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A.C Dealers and Security Officers United
RESPECT FOR ACSP. ORG
SECURITY PROFESSIONAL
International Union * Security * Police *
and Fire Professionals of America - SPFPA
1-800- 228-7492
Beware of Union Busting Tactics Casino Management and their High Priced Union Busters will use!
Profiles of the Anti-Union Network:
For-Profit Unionbusters
What is Unionbusting?
The term unionbusting describes the planned course of action to stop workers from organizing a union or to destroy a union already in the workplace. Unionbusters are professional consultants or lawyers that advertise their ability to manipulate the labor law system and specialize in advising employers on how to thwart union organizing drives or how to decertify unions. Unionbusters usually self-identify as ‘union avoidance firms,’ ‘management consultants,’ or ‘labor consultants.’ Read our unionbusting fact sheet, “Unionbusters 101”.
Confessions Of A Union Buster
Reviewed By Michael Costa
It's not a new tome but the threat for Australian Unions remains the same if not greater as when this book appeared five years ago.
Australian unions have been fortunate not to have faced the overt union busting that is a feature of US Labor relations. Union busting is a billion dollar business in the US. It thrives on the complex representation process prescribed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Briefly, under the NLRA, employees are required to bargain in "good faith" with a representative selected by its employees. The method for selecting a bargaining representative is a secret-ballot conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The NLRB will conduct an election when it receives a petition requesting a ballot, supported by a substantial number of employees, usually at least 30% of those at the unit seeking a representative. So difficult is the election process that most unions will not file for a ballot unless they have at least 70% of the employee committed to the ballot.
The NLRA also provides for desertification elections, (ie, elections to remove the right of unions to bargain on behalf of employees). The desertification ballot requires the support of 30% of employees covered by the collective bargaining agreement.
Theoretically, the NLRB is supposed to authorise an election within 30 days of a petition being filed. Recently, Martin Jay Levitt, a union buster with over 250 union busting campaigns under his belt, has described, in vivid detail, the way he went about busting unions.
According to Levitt:
"Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit. A campaign against a union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth. As such, it is a war without honour. The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack. The law does not hamper the process, rather, it serves to suggest manoeuvres and define strategies. Each "union prevention" campaign, as the wars are called, turns on a combined strategy of disinformation and personal assaults.
When a chief executive hires a labor relations consultant to battle a union, he gives the consultant run of the company and closes his eyes. The consultant, backed by attorneys, installs himself in the corporate offices and goes to work creating a climate of terror that inevitably is blamed on the union.
Some corporate executives I encountered liked to think of their anti-union consultants as generals, but really the consultants are terrorists. Like political terrorists, the consultants' attacks are intensely personal. Terrorists do not make factories and air strips their victims; they choose, instead, crippled old men and school-children. Likewise, as the consultants go about the business of destroying unions, they invade people's lives, demolish their friendships, crush their will, and shatter their families."
For union busters, like Levitt, the NLRA is a "union buster's best friend".
According to Levitt, "in its complexity the nation's fundamental Labor law presents endless possibilities for delays, roadblocks, and manoeuvres that can undermine a union's efforts and frustrate would be members." The union buster's key strategy, when confronted with an election, is delay the ballot, thereby buying time to organise a so called counter campaign known as "Counter organising drives".
The two key targets of the "counter organising drives" are the rank-and-file worker and their immediate supervisors. Supervisors serve as the shock troops of the union buster - The union buster aims to create a climate where the supervisor feels personally threatened by the union - "I knew that people who didn't feel threatened wouldn't fight", Levitt confesses, "So through hours of seminars, rallies, and one-on-one encounters, I taught supervisors to despise and fear the union. I persuaded them that a union organising drive was a personal attack on them, a referendum on their leadership skills, and an attempt to humiliate them. I was friendly, even jovial at times, but always unforgiving as I compelled each supervisor to feel he was somehow to blame for the union push and, consequently, obliged to defeat it like any hostage - most supervisors could not resist for long. They came to see the fight through the eyes of their captor and went to work wringing union sympathies out of their workers".
Having turned the supervisor into an anti-union force, Levitt turned his attention to workers with union sympathies - what he termed "pushers". The strategy here was to personally discredit unionists. This required information. No means of obtaining information was ruled out. According to Levitt his team of union Busters "routinely pried into worker's police records, personnel files, credit histories, medical records, and family lives in search of a weakness that we could use to discredit union activists".
Where it was not possible to get "dirt" on a unionist, Levitt made it up. "To fell the sturdiest union supporters...I frequently launched rumours that the targeted worker was gay or was cheating on his wife. It was a very effective technique, particularly in blue-collar towns.
If the lies and rumours failed to muzzle union activists, the union buster resorted to sackings. These sackings are illegal under the NLRA. Section 8(a)(3) clearly outlaws discharging employees because they urged other employees to join a union. Nevertheless, union busters know that reinstatement procedures are complex, some dragging out for years after the incident. The aim of the union buster is to remove the union support, based in the crucial period, prior to the ballot.
Levitt's confessions not only highlight the defects of the US Labor relations framework, they also provide crucial insights into the important role supervisors play as opinion setters in workplaces. The lesson for unions seeking to organise the unionised workplace is - ignore the supervisor at your peril. Unions seeking to organise a workplace must ensure that supervisors are won over, or at worst, neutralised.
Supervisors are the key to every union-busting campaign. They can be forced to participate in it, although the trick is to make them want to defeat the union.
Levitt held endless meetings with the supervisors, at one point hiring his wife to talk to some of them, figuring that women would be most likely to open up to another woman. He told them that the workers' support of the union was a personal betrayal. He told them that workers whom the supervisors thought of as friends were actually mocking them behind their backs. He repeatedly portrayed the union as an outsider, deviously trying to insinuate itself between the once loyal workers and the supervisors. He told them that if the union won, everything would have to be done according to strict and impersonal rules. To bring this deception home to both workers and supervisors, he got the employer to institute such rules. The friendly morning meetings with which workers often began their day were eliminated. Supervisors were forbidden to talk with employees, even when they worked alongside of them. Most importantly, the workers were no longer allowed to chat with the residents and were forced to refer to them by their formal names. This was devastating to workers and residents alike.
The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack. The law does not hamper the process, rather, it serves to suggest manoeuvres and define strategies. Each "union prevention" campaign, as the wars are called, turns on a combined strategy of disinformation and personal assaults.
According to Levitt:
Beware of Union Busting Tactics
Articles on Unionbusting
Busting the Busters:
Are union-avoidance firms the final frontier of the labor movement? Harvard Political Review Spring 2006
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SPFPA PLAN
OF ACTION
Building a Member to Member Network of Atlantic City Security Professionals
Organizing is an attitude.
It's the attitude that you and your co-officers together can do something to make things better. It's the attitude that action is better than complaining. It's the attitude that all problems are just situations waiting for a solution. It's the refusal to be discouraged-at least not for long. It's the willingness to listen to others with RESPECT, so that plan you come up with reflects the good ideas of many people. If you have the attitude, you feel it is necessary to respond to unfairness. You are committed to building power with your co-officers, not just talking about it. You believe in collective action, even if you're just starting to understand it.
We are NOT organizing casino's we are building an organization of Security Professionals and AC Dealers who's interest is to protect one another!
The first step in building and uniting the 2000 plus security professionals and 8000 Dealers working in Atlantic City is to believe you can make a difference.
Participation is essential to our success!
One person alone cannot move a mountain but together as a united group we can!
How You Can Help Make a Difference.
Sign up for the RESPECT for A.C.S.P. Campaign.
Spread the word to other Atlantic City Security Professionals who you may see on the street, bus, or workplace about our movement.
Invite a Friend to sign a membership card or just visit this website
Become an active member.
Attending our meetings.
Take part in our organizing drive.
Participate in our calls for action plans.
Develop a list of names and phone # of fellow Security Professionals willing to participate.
Be a point of contact to help spread the word.
Become a Leader.
Educate yourself and others about your rights.
This is Union Busting at its Best!
Start a Rumor ......
Defeat the Workers
Then its To Late!
Want to Know More?
A LOOK AT
UNION - BUSTER MARK GARRITY
Ballys Casino Hires one of the Best and Riches Union - Busters in the Business Mark Garrity
in their attempt to defeat both AC Dealers and the Security Officers working at Ballys Casino.
The 50-year-old native Chicagoan who favors cowboy boots and blue jeans is well paid for his work. Garrity received $600,000 for his successful defeat of a 1995 drive to organize security guards at Excalibur and Luxor, according to paperwork filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.
Garrity is known in his profession as a "persuader," a well-paid hired gun who has been involved in several battles since 1985 to defeat unionizing efforts at Las Vegas area hotels.
Company Name: HUMAN DYNAMICS BALANCE INC
Provides management consulting services, specializing in labor and union relations
Top Executive: MARK GARRITY, PRESIDENT
Business address has changed from 1011 Industrial Rd, Boulder
City, NV, 89005 to 1604 Royal Troon Court, Boulder City, NV, 89005
On October 12, 2001 a check with the Nevada Secretary of State indicated that the busines incorporated in 1995
1029 KEYS DR Year Started: 1995
BOULDER CITY, NV 89005 Control Year: 1995
Telephone: 702 293-3576
MIRAGE CASINO-HOTEL pays Mark Garrity 1.6 Million for his Union-Busting Services
The Mirage
Bellagio Hotel Casino
Boyd Gaming Corporation Par-A-Dice Casino this election was against the SPFPA
LM-20
Organization :C-364
Consultant :BALANCE INCORPORATED
UNION - BUSTER MARK GARRITY'S
MILLION DOLLAR HOUSE
UNION - BUSTER MARK GARRITY GOT PAID OVER $ 1 MILLION DOLLARS ...AND STILL LOST THIS CAMPAIGN! Union Busting at Wynn
LAS VEGAS: Days after billionaire casino magnate Steve Wynn told dealers he made "a big mistake" in allowing supervisors to share in their tips, full-time dealers at the Wynn Las Vegas resort voted overwhelming to join a union.
The dealers voted 444-149 in favor of being represented by the Transportation Workers Union of America in an election this weekend that was sanctioned by the National Labor Relations Board, organizer Dennis Laux said Sunday.
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Boyd Gaming Corporation pays Mark Garrity $350,000 for his Union Busting Services
at Blue Chip Casino
Some of Mark Garrity's other Clients include MGM Grand
Q. Why is it ok for the Casinos to Hire a Union - Buster named Mark Garrity to Represent their Interests....But its Not ok for the Dealers and Security Police Professionals to organize a Union so YOU can be Represented?
Union - Buster Mark Garrity makes Millions of Dollars a Year Defeating Casino Workers Rights and even has A WRITTEN CONTRACT ...
WHY SHOULD' T YOU?
Did You Know Under The Law
Make Unilateral changes in regards to your wages, benefits and/or other conditions of employment once a UNION is Voted in unless it is first negotiated with the union?
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Wynn tries to head off positive union vote But dealers vote anyhow to unionize.
Here is an audiotape of Steve Wynn's UNION - BUSTING meeting with dealers:
Question of the Day!
Why is it ok for
Atlantic City and
Las Vegas Casinos
to Hire
UNION - BUSTERS
to Represent Their Interests ...
BUT Its Not ok
For Dealers and
Security Officers
to have Union Representation?
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Why is it that
UNION - BUSTER
Mark Garrity
Makes Sure he has a
WRITTEN CONTRACT
Outlining His
Million Dollar Fees (DUES)
With the Casinos
BUT
ITS Bad for
YOU?
Beware of Mark Garrity's Union Busting Tactics
Stronger Together
Stronger Together
U1 - Union Busting 101 - "Fear," Episode 1TV
Busting A Union Buster
