By John J. Sweeney
At the heart of the fight to pass the federal Employee Free Choice Act is one issue: How do we ensure the freedom of working people to make their own decision about whether to form unions and bargain with employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions?
In American life, majority will is determined in a number of ways—by voice votes, standing votes, raised hands, mail balloting, in voting booths and in other forms. When workers try to form unions, majority will is established in one of two ways: Some responsible employers, such as Cingular Wireless, agree to recognize the union when a majority of workers votes by signing union-authorization cards. They recognize this as a free and fair way to assess workers’ choice that reduces workplace conflict and puts workers and management on a level playing field.
In most cases, however, employers force workers to endure the broken process of a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) “election.” I put that sugar-coated word in quotes because a more reality-based term is management-controlled election process.
Management-controlled election process does not allow workers the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union. Its one-sided rules give the boss all the power and all the choices.
Workers do not have a free choice when the employer alone controls which method they must use to decide whether to form a union.
Workers do not have a free choice when just filing a petition for an NLRB election triggers a bitter, divisive and often lengthy anti-union campaign designed to chill or destroy union support.
It’s not free choice when suspected pro-union workers are routinely harassed, intimidated, spied upon, discriminated against, punished or even fired. The NLRB itself acknowledges that a worker is fired or discriminated against for union activity at least once every 23 minutes.
It’s not free choice when management can bombard employees with anti-union messages anywhere, anytime in the workplace while workers can talk about the union only on break time and only in the break area, and union organizers have no right to set foot in the workplace.
It’s not free choice when in 78 percent of campaigns the boss requires supervisors to shovel anti-union propaganda to the employees whose schedules, evaluations and advancement they control. Or when in 92 percent of campaigns the employer requires workers to attend one-sided, anti-union meetings where management can legally fire pro-union workers who speak out.
And it’s not free choice when, even after workers win the fight to form a union, employers never agree to a contract in one-third of those cases.
The NLRB process may be called an “election”—but it’s nothing like any democratic election held in any other part of our society.
Right now, corporate special interests are amassing big war chests for advertising and lobbying to mislead Congress and the public about the Employee Free Choice Act. They claim that voting by majority sign-up isn’t good enough, that workers should remain saddled with the broken NLRB process that is perverted by corporate coercion and intimidation.
Watch them. They’re going to make it sound like they care about what’s best for workers. But in truth they will fight like hell to maintain the current system because it enables corporations to block workers’ freedom to decide for themselves whether to have unions and bargain. The last thing they want is a level playing field. The idea of giving working families a shot at prosperity is anathema to the folks who have been shipping our jobs overseas where they can pay pitiful wages and thumb their noses at anything resembling workers’ rights.
The corporate fight against the Employee Free Choice Act is about the dollars. Joining together to bargain for better wages and benefits is the best opportunity for working people to get ahead. Union workers are paid 29 percent more than nonunion workers, on average, and are 62 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage and four times more likely to have pensions.
So when you see the high-priced ads coming out attacking the Employee Free Choice Act, chalk it up to a bunch of corporate special interests hellbent on protecting their profits at the cost of basic fairness, economic opportunity and America’s middle class.
Remember that the real issue is this: Do we want to accept the status quo or change it so working men and women have the freedom to pursue a better life?
