EvilCorporations.com — Corporate Accountability Project
Labor Rights Violation | Tour Industry | 2012–2026
How Universal Smart Contracts Spent a Decade Evading Justice for Firing a Union Organizer
A New York City tour guide lost his job for trying to unionize. What followed was fourteen years of court orders, defied subpoenas, and a corporate owner who used shell companies to make a $66,794 judgment disappear.
TL;DR — What Actually Happened
In February 2012, New York Party Shuttle fired Fred Pflantzer, a tour guide who tried to organize his coworkers. Federal regulators ruled the firing illegal. The company was ordered to pay him back. They did not pay. Instead, over the next fourteen years, the company’s owner Charles Thomas Schmidt dissolved entities, created new ones, defied subpoenas, and made every procedural argument imaginable to avoid accountability. Courts at every level ruled against them. In 2026, a federal appeals court affirmed that Schmidt and his network of LLCs had to comply with subpoenas and pay the NLRB’s attorney fees on top of the original judgment. The workers who tried to organize are still waiting.
This is what it looks like when a company decides that fighting accountability is cheaper than paying workers what they are owed. Demand better labor enforcement. Every delay is a theft from workers.
📊 Key Numbers
$91,912
Original backpay + benefits judgment against the companies
$66,794
Reduced judgment amount after Fifth Circuit appeal, plus interest
$38,123
Additional attorney fees the defendants were ordered to pay the NLRB
$321
Costs awarded to the NLRB on top of attorney fees
14 yrs
Time between Pflantzer’s firing (2012) and the 2026 appellate ruling
4
Entities served with subpoenas: 3 LLCs and the individual owner
2 wks
How long the company waited before firing Pflantzer again after court-ordered reinstatement
1
Worker whose attempt to unionize triggered a decade-plus of corporate litigation
⚠️ The Misconduct: A Breakdown
Core Allegations: What They Did
Anti-union retaliation and sustained evasion of federal oversight
▾
| 01 | New York Party Shuttle fired tour guide Fred Pflantzer in February 2012, and federal regulators determined the termination was retaliation for his attempt to organize a union, a clear violation of the National Labor Relations Act. | high |
| 02 | After a federal board ordered Pflantzer reinstated and made whole, the company reinstated him in July 2014 and then fired him again just two weeks later, a deliberate act of ongoing retaliation. | high |
| 03 | The company and its affiliates, including Appellant Party Shuttle Tours, LLC, were found liable as a single employer for $91,912 in backpay and benefits, later reduced to $66,794 plus interest after a Fifth Circuit appeal. | high |
| 04 | Rather than pay the judgment, the companies informed regulators they were no longer doing business and claimed they lacked the funds to satisfy the court order, a claim the NLRB’s Contempt Branch began investigating through subpoenas. | high |
| 05 | After being served with subpoenas in September 2022 to determine whether they could be held liable on a derivative basis, the appellants failed to comply with those subpoenas, forcing the NLRB into federal court. | high |
| 06 | The district court found that the appellants repeatedly attempted to evade service and had numerous opportunities to comply with the subpoenas before the case reached federal enforcement proceedings. | high |
Profiting from Complexity: Shell Companies and Structural Evasion
How corporate structure was used to defeat a workers’ judgment
▾
| 01 | Charles Thomas Schmidt, the individual owner and his attorney, operated at least three separate LLCs: Universal Smart Contracts, Party Shuttle Tours, and City Info Experts. The NLRB subpoenaed all three alongside Schmidt personally to determine whether they shared liability for the unpaid judgment. | high |
| 02 | The multi-entity structure allowed the respondents to claim that the original judgment debtor no longer existed or could not pay, shifting the NLRB’s enforcement burden onto tracking and subpoenaing successor entities and individuals. | high |
| 03 | The Board’s 2020 decision found multiple affiliates, including Party Shuttle Tours, liable as a single employer, demonstrating that the multi-entity structure functioned as one coordinated operation rather than truly independent businesses. | med |
| 04 | Schmidt, who served as his own attorney throughout the appeals process, filed procedural challenges on behalf of all the entities, using legal strategy to extend the litigation timeline and delay payment of the judgment by years. | med |
Corporate Accountability Failures: Using the Courts as a Delay Weapon
Every procedural challenge was another month the worker went unpaid
▾
| 01 | Appellants challenged subject-matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, and venue in the district court, all of which were rejected. They then raised the same challenges on appeal, consuming additional court resources and years of enforcement time. | high |
| 02 | The appellants requested transfer of the case to Texas, where they reside, a motion the court found entirely unsupported because no witnesses or burdens requiring transfer were actually identified. | med |
| 03 | Even after losing at the district court level on November 16, 2023, the appellants filed a premature notice of appeal before the fee amount was even set, adding another layer of procedural delay before the 2026 Second Circuit ruling. | med |
| 04 | Appellants failed to file a timely notice of appeal from the March 5, 2024 order setting the specific fee amount, meaning they forfeited that challenge entirely. Courts cannot bend deadlines for parties who chose to litigate this aggressively. | low |
| 05 | The Second Circuit found the appellants’ jurisdictional arguments inadequate because they failed to develop meaningful arguments for several requests, including their request for a merits determination. Forfeited issues reflect a strategy of volume over substance. | med |
Exploiting Delay: How Time Itself Becomes a Corporate Weapon
Fourteen years between the firing and the final ruling
▾
| 01 | The original firing occurred in February 2012. The Second Circuit issued its ruling affirming subpoena enforcement in February 2026. That is fourteen years of institutional grinding, all while a worker waited for wages he was legally owed. | high |
| 02 | After the Board’s initial 2013 decision ordering reinstatement, NYPS waited until July 2014 to reinstate Pflantzer, and then fired him again within two weeks, resetting the clock on proceedings and forcing further litigation. | high |
| 03 | The subpoenas seeking documents to enforce the judgment were not issued until September 2022, a decade after the initial firing, demonstrating how enforcement agencies are structurally underfunded and slow to pursue collection. | med |
| 04 | Even after the NLRB initiated federal enforcement proceedings in February 2023, appellants refused to comply with the court’s show-cause order and forced a full briefing cycle, adding another year before the case reached the Second Circuit. | med |
Economic Fallout: The Real Cost to a Working Person
Interest compounds on unpaid wages. Workers cannot afford to wait.
▾
| 01 | Fred Pflantzer, a tour guide, lost his income after being fired for union activity. The court ordered $91,912 in backpay and benefits to make him whole. He received none of it from the companies before the NLRB was forced to pursue enforcement. | high |
| 02 | The Fifth Circuit reduced the judgment to $66,794 plus interest after an appeal by the companies. Interest on unpaid wages accrues over years of delay, meaning the total cost to the employer grows the longer they refuse to pay. | med |
| 03 | The NLRB was forced to spend $38,444 in attorneys’ fees and costs to enforce a subpoena that respondents should have complied with years before. These are public resources diverted because a company chose obstruction over accountability. | med |
This Is the System Working as Intended: A Structural Critique
When the process itself is the punishment for workers
▾
| 01 | Labor law enforcement requires a worker to file a complaint, wait for an investigation, survive years of administrative proceedings, win on appeal, and then watch regulators spend additional years trying to collect the judgment. This process exists in theory to protect workers. In practice, it protects employers who can afford to wait. | high |
| 02 | Any small business owner could watch this case and learn that firing a union organizer results in a judgment that, with the right legal strategy, may never be collected. The deterrent effect of labor law is gutted by enforcement timelines that span more than a decade. | high |
| 03 | Charles Thomas Schmidt represented himself and his entities using his law firm. Workers rarely have that option. The asymmetry of access to legal representation is not an accident. It is the structural advantage that makes corporate delay strategies viable. | med |
🕐 Timeline of Events
Feb. 2012
New York Party Shuttle fires Fred Pflantzer, a NYC tour guide, after he attempts to organize his coworkers. The NLRB’s Manhattan Regional Office opens an investigation.
2013
The NLRB Board issues a decision finding Pflantzer’s termination violated the National Labor Relations Act. NYPS is ordered to reinstate him and make him whole for lost wages.
July 2014
NYPS reinstates Pflantzer. Two weeks later, it fires him again, restarting the legal proceedings and demonstrating that the initial reinstatement was not made in good faith.
Sept. 2020
The NLRB Board issues a second decision holding NYPS and affiliates, including Party Shuttle Tours, jointly liable as a single employer for $91,912 in backpay and benefits plus interest.
2021
The Fifth Circuit affirms the Board’s order in most respects, reducing the award to $66,794 plus interest. NYPS and the other judgment debtors still do not pay.
Sept. 2022
The NLRB’s Contempt Branch issues administrative subpoenas to Universal Smart Contracts, Party Shuttle Tours, City Info Experts, and Charles Thomas Schmidt, seeking documents to determine whether they can be held liable for the unpaid judgment. The respondents do not comply.
Feb. 2023
The NLRB files a federal enforcement action in the Southern District of New York to compel compliance with the subpoenas and seeks attorney fees and costs.
Nov. 2023
The district court rejects all jurisdictional challenges, orders compliance with the subpoenas, and rules the NLRB is entitled to attorney fees and costs. Appellants file a premature notice of appeal.
Mar. 2024
The district court sets the fee amount at $38,123 plus $321.42 in costs. Appellants do not file a timely notice of appeal from this order, forfeiting that challenge.
Feb. 2026
The Second Circuit affirms the district court in full on jurisdiction, venue, and the award of attorney fees. The appeal of the specific fee amount is dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction. Fourteen years after Pflantzer was first fired, enforcement continues.
💬 Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
The second firing: defiance in plain sight
Core Allegations
“NYPS reinstated Pflantzer in July 2014, but fired him again just two weeks after his return.”
The company complied with the letter of the reinstatement order long enough to escape immediate contempt, then immediately resumed the retaliatory conduct. This is not an oversight. It is a strategy.
QUOTE 2
Judgment debtors claim poverty
Corporate Accountability Failures
“The judgment debtors . . . subsequently informed the Contempt Branch that they were no longer doing business and lacked the ability to satisfy the judgment.”
This claim, made years after the judgment was entered, triggered the subpoena investigation. The NLRB sought documents to determine whether successor entities controlled by Schmidt could be held liable. The companies refused to provide them.
QUOTE 3
Evasion of service documented by the court
Corporate Accountability Failures
“Appellants ‘repeatedly attempted to evade service and have had numerous opportunities to comply with the subpoenas.'”
This is the district court’s own finding, quoted approvingly by the Second Circuit. It directly supports the award of attorney fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct.
QUOTE 4
Multi-entity single employer liability
Shell Companies and Structural Evasion
“[T]he Board issued another decision holding NYPS and several of its affiliates, including Appellant Party Shuttle Tours, LLC, liable as a single employer for backpay and benefits in the amount of $91,912 plus interest.”
The single-employer finding pierces the corporate form. Multiple LLCs are treated as one entity when they function as one. This ruling was meant to prevent exactly the kind of judgment evasion that followed.
QUOTE 5
Forfeited arguments reflect a strategy of obstruction
Exploiting Delay
“Because Appellants failed to develop any meaningful argument in support of that request in their opening brief, we decline to address it.”
The appellants raised procedural points without developing substantive arguments, suggesting a litigation strategy focused on delay rather than on winning a specific legal argument.
QUOTE 6
The geographic burden argument fails
Corporate Accountability Failures
“Appellants barely acknowledge ‘the conveniences of modern communication and transportation’ that are likely to ‘ease’ the burdens of defending ‘this case in New York.'”
The court specifically noted that the defendants made no effort to quantify any actual burden from litigating in New York instead of Texas, undermining their transfer request.
QUOTE 7
Derivative liability investigation scope
Shell Companies and Structural Evasion
“[T]he Contempt Branch issued an administrative subpoena duces tecum to each Appellant seeking documents that might help determine whether Appellants could be held liable for the judgment on a derivative basis.”
This is the core of what the companies refused to allow: a look at their financial records to determine whether they were successor entities responsible for a judgment the original company claimed it could not pay.
QUOTE 8
The inquiry is ongoing and nationwide
Exploiting Delay
“The inquiry includes not only the initial effort to determine whether Pflantzer’s termination violated the NLRA, but reasonably encompasses an ongoing effort to determine which persons and entities may be held liable for those violations.”
The court’s broad reading of the inquiry’s scope is significant because it means enforcement cannot be defeated simply by dissolving the original entity. The NLRB can follow the money across corporate structures.
💬 Commentary
?
Why was Fred Pflantzer fired in the first place?
▾
Pflantzer was a NYC tour guide at New York Party Shuttle who attempted to organize his coworkers into a union. Federal regulators determined that his termination in February 2012 was retaliation for that protected activity, which violates the National Labor Relations Act. This is one of the most common and damaging forms of union-busting: fire the organizer and make an example out of them. Other workers get the message. The right to organize is a foundational labor protection, and this company treated it as irrelevant.
?
He was reinstated. Why is this still a story over a decade later?
▾
The company reinstated Pflantzer in July 2014, then fired him again two weeks later. This is a documented pattern: comply just enough to avoid immediate legal consequences, then resume the retaliation. After years of further litigation, the company was ordered to pay $91,912 in backpay and benefits. They never paid. Instead, they claimed the company was no longer in business, and the NLRB spent the next several years trying to serve subpoenas to discover whether successor entities controlled by the same owner were hiding assets. The reinstatement was a performance, not a correction.
?
What are the three LLCs and why were they all subpoenaed?
▾
The subpoenas went to Universal Smart Contracts, Party Shuttle Tours, City Info Experts, and the individual owner Charles Thomas Schmidt personally. The NLRB’s Contempt Branch subpoenaed all of them because when a judgment debtor claims it has no money, investigators look at whether related companies under the same control received assets that were moved away from the entity that owes the debt. This is called derivative liability. The companies refused to produce any documents, forcing the NLRB into federal court just to get access to basic financial records. The refusal itself speaks volumes.
?
Is this lawsuit legitimate, or is the NLRB overreaching?
▾
The courts have been unambiguous. The Board found the original firing illegal in 2013. The Fifth Circuit upheld most of the backpay judgment in 2021. The Southern District of New York rejected every jurisdictional challenge in 2023. The Second Circuit affirmed all of it in 2026. Every court that has reviewed this case found the NLRB acting within its authority. The appellants made repeated procedural arguments without developing substantive objections to the underlying claims, and the courts declined to address the forfeited arguments. This is not a close case. This is a company that refused to accept federal labor law applies to it.
?
Why did this take fourteen years?
▾
Because the system allows it. A company that fights every step costs the government money and time at each stage: administrative proceeding, appellate review, Fifth Circuit, Contempt Branch investigation, federal district court enforcement, and Second Circuit appeal. Workers cannot afford to fight at each of these stages. The NLRB has to. The structural advantage belongs entirely to the employer. Fourteen years is not unusual in labor enforcement. It is the norm when a company is willing to spend legal fees to avoid a judgment smaller than those fees. That calculation only makes sense if the goal is to send a message to other workers: organizing will cost you this much of your life.
?
How significant is the $38,123 attorney fee award?
▾
The fee award matters for two reasons. First, it reflects that the district court found the appellants’ conduct sanctionable: they repeatedly evaded service and refused to comply despite having many opportunities. Second, it slightly changes the math for employers who calculate that fighting a judgment is cheaper than paying it. Every fee award makes delay a bit more expensive. The problem is that $38,123 on top of a $66,794 judgment, after fourteen years of litigation, is still a remarkably cheap price for suppressing unionization at a company. Fee awards need to be far larger and more automatic to actually deter this behavior.
?
What does this case tell us about the tour and hospitality industry’s treatment of workers?
▾
Tour guides, shuttle drivers, and similar hospitality workers are classified workers who are frequently non-union, paid irregularly, and highly dependent on their employer for continued work. The gig-adjacent structure of tour companies makes them particularly vulnerable to anti-union retaliation because the employer has enormous control over scheduling and assignment. Pflantzer’s case is not an outlier. It is representative of how easily employers in this sector can retaliate against organizing workers and then spend a decade defeating the consequences through the legal system.
?
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
▾
Several concrete steps make a real difference. Contact your representatives and demand fully funded NLRB enforcement with dedicated rapid-response collection units for unpaid judgments. Support legislation that imposes automatic daily fines on employers who fail to pay labor judgments, making delay financially painful rather than strategic. Support organizations like the Economic Policy Institute, Jobs with Justice, or your local AFL-CIO labor council that track and publicize anti-union retaliation. If you work in a non-union workplace, talk to a labor organizer about your rights. And if you use tour or shuttle services, ask whether the workers are union. Your business decisions are labor decisions.
It’s also very funny to me how if you visit their Facebook page, you’ll see it’s just become a flood of anti-Iranian pro-Zionist propaganda now lmao https://www.facebook.com/experienceonboardtours/ as well as scam promotions
The NLRB’s website also has something about this case on this link along with other acts of corporate misconduct from employers: https://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/weekly-summaries-decisions/summary-of-nlrb-decisions-for-week-of-january-3-6-2023
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