LABOR'S CHOICE HAS TO BE OBAMA

LABOR’S CHOICE HAS TO BE OBAMA
By Dick Meister

Democrat Barack Obama supports the proposed Employee Free Choice Act.
Republican John McCain opposes it. There you have one of the clearest
possible illustrations of the basic differences between the presidential
candidates – and one of the strongest possible reasons for working people to
throw their support to Obama.

Passage of the Free Choice Act -- currently stalled in the Senate –- would
give American workers the unfettered right to the unionization that’s long
been denied millions of them, despite its great importance to the economic
well-being of everyone.

The proposed law would amend the 73-year-old National Labor Relations Act.
The law was enacted as a way to encourage unionization and the growth of a
substantial middle class, but it has become feeble and so poorly enforced
that it’s routinely violated – the main reason only about 12 percent of
American workers are in unions, despite the much higher pay, benefits and
other advantages of union membership.

Many employers, aided by the anti-labor Bush administration, have made union
membership meaningless, if not impossible, by threatening to fire or
discipline union supporters and otherwise illegally interfere in
unionization drives. Even those relative few who recognize a union as their
employees’ representative often refuse to bargain with the union and punish
employees who protest that. Fines for those and other infractions are
slight, if even imposed.

The Free Choice Act calls for much stiffer fines and, among several other
provisions aimed at cracking down on offenders, 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 usually done. The law was like that
originally, with no lengthy election campaigns and thus much less
opportunity for employers to intimidate workers.

Congress came close to passing the Free Choice Act last year. It cleared the
House easily, but failed to get the 60-vote majority needed to overcome a
filibuster by Republican opponents in the Senate. Sen. Obama voted for
passage, of course, Sen. McCain against.

Obama promises to continue his strong support for the act if he makes it to
the White house and to otherwise “strengthen the ability of workers to
organize unions.” And that’s just one aspect of Obama’s staunchly pro-labor
position. He also promises, for example, that his appointees to positions
dealing with unions will support workers’ rights, unlike Bush appointees.

What’s more, a President Obama would work to prohibit employers from
permanently replacing striking workers and seek to increase the minimum
wage and index it to inflation so it would rise as the cost-of-living rises.
Among other promised actions, Obama says he would try to reverse decisions
by the Bush-appointed majority on the National Labor Relations Board that
have taken away union rights from thousands of workers.

So what might working people expect from a President McCain, other than his
opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act? Plenty, and none of it good.

McCain’s record shows that he favors seriously weakening, if not
eliminating, the worker’s essential right to strike, by allowing employers
to simply replace strikers – permanently. He’s also favored a proposed
federal right-to-work law that would endanger unions everywhere. He’s voted
against granting full union rights to airport screeners, fire fighters and
police, claiming that government workers are “crippled by the fine print of
the latest union contract.”

The AFL-CIO rightly considers McCain an enemy of labor who “has spoken out
against unions and consistently voted against collective bargaining rights
for workers.”

McCain attacks unions as “monopolies” that have been guilty of “serious
excesses.” He’s been particularly critical of teachers’ unions, arguing that
“it’s time to break the grip of the education monopoly that serves the union
bosses at the expense of our children.”

“Union bosses,” indeed, McCain obviously is in company with George Bush
and those innumerable other anti-labor Republicans. A vote for John McCain
would be a vote for at least four more years of anti-worker policies in the
White House -- in effect, at least four more years of Bush.

A vote for Barack Obama would be a vote for enlightened labor policies that
would favor the right of workers to join together and bargain as equals with
employers – their actual bosses -- and thus greatly improve the economic,
political and social lives of all Americans.

Copyright © 2008 Dick Meister

Story ID:	3961
Written by:	Dick Meister (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	everywhere USA
Year:	2008
Person:	Barack Obama