How Leslie Smith labor complaint could speed up union process
Lucas Middlebrook: “It’s your federally protected right to organize in the workplace, and we feel that she was well within her rights, and they violated them with their actions.”
Women’s bantamweight Leslie Smith organized Project Spearhead, a fighter unionization effort, centered at least initially on the UFC. The league characteristically offers fighters a new contract before the old one expires. Smith said none was offered, so a recent fight vs. Aspen Ladd was to have potentially been her last.
When Ladd failed to make weight, Smith offered to fight if she was given a two-fight contract at a flat $100,000 per fight, win or lose. The UFC instead paid Smith her win and show money, leaving her a free agent.
Smith sought to get 30% of UFC fighters to sign union authorization cards; the deadline is February of 2019. Smith now plans to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board arguing that the UFC failure to re-sign her was retaliation for the organizing effort, and thus illegal.
Attorney Lucas Middlebrook, who has been advising Project Spearhead, spoke recently with Steven Marrocco for MMAjunkie and said the UFC’s move could backfire
It will press the issue of independent or employee, said Middlebrook. It will force the NLRB to decide the issue in advance of any cards being filed, because they’ll have to decide that before they can decide whether or not the UFC violated the National Relations Labor Act by their actions toward Leslie.
The UFC will argue that Smith is an independent contractor. The NLRB will then have to decide whether she is or isn’t, which sets a precedent for other fighters.
I think, somewhat, it was a knee-jerk reaction to them being frustrated with her in terms of her pushing unionizing in the workplace, which obviously can be frustrating to employers, but that’s why it’s illegal to retaliate, said Middlebrook. Because going back to the very beginning of unionizing in this country, Congress knew that employers would try to silence individuals, so they built it into the statute that you can’t do that. It’s your federally protected right to organize in the workplace, and we feel that she was well within her rights, and they violated them with their actions.