NLRB Hearing Set for January On Threats, Firings at DISH

After years of delays and all too often inaction on workers’ complaints, the National Labor Relations Board has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 18 in Fort Worth to investigate charges that Dish Network managers in Texas repeatedly threatened workers and fired at least one union supporter during an organizing campaign for CWA representation. A hearing will be held on a long list of unfair labor practice charges.

Despite a vicious anti-worker campaign, 62 percent of workers at two Dallas-area Dish Network facilities, in Farmers Branch and North Richland Hills, voted in February to join CWA Local 6171. Since then, the company has accelerated its union-busting, with firings, greater use of contractors and drastic changes in working conditions.

“Dish Network is cut out of the same anti-union cloth as the cable companies,” CWA District 6 Vice President Andy Milburn said. “Both units had about 50 members when they began to organize and the company has laid off half of them
But the remaining employees are determined to have a union in spite of Dish Network’s tactics.”

The NLRB complaint includes multiple allegations involving wages and benefits and threats or promises based on whether workers rejected or approved the union. Managers also threatened that employees who supported the union would fail quality assurance checks. One manager “coerced and threatened employees” by ordering a union supporter to leave the premises, threatening to call the police if the worker refused.