The U.S. National Labor Relations Board ruled Jan. 9 that a labor union representing security guards at the Waste Treatment Plant under construction at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site is not entitled to see the contract under which they are employed.
The NLRB ruling finds that Waste Treatment Security Guards Union 161 holds no legal right to review the contract between G4S Secure Solutions (USA) and Bechtel National, which is building the vitrification plant in Washington state.
The board partly upheld a March 2019 ruling by NLRB Administrative Law Judge Eleanor Laws, who found that G4S was improperly denying the guards’ union relevant information concerning its members. While the board reversed Laws on granting the union access to the contract, it did agree with the judge that the security firm violated the National Labor Relations Act by denying the union copies of certain communications with Bechtel.
The board affirmed Laws’ finding that the union is entitled to see information from Bechtel on wages and benefits for unionized guards. Likewise, the NLRB concurred that the union should be able to see copies of exchanges between G4S and Bechtel on bargaining unit employees and their requested transfers, disciplinary records, performance reviews, and “lists of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ employees,” according to the order.
Florida-based G4S Secure Solutions is a branch of the international G4S group, which has 55,000 employees in 90 countries. It succeeded Securitas as the security firm at the Waste Treatment Plant in November 2017.
In May 2018, Waste Treatment Security Guards Union 161 sent G4S a series of information requests that included a seeking copy of the Bechtel-G4S contract. Shortly before G4S took over, the union filed an unfair labor charge against Securitas alleging, among other things, that Bechtel and the guard company were basically a “joint employer.” The union expressed a willingness to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to view the agreement. G4S said the union was not entitled to see the contract and certain other requested information.
The document did not say how many union guards are represented at WTP.
The Waste Treatment Plant is designed to convert much the 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste now held in underground tanks at Hanford, into a stable glass form for disposal.
