Freep.com: Revisions can help counter intimidation from employers

[Omaha Steve]

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070327/OPINION02/703270336/1070/OPINION02

Revisions can help counter intimidation from employers

March 27, 2007

BY MARV RUSSOW

The system under which workers now decide whether to join or form a union is based on a 70-year-old law. It came from an economy that is very different from today's, and instead of protecting the rights of workers to organize or join unions, it frequently thwarts those rights.

In order to bring the National Labor Relations Act into the 21st Century, the U.S. House recently passed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which is now before the Senate.

I support its passage, but since I am president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 951 with more than 30,000 members here in Michigan, that is probably not surprising. Of course, I believe in unions and in worker rights.

Even more than that, however, I believe in democracy. At a time when the old social contract has been demolished by globalization and the enormous growth of corporate power, I believe it is even more important now than it was back in the 1930s to have democracy -- real democracy -- in the workplace.

EFCA can do something about that. The bill is designed to protect workers from the lopsided, coercive powers that many employers use to subvert democratic voting. Irresponsible employers fire and harass union supporters. They threaten job loss through plant closure or by moving work out of the facility where a union vote is taking place. They pledge to make wages and benefits worse if workers form a union.

Because of the structural power that comes with being the employer, they can make and carry out such threats in a way that distorts the voting process.

FULL article at link.