Union organizers at a federal science agency have failed in their efforts to unionize researchers and technicians there, prompting allegations of suppression and union busting.

In a mid-May ballot, scientists and technicians at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, voted against establishing a union. According to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), there were 70 votes against forming the union and 43 for it. The number of voters, said Gerald Cole, regional director for the FLRA's San Francisco office, was far less than the 216 NIEHS "professionals" -- defined as workers with advanced degrees who are not direct supervisors -- who were eligible to vote. "I'm not sure I can explain why 100 people who were eligible to vote decided not to vote one way or the other," Cole told The Scientist.

NIEHS headquarters in North Carolina Image: NIEHS

Bill Jirles, program analyst in the NIEHS's office of policy, told The Scientist that management at the agency may have succeeding in dissuading professionals from participating in the union vote. "[NIEHS managers] were trying to, in my view, suppress the organization of professionals here," said Jirles, who is also the president of the Local 2923 American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union, which represents non-professionals at the NIEHS. "I get the impression that [management] would not want to have to deal with the [professionals] union."

"This is a total triumph for management," said James Huff, an NIEHS pharmacologist who supported the establishment of a professional's union. He speculated there might be a feeling among professionals that they were too "elite" for union representation. "It's a typical upper-level attitude."

In the lead-up to the union vote, misinformation and confusion seemed to reign at the agency. While Jirles and Huff said that they tried to get the word out, other NIEHS professionals claim that they weren't aware of the vote until the day before. "None of the scientists knew about it," said Pat Chulada, a clinical researcher and health science administrator at NIEHS. Chulada, who voted against forming the union, told The Scientist that she works in a separate facility from the NIEHS's main building and saw no notices of the vote, but learned after the election that a hard-to-see poster board was located in a corner of her building's lobby. "I think it was that the people who wanted the union were just telling people that they knew also wanted the union so only those people would show up to vote."

Jirles said that he held lunch-time information sessions and sent emails with union information to NIEHS professionals earlier this year, but on February 13th the NIEHS office of labor relations sent him an email forbidding him from "any further use of government e-mails for this internal union business." Jirles replied to NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum and NIEHS employee and labor relations specialist Karen Hunter the same day protesting the action. "It is clear that the agency harbors a great deal of animus and this is another piece of evidence as [to] how the agency treats the union disparately," Jirles wrote in that email.

On February 24, Jirles filed a formal complaint with the FLRA on behalf of AFGE Local 2923. The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Scientist, stated that Hunter -- under the guise of "NIEHS Labor Relations" -- had instructed Jirles to stop sending emails regarding union information sessions and, with NIEHS management, was "interfering with the Union's right to organize employees."

"Hunter's emails are illustrative or indicative of management's actions to disrupt and/or suppress employee and Union rights," Jirles charged. According to Cole, the charge is still under investigation.

Still, Jirles managed to get the signatures of more than 30% of professionals at NIEHS on a petition that the FLRA requires before union votes are allowed to be held. The FLRA verified that petition, and the vote was set for May 14th.

Jirles said that he tried to inform NIEHS scientists about the union and the vote prior to May 14th. In the beginning of May, he invited Environmental Protection Agency scientists Michael Madden and Rachel Grindstaff, who are part of the professionals union at that agency, to NIEHS to talk with professionals. The two covered what benefits might come with union representation, the differences between entering arbitration and consulting a private lawyer, union retirement benefits, and other issues, Grindstaff told The Scientist.

Grindstaff also said that she discussed the difference between a "closed shop" union arrangement, where employees represented by a union are required to pay dues, and unions in right-to-work states, where employees have the option of paying dues and attaining full union membership. "There was some confusion as to what a right-to-work state was," she recalled. The professionals union at NIEHS would have had the option to pay dues or not as North Carolina is a right-to-work state, but Jirles says that some employees mistakenly thought they would have to pay dues if the union vote passed.

Chulada, who did not attend these information sessions, said that she was turned off by "the way the election was held."

Chulada claimed that though the vote was supposed to be anonymous, "They put my ballot in an envelope marked with my name. For me, it wasn't anonymous at all." Chulada also said that she was given a pencil with which to vote. "You couldn't even write [your vote] in permanent ink," she said. "A lot of people felt the election was underhanded."

Birnbaum told The Scientist that management at the agency did nothing to influence the outcome of the vote, and that Jirles's claims of suppression are unfounded. "I don't think that was true at all," she said. "I did not see anything. I would not have ever done anything to stymie any kind of union vote. There was a free and fair election that was held, and the results have been verified."

Both Cole and Karen Hunter noted that management or labor could have filed an official complaint up to five days after the vote if they felt that irregularities had marred its outcome. "If there were any allegations of wrongdoing on our behalf, both parties could have filed a protest," Hunter said. "Neither party did that." Cole confirmed that no such protest was filed with his office.

Jirles said that he will regroup and plan on holding another vote after the year-long waiting period mandated by federal law. "I think the next step is determining, with these professionals who were most interested, whether or not they want to give it another try."


Related stories:

Problems linger at NIEHS
[16th April 2008]

New NIEHS leader looks ahead
[9th December 2008]

Ex-NIEHS director speaks out
[11th February 2008]