Busted: What Florida's union busters were up to last month | Nov. 2024
A round-up of reported activity by Florida's anti-union labor consultants, and employers in Florida that hire them.
While Florida isn’t exactly a hotbed for organizing activity, the state happens to be home to some of the most active anti-union labor consultants in the country. Such consultants, described by critics as “union busters,” are hired by employers to convince workers not to form or join a union. Some of these consultants are attorneys, others are not.
More formally known as “persuaders,” these employer-side consultants are hired to conduct union “risk” assessments (union vulnerability audits), train management how to talk down unions (without flagrantly violating federal law on this), and/or directly persuade employees “to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”
Ground rules: Under federal law, persuaders are required to file reports with the federal Office of Labor Management Services when they enter into agreements with employers. These forms are known as LM-20s and LM-21s. When filled out correctly, they offer a snapshot of what persuaders are hired to do, and how much money they’re getting out of it. Employers are similarly required to file similar reports (LM-10s) annually, detailing how much they’ve spent on union busting or “persuader” activity.
LM-20’s (detailing a job) must be filed within 30 days of entering into an agreement with a company, while LM-21’s (disclosing payment received or pending) must be filed within 90 days after the end of the filer’s fiscal year.
The idea behind these reporting requirements is to empower workers involved in an organizing drive with the knowledge of any third-party their employer has brought in, and how much they’re paying them — which is ironic, since consultants will often denigrate the union as a “third-party,” too. Often, the going rate for working to maintain a union-free workplace is hundreds of dollars per hour, as you’ll see below.
Here’s what Florida’s union avoidance experts reported in November:
Byron Clay, an anti-union labor consultant reportedly based out of Apollo Beach, teamed up with fellow persuader Joseph “Joe” Brock of Reliant Labor Consultants/East Coast Labor Relations to convince drivers employed by Nixon Medical Center in Maryland not to unionize with the Teamsters. According to Clay’s report, the pair were hired by the employer in June for “pre-petition” work — which generally means that workers are organizing, but haven’t yet filed a petition for a union election. Clay’s report is vague, but my best guess is that his job was related to an organizing drive among route specialists employed by Nixon Uniform Services (doing business as Nixon Medical), who filed a petition to organize with the Teamsters Local 639 in April. According to the National Labor Relations Board, workers voted 16 to 13 in favor of unionization in May; however, the employer filed objections to the election, and the NLRB ordered a redo election, conducted Nov. 1, where workers voted 5 to 21 against unionization.
Going deeper: The written agreement between Brock’s firm and Nixon Medical, submitted to the labor department, discloses that Brock (a self-described “unabashed liberal union buster” and former union official) was to be paid a daily rate of $3,000 plus travel expenses. Clay was to be paid $3,500/day, plus travel expenses. As for the job, the agreement lays it out pretty clearly: “You have asked for a proposal to provide materials and consulting services to help you prevent a union from getting enough support to hold an election or win an election should they be so successful.” The agreement mentions conducting group and one-on-one meetings with employees, with an objective to “win” the union election (for the employer that is) or to pressure workers to withdraw the petition for a union election, “without meritorious election objections or unfair labor practice charges.”
Rachel Chin, a labor consultant based in Oviedo, filed a very late report disclosing employee auditing services she performed for the Hilton Del Coronado in California and Hilton Santa Barbara. Thing is — she was hired for this job through the Orlando-based union avoidance firm, the Labor Pros, in Oct. 2023, and the Labor Pros formally entered into an agreement with Hilton nine months before that in Janauary. Under federal reporting requirements, Chin was required to file a report disclosing her persuader activity within 30 days of entering into an agreement with the Labor Pros. Chin writes in her report that she was paid $75/hour from Oct. 2, 2023 through Oct. 14, 2023 to “evaluate the overall well-being and morale of the workforce, gain insights into their viewpoints, pinpoint potential enhancements, and review how effectively the organization fulfills employee requests to meet and have discussions.” It appears to have been a preemptive job, because she writes that there was “No Union Activity present.” A financial disclosure report filed by chief executive and founder of the Labor Pros, Nekeya Nunn, shows Hilton Hotels paid the Labor Pros at least $287,912 for persuader services last year at four hotels: Hilton Del Coronado, Hilton Santa Barbara, the Arizona Biltmore, and Embassy Suites Portland.
PODS Enterprises, a moving and storage company headquartered in Clearwater, hired Arizona-based consultant Simon Jara to hold anti-union meetings with drivers and storage center workers in Illinois after they filed a petition to unionize with the Teamsters Local 705. Jara reports billing the employer $375/hour “plus actual and reasonable expenses” for the job, which lasted from Oct. 13 through Oct. 29. According to the National Labor Relations Board, the workers ultimately voted 13 to 18 against unionization. This comes after a few PODS drivers in New York voted to join the Teamsters Local 456 in September, and employees in Connecticut voted to join the Teamsters Local 741 in July.
Going deeper: Jara, vice president of Concordia Resolve Consulting, is a former Teamsters organizer himself who later switched sides to become an employer-side consultant. He’s also worked for the Labor Relations Institute, one of the most prominent union avoidance firms in the country. Jara writes in his latest report that the meetings he held with PODS employees were “voluntary.” However, Jara has found himself in trouble with the National Labor Relations Board for his conduct during such meetings before. During a 2017 union campaign in California, also involving the Teamsters, one worker testified that Jara told them the union was “no good” and that contract negotiations would “start at zero.” An administrative law judge in that case found the employer, Newport Meat Southern California, “committed numerous violations” of the National Labor Relations Act, including “unlawful threats and statements, distribution of an anti-union petition, and promises of increased benefits to employees during the “critical period” to encourage them to vote against union representation.”
“After a near week of anti-union meetings every day, on July 3rd PODS workers stood united in their support of a union, voting 13-4. PODS engaged in the typical busting tactics to quell the strength of their workers, but it didn’t work,” said Ruby Clarke, an organizer for the Teamsters Local 671 in Bristol, Connecticut.
Raymond Rosenbach, head of the Illinois-based firm Government Resources Consultants of America, has enlisted multiple labor consultants from Florida to do union-busting work for Amazon. Rosenbach enlisted Juan Carlos Cervantes and Anthony Curcio from the Delray Beach-based firm, Labor Advisors, in October to “inform and educate” Amazon employees throughout Amazon’s “Eastern network,” according to a disclosure report filed. No union is identified, nor does Rosenbach disclose where exactly he’s dispatching these consultants, or how much they’re being paid to, reportedly, “discuss the realities of signing authorization cards and voting in the upcoming election.” Records show, however, Amazon paid the firm more than $200,000 for their services last year.
Another report filed by Rosenbach shares that his firm also dispatched eight consultants to the “Western region” of the U.S. for Amazon, including four consultants from the Delray Beach-based firm Labor Advisors. An exact location for the job isn’t specified. Nor is the union they’re targeting “in a possible future election.” A third disclosure report (filed months late) shares that Rosenbach dispatched nine consultants in June to the “Midwest region” — including Greg Peraino and Dawn Chapman of D&G Consulting in Celebration, and Anthony Curcio of Labor Advisors in Delray Beach. Again, the exact location isn’t clarified, although it looks like there was an active organizing drive in Skokie, Illinois involving the Teamsters around that time. The job, which reportedly involved conducting meetings with Amazon workers “to discuss the realities of signing authorization cards and voting in the possible future election” is identified by Rosenbach as “ongoing.”
But that’s not all. Russ Brown, head of RoadWarrior Productions in Satellite Beach, Florida, also filed two reports disclosing persuader activity for Amazon. According to one report, Brown enlisted two persuaders — Roy Rivas of “N/a”, California and Michael Esposito of Sandy Springs, Georgia — to convince Amazon delivery service partner (DSP) drivers at Amazon’s DPS1 location in El Monte, California not to unionize with the Teamsters. Brown’s agreement with Amazon, filed with the federal Office of Labor-Management Standards, shows a cost estimate of $188,400 for the job, which lasted from Oct. 16 through Nov. 15. The cost estimate included a billing rate of $3,800 per consultant (2) per day, plus transportation costs, lodging, and a per diem. Next: A second report shows Brown enlisted two other consultants — Mike Rosado of New Jersey and Roger Lacy of Tennessee — to persuade Amazon DSP drivers at Amazon’s DCH8 location in Melrose, Illinois not to unionize with the Teamsters. Records show Brown provided Amazon with a cost estimate of $218,800 for 25 days’ worth of “consulting,” lasting from Oct. 21 through Nov. 22.
In non-Amazon news, Angela Perez, a consultant based out of Brooklyn, filed a late report disclosing that she was hired through the Delray Beach firm Labor Advisors in April to convince Thermoflex Corporation warehouse workers in Waukegan, Illinois not to join forces with the Machinists union. According to NLRB records, it’s been a hard-fought fight just for an election, as the company has argued that they don’t directly employ many of 435 warehouse workers in the proposed bargaining unit (doesn’t that sound familiar), claiming they’re employees of four different staffing agencies. Perez, who doesn’t disclose her billing rate, was hired alongside Staten Island, New York consultant Zoila Garcia to “educate” the workers about their union rights from April 2 through July 3, according to Perez’s report.
Going deeper: According to the Machinists union, a majority of the workers “are Spanish-speaking immigrants, report wages below $20 an hour, and lack company-provided health insurance, retirement benefits, or paid time off.” Three Illinois-based members of Congress — including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Rep. Bradley Scott Schneider — wrote a letter to Thermoflex in April, expressing their support for the workers’ right to unionize with the Machinists. “The right to unionize and to bargain collectively has been a bedrock of U.S. labor law for generations, and it has played a critical role in improving conditions of employment,” the letter reads. “All workers deserve to have their voices heard in the fight for decent wages, good working conditions, and a secure livelihood.”
John Burress, a consultant affiliated with the union avoidance firm Labor Advisors in Delray Beach, was hired along with Scott Dietrich of Pennsylvania in October to convince production employees of Howmet Aerospace not to unionize with the United Steelworkers. The pair were picked for the job by Raymond Rosenbach with the Government Resources Consultants of America (which is also doing union-busting for Amazon, as mentioned above). In his report, Rosenbach does not disclose where this job is located, which union local they’re targeting, or how much his firm is being paid to convince this group of workers they don’t need a union. He describes the job as “ongoing.” Although I don’t see a matching representation-certification (RC) case (i.e. union election petition filing) with the National Labor Relations Board, it appears that Howmet is facing multiple unfair labor practice complaints in Ohio.
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