Donna Moretti

New England Gas Company (now National Grid) Cumberland, R.I.

Donna Moretti, 42, knows first-hand how corporations’ intimidation tactics stifle workers’ freedom to form unions. Moretti was an employee at New England Gas Company when she and her coworkers decided to form a union at the beginning of 2006.

Moretti knew that joining together with her co-workers in a union would give her the opportunity to bargain for a better life. She wasn’t happy with her compensation. People working similar jobs in different companies made more money than she did and had less responsibility. Her health care plan wasn’t affordable. She watched as supervisors gave favored employees vacation days and raises while the rest were left out in the cold.

One of Moretti’s coworkers decided to start speaking to people about forming a union in March of 2006. Shortly after, Moretti and her coworkers had their first meeting, which management heard about. Afterwards, Moretti felt like management was watching who she spoke to and what about. 

It seemed to Moretti that her bosses started to criticize her work, finding minor errors. In Moretti’s words, “I’m always on time, I’m a good employee, so they had to nitpick my work.”

Soon, Moretti’s coworker, and the original supporter of the union, was fired. The day after, the mandatory meetings stopped. Managers stopped talking about the union altogether. Moretti explains what happened next: “Everyone was afraid after that, if they saw [the union advocates] coming, they would walk in the other direction because everyone was afraid for their jobs…. We were ostracized.”

Moretti and her coworkers never had an election – by that time, workers were so scared for their jobs that there was no point in losing an election that was rigged from the beginning.