Who are you going to believe?
The union attempting to organize the national headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says the Muslim civil rights group has fired three staffers in an effort to undermine the labor group’s bid. CAIR says the union is spreading “misinformation.”
The charges and counter-charges are the latest escalation in the ongoing fight between CAIR and the Maryland-based Service Employees International Union Local 500, which has been trying to organize its staff since October.
“They are union-busting,” Christopher Honey, spokesman for the union, told the Washington Examiner Friday. “They have created a really hostile workplace atmosphere.”
He said CAIR recently dismissed three staffers who were working for the union, and that was the reason why it filed an unfair practices complaint on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency. “They even delayed when their cost-of-living increase would go into effect until after they got rid of these people,” Honey said.
CAIR, which has generally allied itself with liberal groups, flatly denied the charge. “No employee has been discharged for anything to do with a union. In fact, the one employee they are referring to tendered his resignation more than 30 days ago and CAIR found a replacement, so clearly there is misinformation being disseminated. That said, CAIR respects the privacy of its employees and will not comment on personnel issues,” it said in an email to the Washington Examiner.
The unfair practices complaint means that an April 24 workplace election that the labor board had scheduled has been indefinitely postponed until the dispute is resolved. The fight involves a bargaining unit of 17 employees at CAIR’s Washington headquarters, according to Honey.