3rd generation family owned business here. On tuesday, we found out that we now have an employee who has filed with the plumbers union for a union vote in the shop.
We have been non-union for 12 years (most of us were union at one time or another), and have benefited and grown as a merit shop. Our guys work year round, they get overtime, and haven’t been laid off since we went non-union. Our union counterparts sit idle for the winter collecting unemployment.
Anyways, the letter we got informed us that it was illegal to talk to our employees about the upcoming vote. We can’t even have an employee meeting on the matter. We were informed that if we talked to employees individually about the matter (many of whom have been with our family for over 20 years), we can be fined by the NLRB.
We have been informed that it is illegal for us to attempt to sell or transfer ownership of our company while negotiations with the union are ongoing.
We have been informed that it is a federal crime to move the location of our business during this proceeding as well.
The proceeding is expected to last 3-6 months. During this time, we may be summoned by a mediator to turn over any and all documents related to earnings, pay, profits, expenditures and losses (in otherwords anything they want).
We may not dismiss, lay off, or terminate any employees during this time period.
In other words, we have just been informed, that our family business has been set on the spit, and the fire has been set.
I am up now, worried to death, I have a meeting with our attorneys this morning, for some sort of council.
I think this may be it for us. We may just close up shop, head up north and open that bait shop I’ve been wanting to do for the past 10 years. I don’t know.
I will now have 8 guys laid off and without jobs... but hey, they wanted to be union. Now they can be union and unemployed. I feel betrayed, and have a total F.U. attitude at this point towards the guys we have paid and looked after for all these years.
I am sure even posting this is somehow even illegal at this point, and will come back to haunt me over the next few months.
...time to go make another pot of coffee
I can only guess at the horror you are experiencing. I thank my lucky stars that the business I own is in Texas.
Unless you have started a business from scratch you would have no idea of what you are going through. I’ve started from scratch, being the bookkeeper, janitor, technician, manager, and every other position that a single person could do to make the business what it is today.
Then, to lose complete control of it for some union Marxists would be unthinkable to me. Once again, thank God I am in Texas.
I hope and wish you a good outcome on your predicament.
My sincerest sympathies to you.
Hopefully, your other employees will display some common sense when they vote.
Can you someone else speak on your behalf? Its kinda bizarre that the shop owner can’t make his case against unionization.
Back in the days when radio was the hot, high-tech industry, Atwater Kent was the dominant manufacturer. He got wind of union efforts to take over his workforce. He told his workers if they unionized he'd shut the factory down and walk away. They did; he did.
“I think this may be it for us. We may just close up shop, head up north and open that bait shop I’ve been wanting to do for the past 10 years. I don’t know.”
I do sympathize with you. And sometimes going ‘Galt’ is really the answer. Especially if the business you run no longer gives you any pleasure and has turned to drudgery and misery, then it really is time to move on.
On the other hand you could always offer to sell your business to your newly unionized employees. Tell them they can be like GM or Chrysler. Then walk away with a smile.
wow. this is a terrible story. I’m waiting on pins and needles to hear it play out. will you bookmark this page (as I am ) and keep us updated? I realize you have more important things to do, but I will be watching, reading and praying.
You can even make up your own
Register the company at a post office box
Let them negotiate with the labor leasing company - they can't picket the Post Office
form a second labor leasing company and hire your employees by virtue of merit through them
they can't keep chasing your paperwork and your good employees will understand right away
I have ample intimate experience - it works every time
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Sounds like Nazi Germany to me. Whodda thunk we’d live long enough to see America become a fascist dictatorship. I’m still amazed at how fast the communist “Democrats” were able to pull it off.
Wow. As a former masonry sub I am stunned. One reason (there were many) I stayed away from union hacks was because they “ran” your company if you signed and now they have the ability to do what your letter states.
I say a prayer for you however we are too far gone. The police state has the power it needs after the banksters opened the credit spigot and built up little swat armies and ABC commandos.
And you cant even talk to your employees.