Hear from Workers >> Bob Boyle
Bob Boyle was in the fight of his life, a David to his company’s Goliath. In January 2006, Boyle and his co-workers decided to form a union at their workplace. They felt they didn’t have any job security or respect on the job. As painters, Boyle and the other employees were forced to pay for their own respirators necessary to do their work safely. In the time leading up to the union election, Oesterling's Sandblasting & Painting spent their resources fighting to suppress the workers’ freedom to choose a union, through legal and illegal means. The company forced the workers to sit in one-on-one meetings while they threatened to sell the operation and eliminate the workforce. They blatantly broke the law by giving more than half of the employees a raise in the weeks leading up to the election. As the Supreme Court has explained, the law prohibits employers from exercising their unique power over workers by improving wages or working conditions right before the workers vote on a union because it so dangerously interferes with their freedom of choice. Some workers were given raises of as much as $2 an hour, while the annual raise averaged around 18 cents an hour. Aided by these illegal tactics, Oesterling was successful in persuading a majority of the workers into voting against the union. After the election, Boyle, a worker who had missed four days of work in 17 years, was fired. “I wanted a safer workplace and I wanted a union,” Boyle says confidently. “There is no doubt in my mind that I was fired because of my union activity. No doubt. Not one.” This firing, coupled with the serious and pervasive evidence of intimidation and abuse by the employer, was enough for the National Labor Relations Board to recognize that the conditions in the workplace for organizing were irrevocably damaged and that no fair and free election could be conducted. The workers now have a union—a year later. But in the meantime, the workers’ union committees are in shambles and they have to rebuild their efforts from scratch. Boyle says of his experience, “I want people to know how bad it is out there for workers trying to organize—something needs to be done.” | 
