Toll’s Never Ending Legal Woes…
October 29, 2012
The legal woes that began piling up at Toll a year ago with the nation’s top labor agency could have been easily brought to a close by simply taking the high road and admitting wrongdoing, and ending their assault on their workers. But for Toll, the high road is the road less traveled. Now they landed themselves a dreadful date with an administrative law judge this upcoming December 10th over a consolidated complaint filed against Toll by Region 31 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for illegal intimidation, harassment, and surveillance.
At the hearing Toll will attempt to defend (most likely to no avail) a laundry list of National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) violations found by the NLRB, including unlawfully interrogating drivers to assess their union support, questioning if they attended union meetings, and for attempting to sway drivers’ union support with a promise of compensation. The current complaint is actually an expanded version of a complaint issued this past January in which Region 31 had already sided with drivers’ on their allegations of intimidation, harassment, and surveillance. Toll could have remedied the situation then, but time and time again, they denied their actions, and dismissed the charges as “unfair accusations” against the company.
Now facing a federal trial, Toll might make out even worse than before. It’s not a mystery for the company that choosing to perpetuate a two-faced, two-tier system at Toll is simply bad for business. But why they continue down this low road is mindboggling, and exactly the reason Karael Vallecillo, one of the drivers who first filed charges with NLRB, has made the 7,000-mile journey to Australia to inform investors of the damage management is doing to the Toll brand.