When workers begin organizing a union in an Ohio public workplace, the dynamic shifts dramatically. Supervisors who once seemed friendly may become distant or hostile. Management suddenly takes interest in employee concerns they've ignored for years. New policies appear overnight. For workers fighting to form their union, understanding what their employer can and cannot legally do during this critical period isn't just helpful—it's essential to protecting the organizing campaign and avoiding intimidation tactics that could derail your collective efforts.

Your Fundamental Rights Under Ohio Law

As Ohio public employees, you have fundamental rights under Chapter 4117 of the Ohio Revised Code. You have the right to form, join, assist, or participate in a union of your choosing. You also have the right to refrain from these activities if you choose. These aren't just words on paper—they're enforceable rights that your employer cannot legally violate through interference, restraint, or coercion.

During your organizing campaign, these protections become your shield. The State Employment Relations Board (SERB) actively enforces these rights, and understanding what protections you have empowers you to recognize violations when they occur and take action to stop them.

Recognizing Interference, Restraint, and Coercion

Ohio Revised Code Section 4117.11(A)(1) prohibits your employer from interfering with, restraining, or coercing you in exercising your organizing rights. This broad prohibition covers both obvious intimidation and subtle pressures that might influence your choice about unionization.

When your supervisor makes an offhand comment about job security if the union comes in, that's likely illegal interference. When management suddenly changes workplace policies after learning about the organizing drive, that could be unlawful restraint. When your employer suggests that benefits might be cut if you unionize, that's probably illegal coercion. Document everything—these violations matter, even if they seem minor at the time.

Your Right to Use Workplace Facilities

One common employer tactic involves suddenly restricting access to meeting rooms or break areas once organizing begins. If you've historically had access to meeting rooms for birthday parties, retirement celebrations, or other group activities, your employer cannot suddenly deny that access for union organizing meetings.

SERB has been clear on this point. When a public library denied union members access to a meeting room during an organizing drive, SERB found it violated Section 4117.11(A)(1). The principle is straightforward: your employer cannot selectively restrict facility use based on union-related activities if those facilities are normally available for employee use.

If your employer tries to implement new restrictions on facility use after organizing begins, document the change and file an unfair labor practice charge. These access rights often prove crucial to successful organizing, and protecting them protects your campaign.

Identifying Unlawful Threats and Promises

Your employer will likely want to talk to you about the union during the campaign. While they have some rights to communicate their views, they cannot make threats or promises tied to how you vote. Learning to recognize these violations helps you protect yourself and your coworkers.

Watch for statements like "things will get worse if the union comes in" or "we can work things out ourselves without a third party." SERB has found violations where employers asked employees what it would take to make a union "go away" while suggesting health insurance costs would increase with unionization. These statements, especially when made in private conversations with supervisors, create the kind of coercive atmosphere the law prohibits.

You don't need to prove these threats actually changed anyone's mind about the union. The mere making of threats violates the law. If you hear these statements, write them down immediately, including the date, time, location, who was present, and exactly what was said. This documentation becomes crucial evidence in unfair labor practice proceedings.

Spotting Direct Dealing Attempts

During your organizing campaign, management might suddenly become interested in your opinions about workplace issues. They might distribute surveys about working conditions, hold listening sessions about employee concerns, or promise to address longstanding problems if you just give them another chance. Be alert—this is often unlawful direct dealing.

Direct dealing occurs when employers try to negotiate with employees instead of through their union representatives, or when they attempt to undermine the union by dealing with the union through individual employees. Your employer is trying to fragment your solidarity and convince you that you don't need collective representation.

When management suddenly wants to fix problems they've ignored for years, right after you start organizing, that's not coincidence—it's likely illegal interference with your organizing rights. Document these attempts and continue building collective power through your union.

Protecting Your Union's Independence

Section 4117.11(A)(2) ensures that your union remains genuinely independent from employer control. Your employer cannot create a company-sponsored alternative to your independent union, cannot provide resources to anti-union employee groups, and cannot interfere with your union's internal operations.

Watch for employer support of anti-union employee committees or sudden creation of employee councils designed to address workplace issues without a union. If your employer displays anti-union banners, distributes anti-union literature, or supports employees who oppose the union with time off or resources they don't provide to union supporters, these actions likely violate the law.

SERB has found violations where employers hung banners and displayed lawn signs encouraging employees to withdraw from the union. When your employer portrays union organizers as dishonest "salespeople" who will complicate your work environment and increase costs, they're creating an unlawful coercive atmosphere. These aren't just campaign tactics—they're unfair labor practices.

The Status Quo Protection: Freezing Your Rights in Place

One of your strongest protections during organizing involves the status quo doctrine. Your employer must maintain existing practices regarding wages, hours, and working conditions during your campaign. They cannot punish you for organizing by withdrawing benefits, nor can they try to buy your vote by granting new ones.

This protection often surprises employers who think they're being careful by withholding scheduled raises during a campaign. If your workplace has a history of annual wage increases every June, and a representation petition is filed in May, your employer must still grant that June increase. Withholding it constitutes multiple unfair labor practices—interference with union formation, coercion through implicit threats, and discrimination for engaging in protected activity.

The status quo doctrine covers more than just wages. Regular bonuses, scheduled workplace improvements, routine policy updates—all established practices must continue during your campaign. If your employer suddenly freezes everything claiming they don't want to influence the election, that's likely illegal. Document what normally happens and when, so you can prove violations of the status quo doctrine.

Protecting Your Communications

Your organizing campaign requires confidential communication among supporters. Your employer cannot legally access or use your internal union communications against you. If management obtains emails between union organizers, text messages about the campaign, or other internal communications and uses them against the union or individual employees, that's an unfair labor practice.

Be careful but not paranoid. Use personal devices and email accounts for organizing when possible. If management accidentally receives union communications, they should delete them, not weaponize them. If you discover your employer has accessed or used internal union communications, document it immediately and file charges.

Recognizing Retaliation

While not every negative employment action during an organizing campaign is retaliation, employers sometimes target union supporters for discipline or adverse treatment. If you're suddenly written up for infractions that were previously ignored, if your schedule changes in ways that make organizing difficult, or if you're transferred away from the workers you're organizing, these could be unlawful retaliation.

The key is establishing that the adverse action was motivated by your union activity. Document your history of union involvement, any management knowledge of that involvement, and the timing of the adverse action. If discipline suddenly increases after organizing begins, especially if it disproportionately affects known union supporters, you likely have a strong retaliation claim.

What Your Employer Can Do

Understanding your employer's legitimate rights helps you focus on actual violations rather than lawful conduct you might not like. Your employer can require that organizing activities not interfere with work operations. They can enforce legitimate work rules if they do so consistently and non-discriminatorily. They can share factual information about the collective bargaining process and express opinions about unionization, as long as they avoid threats and promises.

Your employer can also continue making necessary business decisions during the campaign. A long-planned reorganization can proceed. Regular disciplinary processes continue for legitimate infractions. The key is whether the timing and nature of these actions are influenced by the organizing campaign or whether they would have happened anyway.

Using Your Rights Strategically

Knowledge of these rights is powerful, but using them strategically is essential. Not every violation needs an immediate unfair labor practice charge. Sometimes documenting patterns of behavior and filing comprehensive charges later proves more effective. Sometimes the threat of charges can leverage better behavior from management without formal proceedings.

Work with experienced union organizers and labor attorneys to develop strategic responses to employer conduct. They can help you distinguish between annoying but lawful employer behavior and actual unfair labor practices. They can also help you understand when filing charges advances your campaign and when it might create distractions.

Building Your Case

Document everything during your organizing campaign. Keep a journal of management statements and actions. Save emails, texts, and other communications. Take photos of anti-union postings or changes in workplace conditions. Get witness statements when possible.

Good documentation serves multiple purposes. It supports unfair labor practice charges if needed. It helps your legal team build strong cases. It also helps you track patterns of behavior that might not be obvious from isolated incidents. When multiple workers document similar experiences, patterns of illegal conduct become clear.

The Remedies You Can Win

When SERB finds that your employer committed unfair labor practices during your organizing campaign, the remedies can be significant and helpful to your campaign. Your employer will typically face cease and desist orders requiring them to stop the illegal conduct immediately.

But remedies often go much further. Your employer may have to post notices throughout the workplace admitting to violations and promising not to repeat them. These postings educate your coworkers about their rights and demonstrate that the employer cannot violate the law with impunity.

If your employer discriminatorily denied wages or benefits, SERB will typically order make-whole relief, including back pay with interest. For systematic violations that tainted the election process, SERB might order a new election under fairer conditions. In extreme cases involving severe and pervasive violations, SERB might issue a bargaining order requiring your employer to recognize and bargain with your union without an election.

Special Protections for Safety Forces

If you're a police officer, firefighter, or other safety employee, you have the same organizing rights as other public employees, though strikes are prohibited. Your employer cannot suggest that unionization might affect public safety or emergency response capabilities. Watch for subtle suggestions that unions make it harder to protect the public or respond to emergencies—these fear tactics violate your rights just as much as more direct threats.

Taking Action

If your employer violates your rights during the organizing campaign, you have recourse. Document the violation immediately. Report it to your organizing committee and union representatives. Work with your union to file unfair labor practice charges with SERB within 90 days of the violation.

Remember that retaliation for filing charges is itself an unfair labor practice. Your employer cannot punish you for asserting your rights or participating in SERB proceedings. If they try, that's just another violation to add to your charges.

Building Power Through Knowledge

Understanding your rights during an organizing campaign empowers you to recognize and respond to employer violations. It helps you distinguish between lawful employer conduct you need to counter through organizing and illegal conduct you can stop through legal action.

But knowledge alone isn't enough. Building your union requires collective action, solidarity among workers, and strategic use of both your legal rights and your collective power. Use your rights as tools in the broader campaign, not as substitutes for organizing.

Standing Together

Your employer may have more resources, but you have rights, solidarity, and the law on your side when they violate those rights. Every time you document a violation, every time you file charges against illegal conduct, every time you stand together despite management's interference attempts, you build power.

The rules governing employer conduct during organizing campaigns exist because generations of workers fought for them. They recognized that without legal protections, employer intimidation could destroy organizing efforts before they began. These protections are your inheritance from those struggles—use them wisely, use them strategically, and use them to build the union your workplace needs.

Remember: your rights during an organizing campaign are only as strong as your willingness to assert them. Document violations, support each other, and don't let illegal employer conduct derail your campaign. The law is on your side when you organize, and SERB will enforce your rights if your employer violates them. Stay strong, stay united, and know your rights—they're your foundation for building a successful union.

This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is unique, and you should consult with a Ohio Union Labor Attorney about your specific situation.