LaborLab, a workers’ rights watchdog, has filed a series of complaints against a group of labor relations consultants involved in UnityPoint Health’s extensive and expensive union-busting campaign. The complaints were filed with the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), alleging that the consultants and their firms—David Bax and Labor Strategy Partners, James Misercola and Labor Educators, James Thelen, Jeffrey Harrison, and Jerry Walters of Littler Mendelson, and Kirsten Moore of KJM Consulting—have potentially violated the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) by failing to file required disclosures designed to safeguard workers’ rights.
Nurses’ Concerns and UnityPoint’s Response
Nurses at UnityPoint Health in Des Moines, Iowa, are seeking to unionize due to major concerns over patient safety, unsafe staffing levels, and inadequate compensation. During a recent rally, nurses said that they are “fighting for our lives” and that they often have to care for an unreasonable number of patients, which compromises the quality of care. For example, some nurses are caring for up to 12 patients at a time, double the usual patient load, while charge nurses are managing 50 beds in addition to their own patients. Nurses say they’ve tried to address these issues through “direct collaboration,” which the employer has pushed as an alternative to unionization, but their concerns have been ignored, making unionization the only path to meaningful change.
In response, UnityPoint Health has declined to voluntarily recognize the union, stating that a standard election process is the best way to ensure every nurse makes a “fully informed decision.” They claim that direct collaboration with staff is the best approach and that representation by an “outside party” is not in the best interest of the hospitals, nurses, or patients. But while the nurses themselves are forming a union that they control, it is the hospital that has hired a small army of expensive, out-of-state “outside parties” to counter the union’s organizing campaign.
The Scope of the Anti-Union Campaign
LaborLab has filed a series of complaints against multiple out-of-state labor relations consultants hired by UnityPoint Health. The amount of money UnityPoint Health is spending on out-of-state union-busters is potentially unprecedented in its scope. Public records show The Crossroads Group, C Hunt Management Consulting and the Independent Center for Worker Education have been charging over $400 per hour or more for their services over the last nine months. But the full extent of the spending and activities remains hidden due to the alleged failure of other firms to file the required disclosures. This lack of transparency is at the heart of LaborLab’s complaints to the OLMS. The complaints allege that these consultants are violating the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) by failing to file required disclosures about their activities and fees.
It appears as though the following consultants may be violating the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) by failing to file required disclosures for their activities on behalf of UnityPoint Health’s campaign against nurses:
- David Bax and his firm, Labor Strategy Partners
- James Misercola and his firm, Labor Educators
- James Thelen and Jeffrey Harrison, both with the law firm Littler Mendelson
- Jerry Walters, also with Littler Mendelson
- Kirsten Moore with KJM Consulting
According to the complaints, these consultants have apparently been meeting directly with and surveilling workers at UnityPoint Health but have not filed the necessary LM-20 reports, which would disclose their activities and financial arrangements.
LaborLab has requested that the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) investigate the matter and ensure that the LM-20 and LM-21 reports are filed to provide transparency and protect workers’ rights. The only documents related to the campaign that have been publicly disclosed so far are the contracts between UnityPoint Health and labor relations consultants, such as The Crossroads Group, C Hunt Management Consulting, and the Independent Center for Worker Education. These disclosures show that UnityPoint Health’s consultants are being paid $450/hr. to fight the nurses’ organizing efforts.
There are also reports that union-buster Evelyn Fragoso has recently appeared in Des Moines to assist with UnityPoint Health’s union-busting effort, but no disclosures have been received at the time of publication.
The Role of Littler Mendelson
UnityPoint Health’s decision to hire Littler Mendelson, the largest management-side labor law firm in the world, is particularly noteworthy. The firm has a reputation for running fierce “union avoidance” campaigns and has represented major corporations like Amazon, Starbucks, and Delta Airlines against unionizing efforts. A recent article in The American Prospect – “Anti-Union Law Firm Tells Clients to Go Ahead with Illegal Union-Busting Tactic” – exposed how the firm’s lawyers advise clients.
As The American Prospect reported, in a private webinar, “Littler Mendelson attorneys said ‘risk-tolerant’ employers could ignore a Rhode Island ban, because anti-union meetings provide ‘tremendous value. This is despite the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) having recently banned mandatory attendance at these meetings. This advice reveals a willingness to encourage clients to push the boundaries of labor law, even when faced with new regulations and NLRB rulings. The firm’s infamous reputation is not a secret. They openly boast about their role in thousands of anti-union campaigns and their track record of defeating unionization efforts in various industries. And they do it for a hefty price—attorneys at Littler reportedly charge as much as $1,760 an hour for their services. They even seem to take pride in being reviled by union supporters. One Littler attorney recently joked about receiving “friendly and supportive comments” like, “You corporate, fascist pieces of trash,” and said he takes it “as a compliment.”
Two of the attorneys – Jerry Walters and James Thelen – have a track record of making dubious arguments to defend a major client – Starbucks – in cases where the employer was found to have committed myriad egregious unfair labor practices. In one case, the defense team Walters was on justified the firing of a union activist for wearing a suicide awareness pin to commemorate a recently-deceased coworker on the grounds that it was not Starbucks or union-issued and was worn outside of Suicide Awareness month. In the same case, the defense team also maintained that another union activist had been lawfully terminated for leaving cash in the register during a strike, even though she locked the store and register.
By hiring Littler Mendelson, UnityPoint Health is not just pushing back against the union; it’s engaging a powerful and experienced force that actively seeks to subvert, shape and challenge labor law in favor of corporate interests, demonstrating a particularly aggressive and high-stakes approach to the union campaign.
Update on the Complaints
The complaints filed by LaborLab with the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) over a month ago have not yet resulted in the public disclosure of the required financial reports. Despite the serious allegations of LMRDA violations, the OLMS has not yet compelled the consultants and firms, including Labor Strategy Partners, Labor Educators, Littler Mendelson, and KJM Consulting, to file the necessary LM-20 forms. This delay highlights a recurring concern raised by LaborLab and other labor advocates: a perceived lack of timely and robust enforcement by the OLMS regarding employer and persuader reporting requirements.LaborLab’s recent report, “Widening Divide: Employers and Union-Busters Skirt Reporting Rules While Unions Comply,” underscores this issue. It notes a “significant and widening gap in compliance” between unions, who have improved their reporting, and employers and their consultants, who continue to be non-compliant. As an example of one of these gaps, we found that while 83 percent of unions recently filed their annual LRMDA reports on time, only 34 percent of employers and 34.6 percent of consultants did. The report suggests a “two-tiered system of enforcement” where the OLMS has been effective in improving union reporting but has been less active in enforcing compliance among employers and persuaders. As the UnityPoint campaign continues, the lack of transparency in the financial disclosures of these anti-union consultants remains a central point of contention for those seeking to protect workers’ rights.
