognizes the union.

Although the Board has insisted that the issue to be reviewed is narrow, some advocates of neutrality agreements are concerned that the Board may take the opportunity to outlaw neutrality agreements altogether by finding that that they amount to unlawful recognition of a union before it has shown support from a majority of employees. The Board has not yet ruled in these cases and may not do so until President Bush appoints new members to the five-member Board.