EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT:
Workers need it NOW!
By Paul Rubin |
|
You have probably been approached at work to sign a card to support the Employee Free Choice Act.
Congress took up the issue last year. The House of Representatives passed the legislation, but the Senate didn’t. President Bush promised to veto the act if it was passed.
Now, with a new president and a new Congress to be elected in November, there is new hope that the act will become the law of the land.
So, what’s this all about?
Poll after poll shows a majority of workers in the United States want to be represented by a union. Yet the percentage of workers who are represented by unions is in the low teens. Why the disconnect?
Back in the 1930s, Congress passed the Wagner Act, which established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to protect the rights of workers to organize and join unions. The law worked well for many years, but over the past 25 years, employers realized they could easily thwart the law.
A whole industry of “union busters” arose, advising employers how to intimidate their workers and only get minor, inconsequential penalties.
Under today’s NLRB, employers can force workers and their unions to go to elections to determine if a union should represent the workers. Employers want elections, even though they are “secret ballot,” because they know they can easily win elections.
How? The election process takes about a month, which gives the employer plenty of time to fire key activists. Another common tactic is to hold one-on-one meetings between supervisors and employees where the employees are told that the workplace could close and the employees could lose everything they have. These meetings are generally conducted by supervisors who are trained by the union busters.
The other favorite tactic is the “captive audience” meeting. At these required meetings at the workplace, employees are harassed and threatened by union busters and company supervisors.
It’s all about spreading fear, because they know that scared employees generally don’t vote for a union.
So how will the Employee Free Choice Act change that? The act allows unions to be the representatives of the workers when a majority of employees sign authorization cards saying they want to be represented by a union. No month-long attack against the employees. A majority signs cards and the union is the representative. This is similar to the way it is done in Canada.
Why should this matter to all of you who already have the protections of a union contract?
The answer comes down to market share. If all of the workers in an industry were covered under a union contract, then the bargaining power of workers in that industry would be that much greater. Which, of course, is why the employers are poised to spend many millions of dollars to prevent that from happening.
Fortunately, we have the people on our side and we have a presidential candidate, Barack Obama, who has pledged to sign the act if and when it is passed by Congress.
EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE: Fiction and Fact
FICTION:“The legislation would end the rights of employees to secret ballot elections.” — Center for Union Facts
FACT: Employee Free Choice does not abolish elections. Under the proposed bill, workers get to choose the union formation process — elections or majority sign-up. What the Employee Free Choice does prevent is an employer manipulating the flawed system to influence the election outcome. When faced with organizing campaigns: 25 percent of employers illegally fire pro-union workers; 51 percent illegally threaten to close down work sites if a union is formed; and 34 percent of employers coerce workers into opposing the union with bribes and favoritism.
FICTION: “Legal recognition of a union has traditionally been achieved through secret ballot elections… just like how a person votes for a senator or congressman.” — Center for Union Facts
FACT: Current union elections involving secret ballots bear no resemblance to political elections. Workers’ free speech rights are squelched, employers practice various forms of economic coercion, and labor law allows employers to indefinitely delay recognition through drawn-out appeals. The presence of secret ballots can’t overcome the corrupt nature of NLRB elections.
FICTION: NLRB elections are “the only way to guarantee worker protection from coercion and intimidation.” — Coalition for a Democratic Workplace
FACT: Workers are more susceptible to coercion in NLRB elections than in majority sign-up. Workers in elections are twice as likely (46 percent vs. 23 percent) as those in majority sign-up campaigns to report that management coerced them to oppose the union. Further, fewer than one in 20 workers (4.6 percent) who signed a card with a union organizer reported that the presence of the organizer made them feel pressured to sign the card. |
