Happiness is a warm gun by esc.ape(d) on Flickr

The chief complaints with the National Labor Relations Board are that the agency is tasked with enforcing labor law for any worker who is, or wants to be, part of a union; but with this responsibility comes almost no enforcement power for the NLRB to effectively hold accountable corporations that break the law.

When a company fires a worker for union activity, a years-long process ensues that, at best, will end up rewarding the fired worker with back pay equal to what she would have made had she not be fired – here’s the kicker – minus what she actually earned in that time. And that’s the fiercest enforcement from the NLRB. For any other offense, the most the NLRB can do is force the employer to post a notice in the workplace promising they won’t break the law again.

Which brings us to Danbury, Connecticut. The owner of a real estate company is required to post the following NLRB notice:

“We will not threaten to kill you or to cause you bodily harm because you engage in activities in support of SEIU, Local 32BJ.”

That is the most the NLRB can do in a situation where the owner of the real estate company threaten to both kill and have arrested a union activist protesting in front of his home. Newsday has more:

The company, Matrix Realty Group, had to post the notice this week at an office complex it owns in Danbury, Conn. [...]

The dispute escalated last year when Nelson bought a Connecticut building and switched janitorial companies to a nonunion cleaning service, replacing a workforce of 40 union janitors to save $1.3 million a year.

The man who says he was threatened, Arthur Tiscia, 40, in a telephone interview Wednesday said he went to Nelson’s home in Miller Place on Dec. 21 with a group of the cleaners who had lost their jobs.

They set up a table and a banner in the street near Nelson’s driveway and intended to ask Nelson’s neighbors for food donations for Christmas, for the families of janitors who had lost their jobs, Tiscia said. Nelson came home and threatened him, Tiscia said.

[SEIU]‘s claim against Matrix says Nelson violated labor law “by threatening to shoot and kill Arthur Tiscia and have him arrested for engaging in union activity.”

“We won’t kill you” isn’t the most reassuring thing to see for workers who want to join a union. But that’s the most the NLRB can do if an employer threatens to kill an employee for union activity. Meanwhile, 40+ union employees are still out of work.

“In all of my years in the labor movement, I have never seen an employer resort to death threats,” said Kurt Westby, Connecticut State Director of 32BJ. “Nelson and Matrix should have to do more than post a notice for such thuggish and egregious behavior. These 40 workers deserve justice and deserve their jobs back.”

Even after the death threat, displaced workers have continued to hold regular protests to return to their jobs. Under the settlement, Nelson did not have to admit wrongdoing.

Labor law reform, anyone?