Robert Reich: Time to Join a Union (Or At Least Have the Right to)

[marmar]

from CommonDreams:


Published on Thursday, March 1, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Time to Join a Union (Or At Least Have the Right to)
by Robert Reich

You’d think that more than seventy years after the right to form a union was enshrined in the National Labor Relations Act, workers could have a union if a majority wanted one. Think again. Under current law, a majority vote isn’t nearly enough. Even if one hundred percent of workers want a union, employers can still stop them by demanding that the simple vote be followed by a complex process ending in a secret ballot – a process so long and drawn out that some employers use the time to fire union organizers and threaten others. End of story.

This week, the House votes on a bill that would allow a majority of workers to sign up for a union and get one.

Employer groups are up in arms. They prefer the long, drawn out process that gives employers time to use threats and coercion to prevent unionization. Such strong-arm tactics are illegal, but the penalty for getting caught is a slap on the wrist. Charges of illegal dismissals take years to wind their way through the National Labor Relations Board and even when the Board finds that an employer acted illegally, the worst that can happen is the worker has to be rehired and given back pay that was lost. In 2005 alone, over 30,000 American workers were awarded back pay because their employers were found to have illegally fired or otherwise discriminated against them for their union activities.

A half century ago, most employers obeyed the law and allowed workers to organize. In the 1950s, the National Labor Relations Board found illegal dismissals in only one of every 20 union elections. But in subsequent decades, competition heated up, investors demanded higher returns, employers felt increasing pressure to cut wages, and union-busting became the name of the game.

By the early 1990s, according to government data, illegal dismissals occurred in one out of every four union elections. Nowadays, even though polls show most workers would organize a union if they could, the process is so complicated that it’s rare they even get to choose. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0301-27.htm

[Greyhound]

1. Do you know to which bill he is referring? n/t

:kick: & R

[marmar]

2. Yup. This one:

Last week, the House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee voted yes on the Employee Free Choice Act. This was a huge step forward in the fight to restore the ability of workers' to form unions.

Some 57 million US workers regularly tell pollsters that they would join a union if they could. But current US labor laws are often too weak to stop the intimidation, harassment and retaliation workers often face from employers when they try to organize.

The Employee Free Choice Act would ensure that when a majority of employees in a workplace decide to form a union, they can do so without the debilitating obstacles employers now use to block their free choice.

Now that the Committee has voted favorably, the bill is moving to a vote by the full House, currently expected to be tomorrow, Thursday, March 1. A business coalition reportedly launched a six-figure radio ad campaign yesterday in an attempt to convince three Democratic freshmen who represent conservative districts to defy organized labor and vote against the bill. Help counter these tactics by taking a minute TODAY to urge your elected representatives to vote in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act and by clicking here to spread the word on this crucial struggle.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow?pid=170362

[Why Syzygy]

3. And ya butt..

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/28/ap/politics/mainD8NJ0C2O0.shtml

(AP) President Bush would veto legislation championed by Democrats and labor groups that would make it easier to organize unions by eliminating employer rights to demand secret-ballot elections, the White House said Wednesday.
~~~
The Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the card check bill, is the top legislative goal of labor groups eager to reassert themselves with the emergence of the Democratic majority.

The current system is broken because employers can coerce and intimidate workers into rejecting unionization, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a phone interview this week. The House bill, he said, is "the most important improvement in labor law in many decades."

But the White House, in a statement, said the measure "would strip workers of the fundamental democratic right to a supervised private ballot election." Substituting a card check mechanism under which unions would get bargaining rights as soon as a majority of workers at a plant sign approval cards, "would turn back the clock 60 years and return us to a failed system."
~~~ more

[Greyhound]

5. Thanks for the information, consider it done. n/t

:kick:

[ngant17]

4. those numbers are a minimum

note that this does not mean that 30 thousand workers were fired for attempting to organize for a union in the workplace, that number would be much higher. The 30 thousand is only the amount of discharged workers who were fired for union-organizing, and then decided to pursue the issue legally and won their case and got backpay, or it was otherwise settled out of court.

In Aug. 2006, I was terminated for organizing for a union ("disclosure of company info to non-company personnel"), but I choose not to fight it legally thru a wrongful termination law-suit, I simply didn't want to work in this company after that experience, I decided to move on with my life. See this link:

<http://geocities.com/ngant17/union1.htm>