Union Busting. Plain and Simple.

During our bargaining session on Monday May 21, the County proposed a troubling addition to Article 4, our union security article. This newly-proposed Section 12 reads as follows:

The Parties agree that any employee representatives of the UNION who do not honor the contract language of this article 4 will be subject to removal from union activity for a period of time to be negotiated between the Labor Relations Department and AFSCME Council 5.

That is, if a union activist were to do something that goes against the language of Article 4 (i.e. organizing at work or putting something on the bulletin board that reflects “negatively” on the County), that activist would be removed from union activity, and Labor Relations and Council 5 would negotiate how long that activist loses the right to speak, assemble, and associate themselves in service of a union cause.

This is a deeply weird proposal. It creates a new type of discipline: exile from the Union. This isn’t a normal discipline, nor is it really possible as a resolution to a grievance. The fact that the County thinks it should have a say in who gets to participate in union activity is at once funny and disturbing. Like a dog holding a knife, it can’t really do anything it wants to, but the potential for damage is still severe.

This proposal is also unusually specific. Other articles don’t have a section detailing the penalty for a violation, and this section only lays out a penalty for what happens when the Union is the misbehaving party. The penalty (for the union member alone) is an abridgement of the freedom of expression, association, and assembly for however long the County and the Council feel is appropriate. There’s not so much as a suggestion about how the County’s violation of Article 4 would be handled.

So this isn’t really about enforcing the contract, or ensuring a respectful workplace, or even ensuring that Article 4 provisions specifically are honored. Labor law, the grievance process, and discipline already supply those tools to the employer. So what is this really about? It’s union busting, plain and simple. It’s a demand that Labor Relations have a say in who is allowed to participate in our unions and how we do our business.

The good news is that we don’t have to consider it. If the County wants to tell the Union how to do its business and who is allowed to be an officer, the County can keep dreaming. In order to enforce someone’s ban on union activity, the County also needs to be able to intrude into our lives, abridging the rights of free speech, free association, and free assembly for our members. The Union does not need to entertain requests to let the County control our business, and restrictions on speech, association, and assembly are fundamentally illegal for the government to enforce. We will not consider this proposal.