NLRB: Dish Network Must Answer for Threats, Firings in CWA Campaign

After years of delays and all too often inaction on workers' complaints, the National Labor Relation Board is again standing up for workers' rights. Dish Network managers in Texas repeatedly threatened workers and fired at least one union supporter during an organizing drive for CWA representation, according to an NLRB complaint issued last week. A hearing on a long list of unfair labor practice charges is scheduled Jan. 18 in Fort Worth.

Despite the vicious anti-union 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, both threats or promises based on whether workers rejected or approved the union. Managers also threatened that employees who support the union would fail quality assurance checks. One manager "coerced and threatened employees" by ordering a union supporter to leave the premises and threatening to call the police if the worker refused.