An employer of Teamster Local 117 members in Tacoma has won the South Sound Jobs with Justice “Scrooge of the Year” award. The organization’s dubious honor goes each year to an employer who has demonstrated a particularly egregious disdain for workers’ rights.

Linda Nguyen, Director of the Tacoma Pierce County Employment and Training Consortium, earned the unenviable distinction for conducting a vicious Union busting campaign against Teamsters Local 117 that led to the unlawful layoff of four Consortium employees. 

Ms. Nguyen has also refused to comply with multiple State orders to cease anti-union discrimination and retaliation, rehire union activists, and compensate for her illegal activities. Though Local 117 members at the Consortium organized three years ago, Ms. Nguyen has inexplicably refused to bargain a fair contract.

A group of Jobs with Justice activists presented Ms. Nguyen with the Scrooge award during the public comment section of a Pierce County Executive Board Meeting on Thursday, December 17, 2009. Participants in the action entered the meeting wearing Santa hats and bearing a Grinch doll and a “Scrooge of the Year” certificate for Ms. Nguyen. The group ended its presentation with a song that referenced the many anti-worker activities Ms. Nguyen has engaged in throughout 2009.   

Said Jobs with Justice activist Vince Kueter, “Ms. Nguyen has gone out of her way to bust the Union. I feel strongly about worker rights and this is a great opportunity to spotlight the abuses that go on.” 

Teamsters Local 117 is a part of the Washington State Jobs with Justice coalition that includes over 154 member organizations and 5000 "I'll Be There" individual pledgers fighting together for workers' rights and economic and social justice.