Unfair Labor Practice Charges: Why Bother?

By: Rose Schafer, SEIU Local 1 PSU Unit Chair

Things are bad at the NLRB. Between increased union organizing (good!) and intentionally vicious understaffing (bad!), it now takes over 400 days to get to a complaint. And even when you do get a complaint (and then a hearing and then — if you win — a remedial order), what does it actually order? These days, maybe just a notice posting. And if all you’re gonna is a flyer in the breakroom a year or so later, why bother filing ULP charges at all?

Because ULPs are not the end; they are the means to an end, with the end being real change in our workplaces and our world.

In 2023, I led a successful campaign against management at the Kansas City Royals, which had been newly purchased by real life evil billionaire John Sherman. During this campaign, we didn’t just stop at organizing ourselves, we also organized the fans - or in other words, the people who are the real stakeholders in our labor. We did that by filing and then advertising a whole heap of ULP charges in order to generate media attention which then generated genuine fan outrage — and stakeholder anger is really just a fancy way to say pressure.

This is a lesson that we know from over 60 years of public sector labor history — when the stakeholders are on our side, we win nearly every time.

In this case, just as predicted, management gave in to fan pressure, without anyone even mentioning the word “strike”. Even better, once the contract was signed, we still had the pending charges to use as leverage to ensure that management kept their promises even after the fervor died down.

As workers in non-profits, labor unions, and news media, our employers are uniquely vulnerable to public opinions, and ULP charges are a good tool to win public interest and press(ure) forward to the workplaces — and the world! — that we deserve.

ULP path as outlined by NLRB: