Santa Ana painters dump their union!

Workers for a Santa Ana painting company whose president’s San Clemente home was picketed last year, leading to a San Clemente ordinance limiting such demonstrations, have succeeded in dumping their union!

“The past year has seen a series of petitions and legal maneuvering. The home of GPS Painting & Wallcovering President Eliot Schneider was picketed repeatedly; in September, the San Clemente City Council adopted a disputed ordinance requiring that pickets targeting a residence stay at least 200 feet away.” according to the O.C. Register.

“It all began when the workers reasoned Painters and Allied Trades District Council 36 served them poorly by losing work, health and vacation benefits.,” according to the OC Weekly.

Here are a few more excerpts from the OC Weekly:

Some workers were also forced to miss apprenticeship training to volunteer for union political activities, like manning phone banks for Gov. Jerry Brown’s election campaign.

When the GPS employees discovered they did not have to join the union, they sought a secret ballot to vote for decertification. The union caught wind of that and filed a federal complaint alleging the company was really behind the effort.

The National Labor Relations Board requested Council 36 be reinstated, but that just prompted the workers to file a motion to intervene in the case between the union and the company to prove that the company was not behind their effort.

The union was then removed.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit, provided the workers with free legal help.