CybAnt
11-15-2006, 11:47 AM
The De-Unionizing of America
[Only registered and activated users can see links]
Before more workers -- and the entire nation -- can benefit from what unions can do, more workers need to be able to form and join unions. But, when workers in the private sector try to form unions, companies often go ballistic, resorting to their ultimate weapons of terminating union supporters or threatening to close down the entire workplace, possibly moving it to Mexico.
The widespread use of these tactics has been documented in a growing bookshelf of studies by academic observers.
Harvard Law Professor Paul Weiler estimates that one in 20 union supporters -- an average of approximately 10,000 workers a year -- are fired by their employers during union organizing campaigns.
Similarly, in a study of 400 elections on union representation conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University found that 50 percent of the employers threatened to close the office or plant and 32 percent fired workers who actively supported the union.
These actions are in violation of the NLRA's provisions prohibiting employers from firing, harassing, or threatening employers who seek to organize unions. But, as the journalist Michael Kinsley once said of campaign finance, when it comes to employer opposition to workers' organizing efforts, the real scandal is not what is illegal but rather what is legal.
Because of amendments to the NLRA in 1946, spotty enforcement by over-burdened federal officials, and slick tactics by the lawyers, publicists, and employee relations specialists who earn an estimated $300 million a year advising employers how to defeat organizing drives, union-bashing tactics have become commonplace.
All in all, according to Bronfenbrenner, 80 percent of employers who face employee organizing efforts hire consultants to help them conduct anti-union campaigns. And their tactics make a mockery of the NLRA's promise that workers are guaranteed "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."
Brofenbrenner found another, uglier reality. In addition to the 32 percent of employers who break the law by firing pro-union workers and the 50 percent who skirt the law by threatening to close down the workplace, others use legal but hardball tactics.
Ninety-one percent of employers facing organizing efforts force employees to attend anti-union meetings;
Seventy-seven percent distribute anti-union leaflets;
And 58 percent show anti-union videos.
In addition to these efforts, employers can often also get away with these tactics:
Firing employees who refuse to attend the anti-union meetings or who insist on asking embarrassing questions;
Excluding known union supporters from these meetings;
And barring union representatives from the workplaces during the weeks before the federally supervised elections where workers decide whether to be represented by a union.
These conditions resemble sham elections in totalitarian countries. In fact, they violate international conventions that the United States has signed protecting freedom of association - a right that's a close cousin to the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of free speech and freedom of assembly.
According to a recent study by the international watchdog group, Human Rights Watch: "Workers' freedom of association is under sustained attack in the United States, and the government is often failing in its responsibility under international human rights standards to deter such attacks and protect workers' rights."
[snip]
[Only registered and activated users can see links]
Before more workers -- and the entire nation -- can benefit from what unions can do, more workers need to be able to form and join unions. But, when workers in the private sector try to form unions, companies often go ballistic, resorting to their ultimate weapons of terminating union supporters or threatening to close down the entire workplace, possibly moving it to Mexico.
The widespread use of these tactics has been documented in a growing bookshelf of studies by academic observers.
Harvard Law Professor Paul Weiler estimates that one in 20 union supporters -- an average of approximately 10,000 workers a year -- are fired by their employers during union organizing campaigns.
Similarly, in a study of 400 elections on union representation conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University found that 50 percent of the employers threatened to close the office or plant and 32 percent fired workers who actively supported the union.
These actions are in violation of the NLRA's provisions prohibiting employers from firing, harassing, or threatening employers who seek to organize unions. But, as the journalist Michael Kinsley once said of campaign finance, when it comes to employer opposition to workers' organizing efforts, the real scandal is not what is illegal but rather what is legal.
Because of amendments to the NLRA in 1946, spotty enforcement by over-burdened federal officials, and slick tactics by the lawyers, publicists, and employee relations specialists who earn an estimated $300 million a year advising employers how to defeat organizing drives, union-bashing tactics have become commonplace.
All in all, according to Bronfenbrenner, 80 percent of employers who face employee organizing efforts hire consultants to help them conduct anti-union campaigns. And their tactics make a mockery of the NLRA's promise that workers are guaranteed "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."
Brofenbrenner found another, uglier reality. In addition to the 32 percent of employers who break the law by firing pro-union workers and the 50 percent who skirt the law by threatening to close down the workplace, others use legal but hardball tactics.
Ninety-one percent of employers facing organizing efforts force employees to attend anti-union meetings;
Seventy-seven percent distribute anti-union leaflets;
And 58 percent show anti-union videos.
In addition to these efforts, employers can often also get away with these tactics:
Firing employees who refuse to attend the anti-union meetings or who insist on asking embarrassing questions;
Excluding known union supporters from these meetings;
And barring union representatives from the workplaces during the weeks before the federally supervised elections where workers decide whether to be represented by a union.
These conditions resemble sham elections in totalitarian countries. In fact, they violate international conventions that the United States has signed protecting freedom of association - a right that's a close cousin to the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of free speech and freedom of assembly.
According to a recent study by the international watchdog group, Human Rights Watch: "Workers' freedom of association is under sustained attack in the United States, and the government is often failing in its responsibility under international human rights standards to deter such attacks and protect workers' rights."
[snip]