By Adam Pagnucco.
I worked on union organizing campaigns all over the U.S. and Canada for 16 years. Anyone in my old line of work quickly becomes familiar with law firms who specialize in advising employers during those campaigns. And one of the names we all know is Jackson Lewis PC.
So imagine my surprise when I found a $3,900 Jackson Lewis PAC check to U.S. Senate candidate Will Jawando, who has called himself “the only real progressive in the race.”
Here’s the proof from the Federal Election Commission website. As of this writing, campaign finance records do not show that the contribution has been returned.
Under the National Labor Relations Act, private sector workers have a right to decide for themselves whether to be represented in collective bargaining. One of those mechanisms is through union elections administered by the National Labor Relations Board. In practice, those elections tend to be anything but free and fair. Employers can legally delay them, tie them up in court, hold captive audience meetings with employees, “predict” that workplaces will shut down if they are unionized and exercise their “free speech” rights about unions. On top of that, they often break the law by firing and discriminating against pro-union workers with minimal punishments by the labor board. I saw the latter behavior several times during campaigns in which I worked.
Advising employers on how to defeat union organizing campaigns is big business. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that American employers spend more than $400 million a year to hire “union avoidance” consultants to prevent unionization. One of the most active firms in this industry is Jackson Lewis.
The labor movement has a lot to say about Jackson Lewis. The AFL-CIO has described the firm as one of three that “are notorious among labor advocates as ‘union-busters.’” The American Federation of Teachers has branded them a “notorious union-busting law firm.” The Teamsters has called them “America’s premier union busting law firm” and has accused them of helping to “destroy American jobs.” Labor Lab, a site devoted to tracking the union avoidance industry, has written:
Jackson Lewis is a law firm that has earned a reputation as a leading union busting firm, representing employers in labor disputes, lawsuits, and other matters related to unions. The firm has been accused of using aggressive tactics to intimidate and undermine unions, including engaging in surveillance, spreading misinformation, and even firing workers who seek to organize. The firm’s success in preventing unions from forming or expanding highlights the challenges facing workers who seek to organize in an environment that is often hostile to unions.
Jackson Lewis has made no effort to hide its views on unions. The firm states on its website, “We have been retained to offer legal advice to many employers who have succeeded in winning NLRB elections or in averting union elections altogether.” Many Jackson Lewis attorneys including Timothy J. Ryan, Sarah M. Rain, David G. Islinger, James A. Mills, Robert S. Seigel, Scott Oborne, Scott A. Carroll and others openly tout their expertise in “union avoidance.” In 2001, the firm published “War is Hel…pful: Union Avoidance Training,” an article in which it described its approach to “war games training” for firms seeking to stop unionization. The company has also published a 258-page book called “Winning NLRB elections: Avoiding unionization through preventive employee relations programs” that is available for purchase on Amazon.
As I was drafting this post, MoCo360 reported that MCPS hired Jackson Lewis to investigate the allegations against principal Joel Beidelman, which MCEA promptly condemned. County Executive Marc Elrich has questioned whether the investigation is independent since Jackson Lewis handles other matters for the school system and he has a point. It goes further than that. MCPS must create a process for reporting and investigating allegations against principals and other employees in collaboration with its labor organizations. That’s impossible when MCPS is utilizing a law firm that profits from fighting unions.
There is more. Jawando offered the following comment about Jackson Lewis in a Washington Post article:
“Jackson Lewis is a reputable law firm; the school had a relationship with them. I don’t ascribe any mal intent to the school system because of that,” said Jawando, who is running for U.S. Senate. “But it is fair questions from us and others to say, ‘What did they review? How thorough was it? What were the findings?’”
Good luck finding anyone who has ever participated in a union organizing campaign with anti-union consultants working against them who would characterize Jackson Lewis as “reputable.” The bigger problem with this article is that it did not note that Jackson Lewis is one of the largest contributors to Jawando’s congressional campaign. Jawando should have disclosed that to the Post, and if he did not, they should have verified it for themselves.
In fairness to Jawando, Jackson Lewis contributes to many politicians, including Democrats, in Maryland and beyond. The company wrote three checks to Angela Alsobrooks’s state committee in 2018 for $1,000 each. I have not seen them contribute to the U.S. Senate campaigns of either Alsobrooks or David Trone. So the contribution to Jawando is not inherently unusual.
Nevertheless, Jawando should return the money for two reasons. First, any candidate calling himself “the only real progressive in the race” should not be taking money from a law firm specializing in “union avoidance.” And second, it’s an intolerable conflict for the chair of the county council’s Education and Culture Committee, which has oversight responsibility for MCPS’s investigation of Beidelman, to be taking thousands of dollars from the law firm conducting that investigation. This issue must be cleaned up. Right now.