TIME TO CHECK THOSE UNION CARDS

TIME TO CHECK THOSE UNION CARDS
By Dick Meister

Millions of workers could be on the verge of finally gaining the unfettered
right to unionization that has so long been denied them, despite its great
importance to the economic well-being of all Americans.

Our economy is in trouble, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich notes,
“largely because lower and middle-income workers no longer have the buying
power they need to keep it going.”

Unionization is the obvious way to get that buying power and to meet the
urgent need to expand the steadily shrinking middle class. Last year, for
instance, union members earned fully 30 percent more than non-union workers
– an average of $10,000 or $200 a week more – and had much better health,
retirement and other benefits. As usual, they also had a much more effective
voice in determining their working conditions and played a greater role in
political affairs and community activities.

So why are only about 12 percent of the country’s workers in unions? That’s
obvious, too: Many employers, aided and abetted by the anti-labor Bush
administration, make union membership meaningless, if not impossible, by
illegally interfering in unionization drives. Even those relative few who
recognize a union as their employees’ representative often refuse to bargain
with the union and discipline employees who protest.

The 73-year-old National Labor Relations Act, which was enacted as a way to
encourage unionization during the dark economic time of the Great
Depression, says employers can’t do that. But the law has become feeble and
so poorly enforced that it’s routinely violated.

There’s a remedy for that called the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s been
before Congress for several years, only to be blocked by Republicans. But
it’s been gaining important new support from organized labor’s Democratic
allies.

In the meantime, many employers continue to openly intimidate those who
support or attempt to organize unions. They order supervisors to spy on
organizers and to threaten pro-union workers with firing or other penalties,
for example, and order workers to attend meetings at which employers rail
against unions.

The penalties for such employer violations of the Labor Relations Act are
slight. Workers, at any rate, fear complaining because it usually takes the
government a very long time to act, and they meanwhile risk being fired or
otherwise disciplined. Fear of such illegal reprisals keeps at least 60
million workers who want to unionize from even trying. Every year, more than
60,000 of those who nevertheless do try are punished, half of them fired.

The Employee Free Choice Act calls for much stiffer fines -- up to $20,000
per violation -- and, among several other provisions aimed at cracking down
hard on offenders, it mandates that employers who stall in union contract
negotiations will have the terms dictated by an arbitrator.

The key provision would automatically grant union recognition on the showing
of union membership cards by a majority of an employer’s workers, rather
than holding an election, as is now done in most cases. The law was like
that originally, with no lengthy election campaigns and thus much less
opportunity for employers to intimidate workers.

The proposed act came close to passage last year, clearing the House handily
but failing to get the 60-vote majority needed to overcome a filibuster by
Republican opponents in the Senate.

Chances seem better this year, with the AFL-CIO set to wage a major campaign
that promises to be even more extensive than last year’s drive that failed
because of a mere nine Senate votes.

The AFL-CIO aims to eventually mobilize at least one million members or 10
percent of each of its affiliates’ members for the campaign. Volunteers will
be contacting Congress members via phone calls, letters, telegrams and
emails and in person throughout the year, and campaigning for the election
of those agreeing to support passage of the Free Choice Act next year – and
against those who oppose the act. The labor federation expects that Congress
in 2009 will have an even greater majority of pro-labor Democrats than now,
and a pro-labor Democrat in the White House, all adhering to the Democratic
National Committee’s pledge to make passage of the act a top priority.

Needless to say, Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposes the
act, as do virtually all the other Republicans in Congress.

The AFL-CIO already has won endorsements from nearly 2,000 state and local
office holders, some 20 governors and more than 100 state legislatures and
local governing bodies.

But though the chances for enactment look good, the opposition is
formidable. It includes many powerful corporate employers, the entire
Republican establishment, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and such other stalwarts
of the anti-labor right as the Heritage Foundation and National Right to
Work Committee.

They’ve forgotten, if they ever knew – or cared – that, as the United
Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, unionization is a
basic, vital right of everyone, everywhere.

Copyright © 2008 Dick Meister

Story ID:	3654
Written by:	Dick Meister (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	Washington DC USA
Year:	2008