Workers have legal rights to form and participate in a labor union under the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRA states that an employer may not do any of the following:
- Threaten employees with loss of jobs or benefits if they join or vote for a union or engage in protected concerted activity.
- Threaten to close the plant if employees select a union to represent them.
- Question employees about their union sympathies or activities in circumstances that tend to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights under the Act.
- Promise benefits to employees to discourage their union support.
- Transfer, lay off, terminate, assign employees more difficult work tasks or otherwise punish employees because they engage in union or protected concerted activity, or because they filed unfair labor practice charges or participated in an investigation by the National Labor Relations Board.
Should an employer violate any of these restrictions, the Boilermakers union will take appropriate action, which could include the filing of unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.