http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-potter3-8mar08,0,7687594.story?coll=all-newsopinionanotherview-hedMarch 8, 2007
'Card-check' was just part of labor union bill
The way most Republicans and Big Business are acting about H.R. 800, the Employee Freedom of Choice Act, you would think that Organized Labor was harboring Osama Bin Laden in Central Park. I have read much of this rhetoric with disgust and utter dismay.
The opposition to the law, including so-called moderate Congressman Charlie Dent of Allentown, has focused on one small part of the bill – card check vs. secret ballot. If you listen to people like Washington Post columnist George Will, you would never know that there are five other important sections of the bill. The way Mr. Will and others describe H.R. 800, a secret ballot union election would be impossible to administer if this bill passes. This is false. The fact is, if 30 percent of the potential union members ask for it, there will be a secret ballot election. This is far less of a hurdle than the union must achieve in a card check; 50 percent plus one member of the potential bargaining unit.
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Following are parts of this bill that have been hidden by the opposition in the hopes of having Americans rely on misguided rhetoric rather than fact:
H.R. 800 Provides for first-contract mediation and arbitration. Many difficulties occur in negotiating and implementing a first contract. Organizing is the easy part. The real work lies in first-contract negotiation. Many employers, in both the public and private sectors, have systematically dragged out negotiations with the intent to divide the membership. Their strategy is clear. Make the union look impotent to its members, and they will choose to decertify.
Under this provision, if an impasse occurs, a federal mediator determines a first contract after 90 days. Locally, former Lehigh County Executive Jane Ervin, spent thousands of taxpayer dollars in anti-union consulting fees to thwart the initial Cedarbrook organizing effort by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776.
H.R. 800 provides civil fines up to $20,000 per violation. Employers found to have willfully or repeatedly violated employee rights during an organizing or first-contract drive will be fined per violation.
H.R. 800 will treble back pay. This will increase the amount an employer is required to pay when an employee is discharged or discriminated against in the above mentioned actions.
H.R. 800 allows the National Labor Relations Board to serve injunctions against companies. The NLRB would be bound to seek a federal injunction against employers where there is reasonable cause to believe employers have discharged or discriminated against an employees attempting to form a union.
H.R. 800 provides union certification on majority signup. This process is known as ''card check,'' and serves as proof of the employee assigning the union authorization to represent them. In the course of NLRB secret ballot elections, the employer is given ample time to ''educate'' employees on the evils of trade unionism on company time! The union rarely has access to the work site, and immediately faces a distinct disadvantage. Meetings are held and union activists have been separated from the work force in another show of company strength. One message, both real and perceived is that companies shut down rather than unionize.
The Republicans' motives are abundantly clear. Organized labor is a sleeping giant and the GOP is terrified of the political prowess that it wields. Labor, with only 12.9 percent of the national work force, turned out nearly 25 percent of the voters in the 2006 election. In Pennsylvania, with 14.8 percent of the workers belonging to labor unions, we believe we produced nearly 32 percent of the vote.
Unions have built our middle class, which in turn built this country. Being a union member doesn't guarantee me my place in heaven. The union does bargain on my behalf for better wages, better working conditions, and better benefits than non-organized workers get. My company, Verizon, pays me an excellent salary and benefits package, for which they receive excellent work. This is not because they like or dislike me, but rather because they signed a contract.
Gregg J. Potter of Allentown is president of the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and a member of the Communications Workers of America Local 13500.
''The Republicans' motives are abundantly clear.
Organized labor is a sleeping giant and the GOP is terrified of the political prowess that it wields.''
GREGG J. POTTER
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