Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Two months ago, on Jan. 3, in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Case Number 18-RD-288362, a petition to push the Teamsters Local 120 union out of Mayo hospital in Fairmont was officially received. This petition was circulated by Mayo employees. Results of that petition were certified two months later on March 7. After 40 years of union protection, Mayo employees no longer had union help and power. The workers are now alone. A worker alone is a worker without any power.

Interestingly, on the NLRB web page, the “petitioner” listed on the Mayo Clinic Health System of Fairmont NLRB case was the well-known anti-union organization: the National Right to Work Legal Foundation. Why would a nationally known anti-union organization come to Fairmont? The answer? To, (as it turns out successfully) influence and guide Mayo employees to leave Teamsters. Who invited this organization to Fairmont?

In the United States, unions are under intense pressure from corporations and dark money funded anti-union organizations to fall off the face of the earth. In the 1950s union membership was at its highest in the United States, around thirty-five million workers. Today, membership is down to ten million. If individuals would take a moment, they would see that they are lucky if given the chance to belong to a union. With a union, you have someone behind you. Unions have helped workers for decades, through hard fought fights, for shorter hours, better safety, vacation time, better wages and much, much more.

Support workers’ rights and union power.

Peter Engstrom

Fairmont