YOUR RIGHTS TO ORGANIZE A UNION!
The National Labor Relations Act gives you the right to organize a union in your workplace. Here are the facts:
You have the right to...
- Participate in meetings to discuss joining a union;
- Wear union buttons, stickers, t-shirts, and hats to show support for the union;
- Sign a union card and demand union recognition;
- Circulate and sign petitions;
- Engage in other "concerted activities," or acting jointly to protest unfair treatment or demand improvements in wages, hours and working conditions;
- Organize other employees to support the union, sign cards, and attend meetings.
These rights are protected by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act which gives you the right to join and support a union.
It is illegal for your boss to...
- Fire or threaten to fire, layoff, discipline, harass, transfer, or reassign an employee because they support the union;
- Show favor to employees who don’t support the union over those that do in promotions, hours, enforcement of rules or any other conditions;
- Close or threaten to close your place of employment or take away benefits or privileges in order to discourage union activity;
- Promise employees a pay increase, promotion, benefit or special favor if they oppose the union;
- Ask your opinion of the union;
- Ask you if you have signed a union card or talked to a union representative.
Under Section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act it is illegal for the employer to commit any of these acts.
Here's the law:
Section 1: The policy of the United States is to be carried out "by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment..."
Section 7: "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or bargain collectively through representation of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining..."
Section 8(a): "It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer . . . to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7..."
