Neutrality Agreements (Private Sector Sample Clauses

Neutrality Agreements (Private Sector. A “neutrality agreement” is a contract in which an employer and a union establish rules and procedures for an organizing campaign and the selection of a collective bargaining representative. In this sense, the parties voluntarily make their own rules, consistent with the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. In upholding a neutrality agreement, the Board has explained that “national labor policy favors the honoring of voluntary agreements reached between employers and labor organizations.” Verizon Information Services, 335 NLRB No. 44 (2001). “Neutrality agreements” are also known as “card check agreements,” “labor peace agreements,” “voluntary recognition agreements,” “private recognition agreements,” and “additional stores agreements.” Neutrality agreements are commonly used. A 2001 empirical survey of 57 unions with at least 10,000 members identified 132 existing neutrality agreements. See Xxxxx & Kriesky, Union Organizing Under Neutrality And Card Check Agreements, 55 Indus. & Lab. Rel. Rev. 42, 45 (2001). Neutrality agreements have been adopted in the hospitality, gaming, telecommunications, services, food and commercial, steel, and auto industries, among others. Id. Union organizing campaigns have an overall success rate of 68% under neutrality agreements. Organizing campaigns have a success rate of 46% pursuant to NLRB elections. Id. at 51-52. Neutrality agreements have been in use for decades. See, e.g., Snow & Sons, 134 NLRB 709 (1961), enfd. 308 F.2d 6877 (9th Cir. 1962). The first step in the formation of a neutrality agreement is typically when a union approaches an employer whose employees it seeks to organize. The union asks the employer to negotiate and enter into a neutrality agreement to establish the terms of the organizing campaign. An employer may agree to negotiate a neutrality agreement in order to “resolve peacefully those tensions inevitably flowing from a union organizing effort.” See, e.g., Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union Local 217 v. X.X. Xxxxxx Hotel, 996 F.2d 561, 566 (2d Cir. 1993). Each party voluntarily gives up rights under the Act in order to make the union recognition process less burdensome for both. The union agrees to forego strikes and picketing and the employer agrees to remain neutral and accept the results of a card check procedure. Id. Meanwhile, employees have the power to accept or reject the union by signing or refusing to sign authorization cards. Id. Thus, neutrality agreements serve the interes...