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Rebecca Smith and Joe Brock: Who Are These People?

In the last two weeks, many of us at Jimmy John's have had to sit through mandatory meetings with Rebecca Smith and Joe Brock. Rebecca Smith and Joe Brock claim that they just want to give us information so we can decide for ourselves if we want to form a union. The truth is that they are from Labor Relations Institute, Inc., a third-party anti-union company hired by Mike and Rob Mulligan. LRI promises employers that if they are hired, workers will be unable to form a union, or your money back. Their standard fee is $3000 per day, $375 an hour. Do you think the Mulligans pay these people hundreds of dollar an hour to be a neutral voice? Since September 15, we estimate they have been paid $45,000 by the Mulligans, or enough to give every Jimmy Johns worker $200 cash. In a recent campaign against workers organizing a union at Soaring Eagle Casino, LRI made $1.5 million total for their work. Rebecca Smith and Joe Brock have a financial interest in convincing you to vote no. They have a history of using misrepresentations, lies, and subtle threats to divide and conquer workers. Do they deserve our trust? No!

Here is more information about this pair that they have been hiding.

Rebecca Smith

  • Claims to have worked as a union organizer. We contacted the Teamster union local she worked for when she lived near Pahrump, NV. They said she never worked as an organizer. She ran a program that taught people things like asbestos safety and forklift driving. That means she's lying to us.
  • Claims she voluntarily quit her paid position in the Teamsters union. The truth is her own coworkers petitioned to have her removed from union office because of her gross incompetence.
  • Was paid $103,031 for her work in a union-busting campaign at Soaring Eagle Casinos in Michigan in 2007. What did you get paid in 2007? Rebecca Smith gets a fat salary for union-busting, she doesn't know and doesn't care about what our lives are like.
  • Kicked out of her own union, Rebecca Smith now travels around the country making misleading and manipulative statements about unions for employers.

Joe Brock

  • Claims he was a union organizer. The truth is he was a highly paid official, not an organizer.
  • Was happy to earn more than $80,000 per year from the Teamsters, then took a pay raise to attack the union members who gave him such a comfortable life style.
  • Claims to be a Teamster who left because of problems in the labor movement. He doesn't tell us that he lost an election for office and then sued over losing. The Department of Labor ruled Brock’s claims against his local were baseless. So he quit and became a professional union buster.
  • Claims his job as an anti-union consultant lets him help workers improve their lives on the job. Do you really think the Mulligans all of a sudden decided bring Brock here for $3,000 per day to improve conditions? Brock is not here to improve workers’ lives. He is here to earn a buck preventing us from having more input into how this place is run.

These are the facts. Decide for yourself, who do you trust? Highly paid outsiders like Rebecca Smith and Joe Brock, or your own co-workers who want all Jimmy John’s employees to have more voice on the job?

All of the information in this note is based on research gathered from US Department of Labor reports and given to us by unions that Rebecca Smith and Joe Brock worked for or were members of. If you'd like to see the documentation, we'd be happy to show it to you. Contact us here.