An Easy Call for Obama on Joining a Union (Correcting the Dana-Metaldyne Decision)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray02132009.html

By DAVID MACARAY

On Thursday, February 12, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted to send the Hilda Solis nomination (President Obama’s choice for Secretary of Labor) to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.

While organized labor is generally pleased with the Solis nomination, Senate Republicans, terrified of her vocal support for the landmark Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), have vowed to oppose her confirmation. The EFCA would give workers the right to join a labor union simply by signing cards. Labor loves it, businesses hate it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent millions lobbying against it.

While there has been much conjecture about if, when, and how hard Obama will push for passage of the EFCA, there’s another labor issue out there that will, at once, restore federal rights to America’s working people without requiring the messy congressional battle the EFCA is expected to elicit.

That issue is the so-called Dana-Metaldyne decision. It involves two Midwestern corporations (the Dana Corp. and the Metaldyne Corp) whose employees decided to become labor union members, but ran into a legal buzz saw. And for President Obama, rescinding this repellent decision should be an easy call to make.

A brief history. There are two ways to join a union: by petitioning the NLRB to hold a sanctioned union election, where everyone votes yea or nay by secret ballot, and by using the “card check” method, where a company gives its workers the right to join simply by signing cards saying they wish to do so. The EFCA would make the card check method universal (almost).

Actually, there is a third way to become a union member. Although rare, it’s where the NLRB intervenes and forces a company to recognize a union as the employees’ bargaining agent. They do this only after it’s been determined that the company used an unfair labor practice (ULP) in preventing its employees from joining up. It’s an unpleasant and hostile way for a union to gain affiliation, but it happens occasionally.

FULL story at link.

[mitchtv]

1. CWA had to fight Taylor Made OfficeSystems

all the way to USSC, we won