If you’d like a sense of what a boss’s cam­paign to try to destroy a union looks like in the 21 st cen­tu­ry, take a look at a recent NLRB deci­sion against the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh Med­ical Cen­ter (UPMC).

On Fri­day, a judge with the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB) ruled that the UPMC has engaged in a series of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices against work­ers who have been try­ing to orga­nize a union since 2012.

In the wide-rang­ing 123-page deci­sion, one can see how a sophis­ti­cat­ed anti-union cam­paign is run. The deci­sion out­lines in detail how the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar Pitts­burgh hos­pi­tal chain repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed the law in order to sow fear of orga­niz­ing. Employ­ees were sur­veilled and pho­tographed, inter­ro­gat­ed and threat­ened with dis­ci­pline and arrest. Four were fired. The deci­sion also found that UPMC helped cre­ate and sup­port a ​“com­pa­ny union”— an employ­er-dom­i­nat­ed labor orga­ni­za­tion — in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law.

With more than 20 hos­pi­tals, 400 out­pa­tient sites, more than 62,000 employ­ees, and a health insur­ance divi­sion that had $10 bil­lion in oper­at­ing rev­enue in 2013, UPMC is the largest pri­vate sec­tor employ­er in Penn­syl­va­nia.

In 2012, the non­clin­i­cal sup­port staff at two of UPMC’s hos­pi­tals began an orga­niz­ing cam­paign through the Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tion­al Union (SEIU), which would include approx­i­mate­ly 3,500 work­ers. The employ­er began vio­lat­ing work­ers’ rights almost imme­di­ate­ly, launch­ing an anti-union cam­paign that often strad­dled the line between legal and illegal.

In addi­tion to the cap­tive audi­ence meet­ings that have become a stan­dard (and legal) anti-union prac­tice — in which the employ­er explains in no uncer­tain terms that it is against the employ­ees orga­niz­ing — UPMC sought to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment of fear and intim­i­da­tion. The hos­pi­tal chain post­ed a doc­u­ment on its inter­nal web­site called ​“UPMC Cares,” which con­tained sec­tions such as ​“Why Unions Aren’t Necessary.”

When the orga­niz­ing dri­ve began, UPMC placed screen­savers on employ­ees’ com­put­ers through­out the hos­pi­tal which scrolled through anti-union mes­sages such as ​“You can say NO to the SEIU. It’s your right”; as one walked around the hos­pi­tal, idle com­put­ers dis­played in all caps, ​“NO” and ​“SEIU.”

Though these prac­tices are tech­ni­cal­ly legal, employ­ees can­not miss the over­whelm­ing mes­sage that their employ­er does not agree with their right to union­ize. The judge found that while the behav­ior was legal, it was proof of the employer’s open oppo­si­tion to the union, which pro­vid­ed con­text for the oth­er ille­gal activ­i­ty that the com­pa­ny engaged in like fir­ings as a result of union activity.

The com­pa­ny also cre­at­ed what it called the Envi­ron­men­tal Sup­port Ser­vices Employ­ee Coun­cil (ESS), which the NLRB judge found to be an ille­gal com­pa­ny union. Though the com­pa­ny tried to argue that the ESS was an employ­ee-run orga­ni­za­tion, the judge found that the com­pa­ny was pulling the strings. UPMC made the deci­sion to cre­ate the group, helped write the group’s bylaws, solicit­ed vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate, deter­mined the date and time for meet­ings, pro­vid­ed the facil­i­ties, and offered infor­ma­tion and assistance.

The judge also found that the group con­sti­tut­ed a union, because it dealt with terms and con­di­tions of employ­ment — which is reserved for labor orga­ni­za­tions. The ESS con­tin­ued a long tra­di­tion of com­pa­ny unions that were preva­lent in the late-19th to mid-20th cen­turies, where com­pa­nies would estab­lish these employ­er-friend­ly labor orga­ni­za­tions to tem­per work­ers’ demands.

While sup­port­ing the com­pa­ny union, UPMC made it clear that work­ers could not engage in any real union activ­i­ty. UPMC engaged in sur­veil­lance of the employ­ees’ pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions, told them that they could not talk to union orga­niz­ers even on their own time and threat­ened to arrest employ­ees who were engag­ing in law­ful union activ­i­ties. For exam­ple, when employ­ees were meet­ing union orga­niz­ers for lunch at the hos­pi­tal cafe­te­ria, hos­pi­tal secu­ri­ty demand­ed to see everyone’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and then called 911 to have the police escort them off the premis­es. The cafe­te­ria is open to the gen­er­al pub­lic, which means that any­one could meet there for any rea­son — except to dis­cuss labor orga­niz­ing, which is a clear form of discrimination.

On a day-to-day basis, UPMC engaged in threat­en­ing behav­ior to any employ­ee who had the nerve to law­ful­ly sup­port the union. The judge also found that UPMC inter­ro­gat­ed employ­ees about their union activ­i­ties and threat­ened to fire them if they refused to answer. Man­agers approached employ­ees who were law­ful­ly wear­ing union insignia and remind­ed them that their eval­u­a­tions were com­ing up while star­ing point­ed­ly at their union but­tons and lan­yards. This prac­tice had the desired effect of warn­ing employ­ees that their eval­u­a­tions would suf­fer as a result of their sup­port for the union.

These threats were not idle. Dur­ing the course of the orga­niz­ing cam­paign, UPMC fired four work­ers for sup­port­ing the union. One of these work­ers was actu­al­ly fired twice: He was rein­stat­ed after a set­tle­ment between UPMC and SEIU, only to be fired again a short time lat­er for still sup­port­ing the union. The judge found all of these ter­mi­na­tions to be ille­gal, and ordered that the work­ers be rein­stat­ed and receive back pay.

Hav­ing found that UPMC ​“engaged in such egre­gious and wide­spread mis­con­duct so as to demon­strate a gen­er­al dis­re­gard for employ­ees’ statu­to­ry rights,” the judge issued a broad order requir­ing UPMC to cease its ille­gal activ­i­ty. The judge man­dat­ed that his order be read to UPMC’s non­clin­i­cal staff who have been try­ing to orga­nize and that it be post­ed for 60 days.

This case rep­re­sents a major win for the work­ers try­ing to orga­nize at UPMC. How­ev­er, the Board should go one step fur­ther and seek a 10(j) injunc­tion in fed­er­al court.

These injunc­tions, designed to stop boss­es’ egre­gious or repet­i­tive ille­gal behav­ior, are enforced in fed­er­al court rather than the slow­er and less pow­er­ful admin­is­tra­tive process, which means that the work­ers could receive imme­di­ate relief if UPMC fol­lows its pat­tern of dis­re­gard­ing the work­ers’ rights.

The NLRB Gen­er­al Coun­sel has repeat­ed­ly issued mem­os affirm­ing that 10(j) injunc­tions are appro­pri­ate in cas­es that involve dis­charges dur­ing an orga­niz­ing cam­paign. ​“The touch­stone is always whether there is a threat of reme­di­al fail­ure,” not­ed a memo from the coun­sel this year.

The details of the judge’s deci­sion illus­trate a text­book pat­tern of this ​“reme­di­al fail­ure,” with UPMC con­tin­u­ing to engage in dis­crim­i­na­to­ry con­duct even when a set­tle­ment was in place with the union. If the Gen­er­al Coun­sel choos­es to take this judge’s deci­sion and then seek a 10(j) injunc­tion, it would let employ­ers know that the law has teeth and they can­not open­ly dis­re­gard work­ers’ rights. More impor­tant­ly, it would pro­vide the work­ers at UPMC, who have repeat­ed­ly suf­fered dis­crim­i­na­tion in the work­place, a major tool to push back.

Update: In response to the NLRB judg­ment, UPMC sent a spe­cial, brief sin­gle-sto­ry edi­tion of UPMC Extra!, its in-house newslet­ter, by email to all UPMC employ­ees. ​“We are dis­ap­point­ed by the admin­is­tra­tive law judge’s deci­sion, and dis­agree with his find­ings,” the hos­pi­tal stat­ed. ​“We believe the record ful­ly sup­port­ed our actions with regard to under-­per­form­ing employ­ees and failed SEIU orga­niz­ing efforts in which our employ­ees have shown lit­tle to no inter­est, despite their three­-year pub­lic and legal cam­paign against our hospital.”

The state­ment then quot­ed con­ser­v­a­tive fed­er­al judge Arthur Schwab, stat­ing that the ​“NLRB has become ​“the lit­i­ga­tion arm of the union, and a co­participant in the ongo­ing orga­ni­za­tion effort.” UPMC said it ​“will explore all of our legal options to fight this unfair decision.”