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Dems Introduce Vital Protections for Workers; Corporate America Responds With a Big Lie

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted March 11, 2009.


There is nothing more terrifying to corporate America than the prospect of dealing with its workforce on an even playing field.

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On Tuesday, House Democrats introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, a vitally important package of protections that would help restore working people's much-denuded right to join a union if they so desire.  

There's nothing more terrifying to corporate America than the prospect of dealing with its workforce on an even playing field, and, along with its allies in Congress, it's pulling out all the stops to keep that from happening.

The Chamber of Commerce, D.C. lobbyists, firms that rely on cheap labor and a host of  "Astroturf" front groups have built a massive war chest they're using to try to defeat the EFCA and other efforts to put a check on corporate power and rebuild a declining middle class.  

The central message of their campaign is remarkably dishonest. America's professional union-busters have seized on a compelling talking point tailored to suit our political culture, namely that the "card-check" provision of the EFCA -- which allows workers to form a union if a  majority indicate they want one -- which does away with "secret ballots" that Americans have come to expect when casting a vote.

It is, in short, a Big Lie. There has never been a "right" to a secret ballot for union elections; in fact, most union organizing in recent decades has  been done via card check. The issue is this: It is currently up to the employer to decide whether their workers choose to organize via majority sign-up -- "card check" -- or through a National Labor Relations Board election. Under EFCA, workers themselves would get to make that call, not their bosses. 

It's an important distinction. Union busting has reached a high art form in the United States. Companies no longer need thugs and gun-toting Pinkertons to keep workers from exercising their legal rights to organize; now they have high-priced, Armani-wearing lawyers, who simply brainwash workers into silence. 

The tactics are as subtle as they are insidious. A study by Cornell University labor scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner found: 9 in 10 employers facing a union campaign force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent train supervisors on how to attack unions and require them to deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee; half of employers threaten to shut down the plant if workers unionize (only 2 percent actually do); and 3 out of 4 hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, "often based on mass psychology and distorting the law." 

Increasingly, cunning forms of intimidation are often enough to produce a "no" vote. But if workers do vote to unionize, management is then able to dispute the outcome, and the case can drag on, often for years.

While it's pending, pro-union workers lose their jobs. A study published last year (PDF) by economists John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer found that "almost 1 in 5 union organizers or activists can expect to be fired as a result of their activities in a union election campaign." 

That's illegal -- workers are guaranteed the right to organize -- but since the Reagan administration gutted U.S. labor protections, companies that cross the line pay modest penalties that can be written off as part of the cost of remaining union-free. 


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Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

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Excellent Post ...
Posted by: mmckinl on Mar 11, 2009 1:38 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The legislation will never get through the Senate, should it manage to get through the House ...

The important part here is to stay on the offensive, pushing away at Big Business. Too often and for too long the left has managed to bargain away or fight on enemy ground instead of just taking it to the right, the blue dog DLC and big business. Ya can't get a knockout by only blocking punches.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: xcellent Post ... Posted by: weathered
EFCA is a great idea but I still have a suspicion the Dems will cave into COC yet again or at least
Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Mar 11, 2009 3:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
enough of them will to the point of passing either a seriously watered-down toothless version or not even passing it at all. I'm keeping my fingers crossed until they can prove otherwise.

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Union get what they deserve
Posted by: 2thepoint on Mar 11, 2009 4:00 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Regardless whether or not past union organizing or voting have been handled through the card check system, it should be illegal to force workers into an open voting environment. It places all workers in the position of being threatened by the union if they do not follow their lead.

My experience with working for a union is the strong arm tactics to join came from the union. I nearly came to blows with a union rep who was trying to force me to join a union. i have no use for them at all. They deserve their declining membership!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: It's no coincidence... Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: It's no coincidence... Posted by: Pegaleg
» RE: It's no coincidence... Posted by: 2thepoint
» RE: It's no coincidence... Posted by: Crazy H
» RE: Union get what they deserve Posted by: aussidawg
» RE: Union get what they deserve Posted by: 2thepoint
» RE: Union get what they deserve Posted by: LaughingModerateIndependent
» RE: The unions of the 1940s were totally corrupt basically organized crime Posted by: Illuminatus- Enlightend Classic Liberal
» RE: The unions of the 1940s were totally corrupt basically organized crime Posted by: Illuminatus- Enlightend Classic Liberal
» RE: Union get what they deserve Posted by: 2thepoint
» Pointy-- Posted by: jvaljon1
Union ideology Built the World Economy
Posted by: Purple Girl on Mar 11, 2009 4:51 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Unions not only built this country but made it possible fro other countries to have thriving economies. The better the American Worker is paid, the more we Spend- on our own products and those from around the world.Unions built those Corps, which created jobs in other countries, thus becoming 'multinationals'. Henry Ford came up with the assembly line- But the unions made it prosperous for US and every other worker around the world.
Unions also granted the Non Union workers decent wages, bennies, retirment pkgs, safe working conditions...Something the White collars would not have been able to acheive, since they are not a 'force to be reckoned with'- They too would be nothing more than 'sweatshop' labor- pushing papers and pencils.
So destroy the Unions, and the White collars will also fall, and so will the economies of numerous other countries who rely on our Middle Class incomes to support their Export industry. We were not the Worlds economic powerhouse just because we could Produce- but because we could afford to Buy! Multinationals are idiots, they are pulling the rug out from their own customer base. You pay US shit, we buy nothing. We buy nothing, you have nothing to produce. You have nothing to produce, you have no revenue. You have no reveneue, you have not Profits. You have no profits, you have not salaries and certianly No Bonus' or golden parachutes, and nothing to Gamble on in the stockmarket.
Get the lines working- pay the workers good wages,assure they are healthy & educated Workforce...They inturn will go shopping, generating more jobs, increasing the tax base, increasing the investment base, and build a more stable base for those who survive off paper and pencil pushing.
Repugs and their Corp co conspirators are cutting off their own noses and dooming US and the rest of the world's economy.

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Otto
Posted by: otto on Mar 11, 2009 5:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The pendulum swings back and forth. About 30 years ago the corporate press made hay about the scandals involving a few union leaders (at the same time their goons were beating up Caesar Chavez and followers for trying to start a United Farmworkers Union; the same tactics Ford used on Walter Reuther 30 years before!) Remember "Right To Work (you as much as they want!) Laws"? Now that the effectiveness of unions has been almost wiped out, we see all the scandals of the corporate and bank CEO's and the disaster of the economy for EVERYONE. But corporate leaders keep playing the same card, trying to keep (as Josh calls it) "an uneven playing field. Good article!

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RE: Cheaper wins for a while
Posted by: hardwroc on Mar 11, 2009 9:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Nobody said better. And, when there is nothing on the shelves but chinese made, you are left little choice.
The problem is , when nobody but Chinese are working, who exactly is going to buy the crap here in America? With what?
The same boobs that made cars bigger every year when we needed more mileage, and reliability, are the fools that somehow expect the Chinese workers to come to America to buy the products they have built to maintain the economy. Idiots !
Much like the idea that executives deserve multimillion dollar bonuses while laying off workers and closing down companies and banks.
They can only buy so many things before they have all they can use, and they alone cannot sustain our economy, so they MUST learn to share some of the wealth with mere commoners to keep the economies going. Is this really that complex? Did anyone else play monopoly? When one guy has hotels on all the squares, the game is essentially over.

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RE: Cheaper And Better Wins.
Posted by: JSquercia on Mar 11, 2009 12:42 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Except much of China's good have serious problems Toys that contain Lead Based Paint . Food that contains cancer causing additives.
Sometimes CHEAPER is not BETTER especially in things that you eat .

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Great job Josh
Posted by: daw13 on Mar 11, 2009 7:06 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Nothing demands journalistic attention more than illumination of the priority Power has focused upon discouraging citizen organization in the United States. Beginning, really, with Teddy Roosevelt. And very much including Franklin. One of the primary mechanisms of this effort, arguably, has been the removal of real history education from U.S. schools (if you doubt this, read James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States). This lack needs to be redressed in order for people fully to grasp the importance of articles such as the present one.

You can do this Josh! It will require a series, and I, hopefully among many, shall loudly applaud your effort, every step of the way.

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I was fortunate enough to get a propaganda email at work..
Posted by: Raver on Mar 11, 2009 8:57 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
..since I check the business email for our small magazine. It was riddled with the exact same messages mentioned in this article as its meat trying to denounce the EFCA. I sent a very to-the-point email in return with a bit of course language and the response I received was simply

"You are wrong. I am blocking your email address from further mailings"

It was interesting to say the least that they completely failed to address the content of my email.

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Puhlease
Posted by: mpreb658@earthlink.net on Mar 11, 2009 9:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I remember well my working years at a large company with a strong union. I always knew my good salary and benefits were the result of the union's negotiating good wages and benefits for themselves. Management certainly did not want to see dissatisfied salaried employees, and so they granted different but better to them than the union received.

Every single day I was grateful for my income, which wasn't astoundingly high but which enabled me to provide a decent living for myself and my family. And--this is the most important--I never ever felt overpaid or guilty because I knew I earned every single penny they paid me.

So, yes, we need unions, even when they engage in some nonexemplary behavior. On the basis of what I have just said about the salaried workers, it would seem the union haters are also afraid of the spillover to salaried employees.

I also remember many of the dirty tactics used by my company against both hourly and salaried. So, puhlease, support unions. Without them, all but the top few will keep slip sliding away.

As a last comment, I was one of the salaried employees who would have been ineligible to join a union; nevertheless, I support them because of my firsthand experience. So don't let anyone convince you they are bad for the company, the country. If they try, they don't know what they are talking about or they are jealous.

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» Agreed! Posted by: dazzle59
CEO's worth every penny!!!
Posted by: Hiroak on Mar 11, 2009 10:02 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Unions are wrong, America is supposed to be a place where by birth, edumacation, connections, or BS you can be in charge and pay the poor morons who actually make your product 3-4-500 times LESS than you (the boss) earns, anything else is communistic and should not be entertained by real Merkins.

30 Million Chiese are now unemployed, more Americans lose their jobs every day, the rulers are scared and the Corporatists own the rulers. No way are those Senate putzes going to pass this bill, their owners won't let them. Be afraid, be very afraid, violence is going on around the world because the slaves just realized we were being fed crumbs while the crooks robbed us. It will take the Fat Dumb and happy Merkins longer but the ground swell is beginning.

Long live the guillotine, off with their heads!

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» RE: CEO's worth every penny!!! LOL! Posted by: HANGTRAITORS
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