On October 28, 2021, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) Region 19 tallied the votes in a certification election involving Teamsters Local 117 and Hospital Central Services Association, located in Auburn, Washington. There were seventeen (18) eligible full and part-time drivers in the proposed bargaining unit. The union won overwhelming by a vote of 11 to 4 and Teamsters Local 117 was certified as the representative of these employees by the NLRB on November 5.
With the initial petition for the election filed August 16, this election happened in slightly more than two months from filing, but it still left plenty of time for the employer to hire a “persuader” consultant, LRI Associates, one of the most widely used consultants of their kind in the US. According to the Form LM-20, which persuaders must file within thirty days of entering into a persuader arrangement, the agreement date was September 6, 2021. The agreement stipulated that LRI would begin its work on September 20 and charge Hospital Central Services $375 per hour plus expenses. The person identified in the LM-20 form as doing the work for LRI was Patrick O’Mara.
The annual employer LM-10 report, which must be filed by employers who hire persuaders within ninety (90) days of the close of their fiscal year, reported they spent $38,600 on LRI’s “persuader” services. The first payment, according to Form LM-10, was made on October 13 in the amount of $17,686 and the final payment on October 19 for $20,914.
Thirty-eight thousand six hundred dollars is a lot of money, especially when you divide it by four votes against the union ($9,650 per “no representation” vote). If they had saved the money and spent it on the 1 bargaining unit members (about $2,271 per worker), that’s roughly $1.10 per hour on wages or money that could go to improving health care or other benefits.
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Published September 20, 2022