NLRB ALJ Orders Dish to Reinstate Texas Workers

Dish Network has 14 days to reinstate 17 discharged Texas workers to their old jobs or equivalent positions and compensate them for lost earnings and benefits, National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge Robert Ringler ruled Tuesday. The NLRB decision said Dish in April imposed new contractual terms on unionized workers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area after five years of negotiations that effectively cut wages deeply and changed the terms of health coverage, resulting in 17 employees resigning. It said Dish didn't satisfy the burden of proving an impasse existed when it imposed the new contractual terms, violating the National Labor Relations Act. It said the 17 "were presented with the 'Hobson's choice' of continuing to work ... under greatly diminished conditions that flowed from the violation of their ... rights." The judge said the company, in violating the law by unilaterally changing those terms and conditions of employment, must at the request of the Communication Workers of America restore any unilaterally modified terms and conditions of employment and rescind the changes it made until it and the union reach an agreement. Dish was ordered to rehire an employee it fired in 2016 without having previously notified the union, in violation of an agreement for such prior notification. The firm in a statement Wednesday said it "respectfully disagrees with the NLRB’s ruling. The CWA refused to meaningfully negotiate on behalf of its represented workers in North Texas for more than a year and, in our view, is responsible for the impasse central to the decision. DISH acted lawfully at all relevant times and we are considering all available options, including appeal.”