Richard Berman
Richard Berman, a longtime labor expert, is the Executive Director of the Center for Union Facts (CUF) and the President of Berman and Company, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm specializing in strategic research, communications and creative advertising.
Berman and Company represents many industry leaders in business matters as well as manages five non-profit national organizations, blending aggressive, creative thinking with functional expertise for its clients. Its research, communication campaigns, and advertisements have won over 20 awards from many leading political and public relations organizations. The American Association of Political Consultants honored Berman and Company with first place awards for “Best Political Use of the Internet,” “Best National Public Affairs TV Commercial,” “Best Magazine Ad” and “Best Billboard/Bus Sign.” Respected PR publication Bulldog Reporter awarded Berman and Company with a first place award in “Crisis Communication.”
Berman was previously employed as the executive Vice President of Public Affairs for the Pillsbury Restaurant Group where he was responsible for the government relations programs of all restaurant operations. Berman also was employed by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Dana Corporation, and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
Berman has testified on numerous occasions before committees of the various state legislatures, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives and has been named a “Star Rainmaker” on Capitol Hill by The Hill, a popular Washington, DC newspaper. He has appeared on all the major television networks on behalf of client interests and has organized national business coalitions on a variety of issues.
A native of New York City, Berman is a graduate of Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky, and received a Juris Doctorate from the law school at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He is admitted to practice in Virginia and the District of Columbia and lives with his family in McLean, Virginia.
J. Justin Wilson
J. Justin Wilson is the Center for Union Facts Managing Director. He focuses his research on union finances and operations. He is also responsible for the UnionFacts.com database, and has tracked union political spending, embezzlement charges, and other forms of union corruption. Justin is a 2003 graduate of the University of Michigan. You can reach Justin at wilson@unionfacts.com
Guest Bloggers
Martin F Payson
Martin F. Payson is a Labor Partner in the national workplace law firm of Jackson Lewis LLP. Since joining the firm in 1967, Mr. Payson has specialized in the practice of labor and employment law representing the interests of management.
Mr. Payson has been an outspoken opponent of “EFCA” – the Employee Free Choice Act as he believes it would make both bad law and bad public policy. He believes it represents a fundamental attack on the principles of democracy, informed decision making, and the secret ballot. Substituting the public card count procedure for the private ballot constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy subjecting workplace voters to coercion, intimidation, embarrassment and public ridicule by union organizers and peer pressure by aggressive coworkers . Constitutional rights of free speech accorded to employers under the existing National Labor Relations Act would be seriously compromised and the compulsory arbitration provisions would violate fundamental principles of contract law while potentially depriving workers of the right to vote on both union representation and mandatory union membership as well as their own terms and conditions of employment.
Mr. Payson is an experienced labor law practitioner, representing the interests of management in federal and state courts and before the National Labor Relations Board. He has extensive experience in the representation of management faced with union organizing drives and National Labor Relations Board elections. He has placed special emphasis on assisting clients in the development and implementation of preventive workplace practices, procedures and programs, most recently focusing on the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms as both a union avoidance, as well as litigation avoidance strategy.
Based upon his extensive experience in the field, Mr. Payson has been frequently called upon to speak on “EFCA” as well as a variety of other contemporary workplace issues. He has appeared on both NBC and CBS television news shows and has co-hosted a series of programs on personnel and the law. His insightful remarks have been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Business Week, New York Law Journal, Industry Week and in numerous other professional journals and management publications. He has published a wide variety of articles in such publications as Nation’s Business, Human Resource Executive, Personnel Journal, Trial Magazine, and is a contributing editor to the text of both, Winning NLRB Elections: Management Strategy and Preventive Programs and the recently published Employer’s Guide To Union Organizing Campaigns.
Mr. Payson currently serves as a Senior Faculty Member of the national seminar series “EFCA – How To Stay Union Free”. He has served as a Guest Lecturer at the Cornell School of Industrial Relations and the Adjunct Faculty of the University of Rochester. He received his undergraduate degree in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the City University of New York, and obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1966. He is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Circuit Courts of Appeals and is admitted to the bar in the States of New York and Pennsylvania. He is listed in Who’s Who In America.
John N. Raudabaugh
john.n.raudabaugh@bakernet.com
Mr. Raudabaugh is a Partner at Baker & Mackenzie, where he represents senior management in complex labor relations law matters and related litigation. Mr. Raudabaugh counsels regarding union corporate campaigns; neutrality, card-check and internet union organizing tactics; employment policies; appropriate unit design; labor strategy considerations in corporate transactions; strikes and injunction proceedings; collective bargaining research, strategy, and negotiations; concessionary bargaining; representation case and unfair labor practice litigation before the U.S. National Labor Relations Board; labor considerations in bankruptcy proceedings; labor and employment issues and litigation regarding international trade treaty agreements; and federal and state labor and employment law policy. Mr. Raudabaugh partners with corporate Human Resources, Labor Relations, and Legal in providing specifically tailored law and economics advice and representation, as well as management and supervisory training.
Mr. Raudabaugh was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and served as a Member of the U.S. National Labor Relations Board from 1990-1993. During his term, Mr. Raudabaugh participated in over 4,000 federal labor law representation and unfair labor practice cases including Electromation, Inc., 309 NLRB 990 (1993) and E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co., 311 NLRB 893 (1993) (employee participation programs); Dubuque Packing Co., Inc., 303 NLRB 386 (1991) (duty to bargain plant relocations); The Nielsen Lithographing Co., 305 NLRB 697 (1991) (duty to provide information); Comtel Systems Technology, 305 NLRB 287 (1991) (multi-employer bargaining procedures); KI (USA) Corp., 309 NLRB 1063 (1992) (prejudicial union campaign tactics); Coastal Stevedoring Co., 313 NLRB 412 (1993) (international union secondary pressure tactics).
From 1995-2003, Mr. Raudabaugh assisted in representing the largest, non-union U.S. trucking company successfully defend against the largest union corporate campaign in U.S. labor history. The union organizing campaign involved 90 representation case petitions, 73 elections, 24 decertifications, 2 disclaimers of interest, 1,003 unfair labor practice charges, 206 bargaining sessions over 8 ½ years, a three year nationwide strike, and 21 state court injunctions.
Mr. Raudabaugh frequently advises policymakers regarding labor law and labor standards. He testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations regarding neutrality and card-check recognition agreements, represented the U.S. Department of Labor regarding comparative labor law issues implementing the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement, and assisted the U.S. Department of State in Eritrea reviewing and commenting on the draft Eritrean labor and employment law code. Mr. Raudabaugh regularly represents policymakers and trade associations in amici filings regarding significant labor law policy issues before the U.S. National Labor Relations Board.
