Judge rules Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition violated federal labor law before dissolving, owes lost earnings to fired employees - Charleston Gazette-Mail
A judge has ruled that a prominent regional environmental nonprofit violated federal labor law by firing two employees and discouraging protected union activity before it dissolved last year.
National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge Paul Bogas issued a decision finding that the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, known as OVEC, violated the National Labor Relations Act by terminating two employees who had been active in forming a union, coercively interrogating employees about their union activities and issuing disciplinary warnings to a third employee.
Bogas’ decision earlier this month requires OVEC to make whole the two terminated employees for any loss of earnings incurred as a result of unlawful firings, in addition to reasonable work-search and interim employment expenses.
The National Labor Relations Act guarantees employees the right to organize and bargain collectively with their employers. The National Labor Relations Board is the federal agency that enforces the law.
After a regional director issues a complaint in an unfair labor practice case, an NLRB administrative law judge hears the case and issues a decision and recommended order.
NLRB Region 9 Director Matthew Denholm filed the complaints that prompted Bogas’ decision.
In January, a federal judge signed off on an agreement between the NLRB and OVEC for the latter to place $55,000 into the registry of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, in case the organization was found to owe back pay in the case.
The terminations came amid contentious collective-bargaining negotiations between OVEC and its union, formed last year in affiliation with the Industrial Workers of the World labor union. OVEC workers announced their intention to unionize in March 2021, when they submitted a request for voluntary recognition from management.
The union’s demands included a standardized pay scale, equitable discipline policy and the right to union representation at any meeting where matters affecting pay, hours, benefits, advancement or layoffs were discussed.
OVEC’s board voted to dissolve the organization formed in 1987 on Nov. 16 amid stalled negotiations with the union, which workers certified in a July election managed by the NLRB.
The board suspended then-director of organizing Brendan Muckian-Bates with pay in March 2021, before firing him in May, saying he was unlawfully participating in union activities as a supervisor. The NLRB ruled in June that the organization failed to show that Muckian-Bates was a supervisor under federal labor law.
The board fired coalition project coordinator Dustin White in May, alleging that he had violated organization civility rules during an email exchange.
An NLRB compliance officer said OVEC owed Muckian-Bates and White a combined $43,794 in back pay, pension contributions, lost gains on the pension contributions and interest, not including as-yet-unliquidated medical expenses and OVEC’s share of cellphone and internet costs it had been paying for the two former employees.
Bogas found that OVEC board member Mike Forman coercively informed employees that the board knew of employees’ union organization efforts and interrogated workers about their protected union activities in March 2021 and unlawfully interrogated and threatened to discipline Muckian-Bates for unionization efforts at a meeting that month.
Bogas rejected OVEC’s defense that Muckian-Bates was a supervisor whom it could legally terminate for union activity.
OVEC said in May, upon firing White, that he violated organization standards by emailing an OVEC board member to say that employees would “show up in spaces you are” to complain about working conditions, if the member ignored their complaints. Bogas found that OVEC failed to show that the comment could be reasonably understood as a threat to confront the board member in person or violate her privacy.
“I think the judge’s ruling has kind of signaled that, even though they might have thought they understood what they were doing this whole time, they clearly didn’t and were letting their egos cloud their judgments,” Muckian-Bates said.
Forman and former OVEC co-director Vivian Stockman did not respond to requests for comment. OVEC’s Huntington-based attorney, Sarah A. Walling of Jenkins Fenstermaker PLLC, also did not respond to a request for comment.
NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado declined comment.
Ohio Valley environmental advocates have decried the loss of OVEC, praising the organization’s work raising concern about petrochemical development, as well as its environmental justice activism and educational support for residents affected by surface mining.
The nonprofit was based in Huntington and founded in 1987. It said in November that its board voted 10-1 to dissolve the organization.
Muckian-Bates doesn’t want the takeaway from the case to be that unionization efforts cause organizations to fail.
“We were there to try to help in our last-ditch effort to make it better by having management understand the issues of staff through a legally binding contract with us collectively,” Muckian-Bates said. “And when they chose to dissolve, rather than to engage in that, they made the decision to destroy the institution, not us.”
Muckian-Bates said that the case is a cautionary tale for small nonprofits.
“[An] organization has to recognize and deal with the fact that they are very much built on public trust,” Muckian-Bates said. “By attacking their staff for wanting to unionize, they are ultimately going to lose that public faith and, if organizations want to continue to operate in those progressive spheres, it’s very important for them to listen to their staff, to not engage in union-busting and, where possible, to voluntarily recognize their staff’s union so that they don’t lose the public’s trust and they don’t ultimately dissolve.”
Mike Tony covers energy and the environment. He can be reached at 304-348-1236 or [email protected]. Follow @Mike__Tony on Twitter.
source: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/judge-rules-ohio-valley-environmental-coalition-violated-federal-labor-law-before-dissolving-owes-lost-earnings/article_d5c06fea-eedd-577e-88d7-e4d577310b44.html
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