In April, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a legal memo saying captive audience meetings are inherently coercive. As such, employees should not be required to attend such meetings. Now, a group of staffing agencies are suing Abruzzo in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Earlier this year, LaborLab broke the news that Amy's Kitchen, which markets itself as a progressive brand, had hired union-busters to conduct captive audience meetings in California. Now, the frozen food giant is escalating their anti-worker campaign by shutting down a plant in retaliation against workers exercising their right to form a union.

Earlier this month, LaborLab discovered that Pfizer has hired an army of union-busters to persuade workers against starting a union.

According to records filed with the U.S. Department of Labor on July 8 and reviewed by LaborLab, Keurig Dr Pepper based in Grand Rapids, Michigan has hired a union-busting consulting firm (Flores Labor Relations Inc.) to conduct captive audience meetings with workers attempting to exercise their legally protected right to unionize.

Portillo's hotdogs in Chicago is generally beloved, which is what makes the following news so depressing.

In March 2022, Foley & Lardner LLP uploaded a presentation to YouTube which was, in part, about how unions are "going after" progressive companies. According to Michael Ryan, one of the speakers, unions are doing this by using social media to spotlight the "progressive" companies fighting unionization and highlighting how this is contradictory to their values and themes. "That's not necessarily true," Ryan says.

According to Department of Labor filings reviewed by LaborLab, Pfizer has hired Labor Relation Institute (LRI) Consulting to "persuade" workers against forming a union. Only certain activities must be reported to the Department of Labor, so it's likely Pfizer is conducting captive audience meetings. A captive audience meeting is a mandatory meeting where workers are interrogated and subjected to threats, lies, and anti-union propaganda.

Many megacorporations are receiving attention for covering travel costs associated with an employee's abortion. However, not many people are asking if these same megacorporations also offer paid parental leave, paid sick leave, and full family health insurance to all employees.

We believe that workers have a basic and fundamental right to form a union and that anyone attempting to limit that right should be held accountable. Are you with us? Join LaborLab's Rapid Response Team!

You will be notified when employers hire union-busters in your area and about how you can help bring attention to the violation of the rights of workers in your community.

The CEO of No Evil Foods is now making the remarkable claim that NEF "just didn't know" they were union busting. In a June 2022 interview, Sadrah Schadel, co-founder and CEO, told the Evolve CPG podcast:

"We held meetings from our perspective to educate and share the pros and cons of what unionization might mean for our company at this stage of our growth. Later we learned that's termed 'union busting' and it's really frowned upon but we just didn't know. It's kinda crazy to look back on now."