Your Rights to Know!

Unions have made life better for all working Americans by helping to pass laws ending child labor, establishing the eight-hour day, protecting workers’ safety and health and helping create Social Security, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage, for example. Unions are continuing the fight today to improve life for all working families in America.

Threats

Although the employer may criticize and attack the union, even to the point of making untrue statements, it is unlawful for the employer to threaten to retaliate against employees for supporting the union. This includes threats to fire, layoff, close the facility, or take away benefits because the employees voted for a union.

Interrogation

It is an unfair labor practice for management to question employees about their union sympathies, although this does not apply to employees who are openly pro union, unless the atmosphere is coercive. For example, it is not objectionable for supervisors to debate a pro-union employee about why he or she supports the union. But to seek out and interrogate secret supporters is objectionable.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions.

The AFL-CIO union movement represents 10.5 million members, including 2 million members in Working America, its new community affiliate. We are teachers and truck drivers, musicians and miners, firefighters and farm workers, bakers and bottlers, engineers and editors, pilots and public employees, doctors and nurses, painters and laborers—and more.

The mission of the Organizing Institute (OI) is to help build the labor movement primarily through identifying, training and developing organizers from our membership, staff, community and college campuses across the country.

The Organizing Institute is committed to continuously producing organizers who are enthusiastic, energetic and armed with skills to help workers fight to form and join unions.

This website was made for and by the people of Local 1497 WSU