Blues dogs sabotage key provision of Employee Free Choice Act
(Image from washingtonindependent.com)
Several moderate Democrats have decided to drop a central provision of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers, according to The New York Times. The “card-check” provision would have “required employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted a union.” Workers will now have to engage in secret-ballot elections, historically a bigger challenge for unions.
While unions managed to secure other victories (shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections,) the card-check provision was a seminal part of the legislation, to the point where it was called “the card-check bill.” Shorter campaigns and faster elections won’t fix the problem of employer harassment, and the Senators have yet to address the issue of allowing employees access to company property to hold meetings. This amalgam of compromises could just ensure employers will have to concentrate their intimidating practices into 10 days instead of rationing their threats over two months.
The Democrats that caved on the provision include Senator Tom Harkin, a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, leader of the group of six Democrats who have worked closely with labor to revamp the bill. The other senators are Sherrod Brown, Thomas R. Carper, Mark Pryor, Charles E. Schumer, and Arlen Specter.
Business representatives were also displeased with the provision that calls for a binding arbitration if an employer fails to reach a contract with a new union. “We see it as a hostile act to have arbitrators telling businesses what they have to do,” said Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the hilariously-named Workforce Fairness Institute, a business group opposing the bill.
Verna Bader knows something about hostile acts at the workplace. The 60-year-old machine operator for Taylor Machine Products, a Detroit-based company, was fired when she tried to join a union that was attempting to win better wages and improve health and safety on the job. At the time, Bader was earning only $5 an hour, and she was the sole breadwinner for her father, her dying sister, and her sister’s children.
Jose Guardado worked at the Nebraska Beef meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska for 8 years. He worked on the kill floor where he slaughtered more than 2500 steers each day. Guardado and his co-workers wanted to unionize as a way to fight back against what he calls the dangerous working conditions, the lack of respect, and abusive treatment. ”We all signed cards showing our support for the UFCW,” says Guardado.
Unfortunately, there were no laws in place to prevent employer harassment.
“The company terrified workers from standing up for their rights. They threatened to fire union supporters, threatened to call immigration and deport the Latinos and threatened to close the plant. They promised to slow the line down and treat everyone better. Nebraska Beef even brought in a bunch of strange workers on the day of the election just to get them to vote against the union. Workers were scared. No one wanted to lose their job. The company won the vote by a small number. The line was sped back up and no one was given what was promised to them.”
And when the voting was done, the company inflicted retribution on the workers that had dared to stand up for their rights.
“Then, Nebraska Beef began firing workers who had supported the union. I knew they were watching and waiting for me to make a mistake, so I was very careful. But the company fired me. My insurance was terminated weeks before they fired me and I had to pay $1,000 out of my own pocket for doctor’s visits and medicine. Meanwhile, they still took $20 out of the last three paychecks for health insurance I didn’t have. This company took away my livelihood and hurt my family just to keep us from organizing a union. Many other workers were fired or quit because they were so afraid.”
The need for employee protection is especially important these days, according to a study by labour expert Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which concludes that employers are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics – including threats of firing and actual firings – in their campaigns to thwart workers’ organizing efforts. Furthermore, today’s anti-union activities include a “greater focus than in the past on more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity.” (The full study is available here.)
Bronfenbrenner’s study was verified by Chirag Mehta and Nik Theodore from the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois. Mehta and Theodore published a separate report that revealed a “majority of employers aggressively use both legal and illegal anti-union tactics during union representation elections, which impedes workers’ ability to form unions.”
Comparatively, when employers respect the rights of their workers to unionize, it creates a healthy workplace environment where workers feel safe and productive, as demonstrated in the case of Sharon Harrison, an employee at AT&T Mobility. The head of the company “came to our call center when we were signing up for union representation and made it clear that under his management, there would be full respect for workers’ rights. That set the tone.”
More than a majority of workers at the call center signed petitions in favor of the union. Harrison added, “All workers deserve to have the same chance I did to join a union if that’s what they want to do. I know firsthand what a big difference it makes when you don’t have to be afraid anymore to stand up for your rights at work.”
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Once again, the Senate Democrats – “no matter how pressing a crisis the nation may be facing – can be counted on to ignore the needs of the American people” and to defend “the injustice of the status quo.”
I support protecting workers from dangerous work environments, but I don’t think that unions are the answer to that. Besides, history has shown that as unions become stronger, they become more corrupt and more dangerous than some of the largest and most powerful corporations. It is a two way street. I do not want outsiders coming in and telling me what to do with my private property, so they should not be able to tell employers what to do with their companies.
So what would be a good way to protect workers if not through strong unions? I agree with you that sometimes unions become corrupt (usually because unions bosses get too cozy with management,) but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Unions have also fought (and won) very important battles like minimum wage and the 8-hour work day.
In response to another comment. See in context »Wish I could figure out which caving action is necessary or wise. My union friends here surely aren’t excited about this one.
Labor has been treated like this for nearly 30 years, and it’s their own fault. When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, all union leaders should have told there people to strike until those controllers were rehired. They’ve been paying for their failure to do so ever since – and so have all workers.
I can’t imagine what the Democrats would have to do for labor to realize that they have few friends among the D’s and R’s. Even though their strength is relatively low, unions should all walk for a week or two, but they have to do it for real. Meaning that they should not allow their work to be done by anyone else while they’re out – no matter what! Until union members are willing to fight for themselves, they will keep losing ground.
Good point. All of this supposed “compromise” seems to be remarkably one-sided and continues to favor Big Business.
In response to another comment. See in context »Workers will now have to engage in secret-ballot elections, historically a bigger challenge for unions.
Why do we engage in secret ballots for electing representatives and presidents in this case? I smell some hypocrisy here..
Voting for union elections should be just as secret as voting for governmental elections.
“history has shown that as unions become stronger, they become more corrupt and more dangerous than some of the largest and most powerful corporations”
Typical corporatist nonsense. The only reason why unions are seen as “more corrupt” than corporations is due to the Cold War witch-hunting which subjected unions to greater public scrutiny, and the corporate media’s pro-advertiser spin in focusing on that scrutiny. Moreover, since corporate wrongdoing is frequently legal (since they control the means of law-production), many choose to view such wrongdoing not as “corrupt” but as unproblematic or even virtuous (see Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs).
“I do not want outsiders coming in and telling me what to do with my private property, so they should not be able to tell employers what to do with their companies.”
Unions are not “outsiders”. In a market economy, a union is the only means to create a fair bargaining situation between labor and management — not just for workplace safety issues, but for wages, pensions (remember those?), health insurance, working conditions, community responsibility, etc, etc. Without unions, management holds all the cards.
Unions aren’t perfect. All institutions consisting of human beings are prone to corruption. But unions are a fundamental prerequisite for any and all efforts to reconcile capitalism with democracy. This country’s huge and increasing “democracy deficit” can be directly correlated with the ongoing assault on labor by the ruling class (corporations and their media & political wings).
“Why do we engage in secret ballots for electing representatives and presidents in this case? I smell some hypocrisy here..
Voting for union elections should be just as secret as voting for governmental elections.”
EFCA does not takes away the workers’ right to choose a secret ballot election. EFCA creates more options, not fewer. And it puts that choice in the hands of workers, not CEOs.
What is the problem with secret-ballot elections at the workplace? The documentation is extensive about how management controls the information received by workers, and how workers suspected of supporting a union are threatened, harassed, and often fired.
this too:
http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/the-truth-about-efca-and-secret-ballot-elections/
Every Democrat should be pro-labor, period. Unions at times abuse their power but if they sat on the boards like many do in Europe there is greater chance reasonable compromise. Job safety has gone out the window and illegals are working under horrendous conditions. It is comical to hear Republican’s whine on about the border while the big donations come from the very people who hire the cheap labor.
A vile double standard, agreed. It’s unfair to deport illegal immigrants yet allow businesses that profit from their cheap labor to continue operating.
In response to another comment. See in context »