Testimony of Clarice Atherholt Dana Corporation employee Submitted to the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations Harrisburg, PA Hearing July 16, 2004
Good Afternoon Senator Specter, Ladies, and Gentlemen.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to describe the ordeal that my coworkers and I faced immediately after my employer, Dana Corporation, cut a deal last year with the United Auto Workers that we would be unionized.
When my marriage ended in 1985, I knew that I needed to get back into the work force to support my two children. During our married life, my husband was a truck driver and part of that time was spent in a union environment. He didn’t want to join a union, but in order to drive, he had no choice. Other than paying monthly union dues, the union never did a thing for him.
I knew that I did not want to work where there was a union, so I purposely DID NOT APPLY where there are(were) unions. In May 1985, I was hired by Continental Hydraulic Hose in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. We then were sold to Echlin, Inc. and approximately 6 years ago we were bought out by Dana Corporation.
Suddenly, in August 2003, we were informed that Dana and the UAW had signed something they called a “neutrality agreement” which targeted employees not only at our Upper Sandusky plant, but many other Dana plants. Despite our complaints, the agreement was kept secret from us. Our local management was not allowed to inform any of us about the specifics, but we learned that a main provision was that we would not be permitted to vote in a secret ballot election.
Once this backroom deal went into effect, UAW organizers also obtained not only the names of all employees, but also addresses and phone numbers. As my views were well known, UAW organizers did not come to my home to harass me, but they did go to the homes of many of my friends. Sometimes not just once, but 2, 3, and even 4 unsolicited home visits per person. Each time they were soliciting signatures on union authorization cards and seemed unwilling to take “no” for an answer.
In November, we were strongly encouraged “for our own benefit” to attend a “captive audience” speech. The company said it had a new partnership with the UAW and that this partnership would be beneficial to us in getting new business from the Big Three. The implication was that our plant would lose jobs if we did not sign union cards and bring in the UAW.
One question that was asked of Mr. King, who is the UAW Vice President in charge of organizing, was “what can the union guarantee us.” He had no answer, but someone in the audience replied, “they’ll take 2 hours pay a month.”
The organizers continued to make home visits as well as hanging out in 3 break areas at work. They interrupted private conversations among friends and made general nuisances of themselves. I believe that the organizers also misled many employees as to the purpose and the finality of the cards. Overall, many employees signed the cards just to get the UAW organizers off their back, not because they really wanted the UAW to represent them.
On December 4, 2003, an announcement was posted on the bulletin board stating the UAW was now the bargaining representative for our plant. We were never told who the third party was that tabulated the cards, but rumor had it that 50% plus 5 cards had been signed. And 2 or 3 of those were supposedly voided.
Many fellow-employees do not want to be represented by the UAW or any other labor union. That’s why I, on my own time, secured 68 signatures out of approximately 182 eligible employees on decertification petitions. That is over the required 30% to trigger an election. I filed these with the Cleveland regional office of National Labor Relations Board on January 02, 2004. Much to our chagrin, the regional office rejected our request that would allow us, once and for all, to vote in a secret ballot vote on whether or not to unionize. The National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D. C. is reviewing this case along with a similar petition filed by more than a majority of employees at Metaldyne, in St. Marys, Pennsylvania.
I am here today because I strongly believe that it is wrong for Dana management to declare that the UAW was our representative without a secret ballot vote. If the UAW really believes that it has the support of a majority of employees, then it has nothing to fear by giving employees a chance to vote.
What would happen to our country IF secret ballot elections were eliminated for public offices? This would reduce America to the status of a petty tyranny. Is this REALLY the direction we want to go in our country?
I think it’s an outrage that Senator Ted Kennedy and George Miller would introduce legislation that would force all employees in America to be unionized through the unfair and coercive card-check process that we experienced at Dana. And this is after Mr. Miller and several of his congressional colleagues sent a letter to the government of Mexico demanding the use of secret ballot elections in all union recognition elections in that country because they are, and I quote, “absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.” (I’ve attached this letter to my testimony as Exhibit 1.)
On the other hand, I am very grateful to Congressman Charlie Norwood for introducing H.R.4343, THE SECRET BALLOT PROTECTION ACT, into legislation and am pleased that I was a participant at a press conference on May 12 of this year when he publicly announced it. And I just learned that Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
Again, Senator Specter, thank you for allowing me to be here today and a special thank you to Glenn Taubman, my attorney at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, who is providing us with free legal assistance in reclaiming our freedoms.
