Fresh hope to working families by Bill Londrigan

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-2009-05-13-86964.113117_Fresh_hope_to_working_families.html

Lexington, KY - America's working families say they are falling behind, even as those at the very top of the economic heap make out like bandits. Wages, health care costs and retirement security are all trouble areas. America's once-powerful middle class is shrinking.

One of the primary reasons working people are getting left behind is they've lost their ability to bargain with their employer for better wages and benefits through unions. Unions are a cornerstone to building and keeping a strong middle class in our nation.

Union workers earn on average 30 percent more than workers who don't have a union, according to government statistics, and they are much more likely to have health care and pensions.

In fact, more than half of workers who don't already have a union say they'd join one tomorrow if given the chance. But too few are getting that chance.

Employers routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to improve their lives through unions, and our laws are helpless to stop them. About one in five union activists who tried to form a union were fired since 2000, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research. Employers routinely threaten workers with loss of pay and benefits if they form a union. Seventy-eight percent of private sector employers require supervisors to meet one-on-one with employees they directly supervise, urging them to vote against the union. Even after workers successfully form a union, they can't get a contract one-third of the time.

The National Labor Relations Act was designed to protect employee choice on whether to form unions, but it has been turned upside down. The current system is not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. Employers have all the power and control all the decisions in the election process. By the time employees vote in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election, the environment has been so poisoned that a free and fair choice isn't even an option.

FULL story at link.