News from the NLRB Front: Latest SBNP Charges Dismissed

This press release is in from the Teamsters:
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NLRB Dismisses News-Press' Latest Meritless Charge Against Teamsters

On April 3, 2008, Region 31 of the National Labor Relations Board dismissed another meritless charge filed by the Santa Barbara News-Press against the Graphics Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The charge falsely claimed that union supporters Melinda Burns, Melissa Evans, Rob Kuznia, Dawn Hobbs and Tom Schultz interfered with the News-Press' sale of newspapers at the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market. The Region, in dismissing the charge, noted both that there was insufficient evidence of any violation of the National Labor Relations Act by the Union, and that the SBNP had filed this set of charges too late.

This dismissal further illustrates and reiterates the SBNP's repeated cynical pattern of attempting to harm the reputations of union supporters without basis in fact or law by inserting their names into legal charges falsely accusing them of alleged wrongdoing and publicizing the filing (see March 5 News-Press story), fully aware that
misrepresentations such as these contained in legal filings are ordinarily entitled to legal protection, regardless of their merit.

This is an abuse of the law enforcement machinery and resources of the NLRB. The News-Press has now filed no fewer than 10 charges against the Union, and all have been investigated and dismissed by the federal labor law agency.