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

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

Mike Elk, with the Campaign for America's Future, wrote … 

"If the penalty for robbing a bank was you had to post a piece of paper saying you robbed a bank, we'd all be bank robbers!" a longtime union organizer once said to me.

Currently, under U.S. labor law, the penalty for an employer that robs someone of their job for expressing their right to join a union is just that. They have to post a piece of paper saying they illegally fired an employee from their job.

That would change if EFCA passes. The bill beefs up penalties for union-busting campaigns and establishes an arbitration process that requires businesses to negotiate with their employees -- all of which is obscured by the corporate right's relentless focus on a nonexistent "right" to a secret ballot. 

Big Business commissioned a Zogby poll that's dangerously close to the political "push-polls" of campaign infamy. The questions were remarkably dishonest, and the results were what the pollsters and their clients were looking for. 

Please tell me whether you agree or disagree with the following statement: "Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union."

Nine out of 10 respondents agreed, including 87 percent of Democrats. That's to be expected; the strategy is to depict management's assault on the ability to organize as protecting "workers' rights." Seven out of 10 respondents said they'd be less likely to vote for a member of Congress "who voted in favor of taking away a worker's right to have a federally supervised secret ballot election to decide whether to organize a union." 

Armed with their push-poll, the right's noise machine has been typically disciplined, and all corners of the conservative movement are on message: " 'Big Labor' wants to do away with secret ballots, and it's pulling the Democrats' strings to make it happen." They've taken that spin and synchronized it across the conservative communications infrastructure -- from business-funded think tanks to right-wing blogs; from the Wall Street Journal editorial page to lawmakers walking the halls of Congress. 

So far, it appears to be an effective campaign of distraction, with the corporate media dancing right along with the union-busters' tune. The importance of pushing back couldn't be clearer -- the state of working America is dismal, and while EFCA won't be a magic bullet, it's an important start. 

So this would be a good week to call your representative, write a letter to your local paper's editor or talk with some friends about the importance of passing a bill that would help restore working people's ability to join a union.

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Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

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