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Why U.S. Workers Need the Employee Free Choice Act
Some 60 million workers say they would join unions if they could, according to recent polling.
Yet U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released last week point to a decline in union membership from 12.5 percent of the workforce in 2005 to 12 percent in 2006.
So what’s wrong with that picture?
It’s true, we in the union movement could be more aggressive in recruiting workers to join unions. But a big reason U.S. employees don’t join unions is because they can’t.
And America’s workers all too-often are blocked from joining unions because our nation’s labor laws, originally created in the 1930s, are broken. So broken that employers routinely harass, intimidate and even fire workers who they suspect of trying to form a union.
Let’s face it, how many people want to lose their jobs? (Firing workers for forming unions is illegal, but management does it anyway, counting on the fact that it often takes years for a workers’ appeal to wind its way through the regional and national labor boards and even the courts.)
Our nation’s labor laws need to be changed. And on Tuesday, Feb. 6, the first big step in that process is happening in the brand-new House of Representatives. For the first time since the late 1970s, a bill to reform our broken labor laws is being introduced in Congress.
Some 230 House members—a number that’s growing—already have signed up as co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act. Rep. George Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy have been with us on this bill from the time we first sought co-sponsors for it in 2003. And even in the not-so-worker-friendly 109th Congress, some 215 lawmakers in the House and 44 in the Senate co-sponsored the bill.
The Employee Free Choice Act would:
- Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
- Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
- Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.
A poll conducted in December by Peter D. Hart Research Associates showed a strong majority of the public—65 percent—approve of unions, up from 55 percent in 1981. But that same poll, taken for us at the AFL-CIO, also showed that nearly one-third of the public does not realize how hard management fights workers who seek to form unions.
In fact:
- 51 percent of private-sector employees threaten to shut down partially or totally if the union wins the election.
- 25 percent of private-sector employers fire at least one worker during organizing campaigns.
And management does more, lots more, to intimidate and harass workers seeking to form a union.
Noted historian Nelson Lichtenstein calls passage of the Employee Free Choice Act by the 110th Congress a “necessary first step in the reconstitution of freedom and dignity in the American workplace.”
And that’s because the Employee Free Choice Act is not just about unions. It’s about the ability of people to have the freedom they deserve to make a choice without fear of losing their job and their means of support. It’s about not allowing corporations to intimidate workers when they try to form a union. It’s about the 21st century—not the Gilded Age of robber barons—a time when employees should have the freedom to make their own choice without interference from management. Mine Workers organizing coordinator Bob Kendrick puts it this way:
The Employee Free Choice Act is basically…like you join the Eagles or the Elks or a church. You walk in there and you sign up, you join.
And most important, the Employee Free Choice Act is about raising the standard of living for all of us in this nation.
As AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff puts it:
[There is a] direct correlation between 25 years of stagnant, flat-lined wages and the assault on unions. Forty-seven million of us are without health care and 40 million with inadequate health care, [and] 20 percent more of us [live] in poverty now than when this decade started.
Laura Garren, a nurse at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, Ore., has been delivering and taking care of babies for 20 years. About two years ago, she began to worry about increasingly inadequate staffing levels having an adverse effect on patient care. Garren says they were short 40 nurses and the situation was getting worse.Eager to turn things around at Mercy, Garren and her coworkers began forming a union with the Oregon Nurses Association/United American Nurses to gain a voice in the decisions affecting their work and to ensure quality patient care. But the hospital was not interested in letting the nurses make a free choice. Management fought back with a campaign of fear and misinformation.Making the staffing ratio even worse, nurses were pulled off the floor and forced to attend anti-union meetings during work time. Garren remembers thinking to herself:
While I’m here at this mandatory meeting, the nurse upstairs who is covering my patients, now has 12 patients.
What does that say for management’s priorities? Or, for that matter, what does it say about the priorities of this nation?
In 2005, a group of Nobel Peace Laureates, including the Rev. Desmond Tutu, former Polish President and Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa, former President Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama, issued a joint statement calling every nation, including the United States, to “truly protect and defend workers’ rights, including the right to form unions and bargain collectively.” In their statement, the Nobel Laureates lambasted this nation’s refusal to ensure the basic Freedom of Assembly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, writing:
Even the wealthiest nation in the world—the United States of America—fails to adequately protect workers’ rights to form unions and bargain collectively. Millions of U.S. workers lack any legal protection to form unions and thousands are discriminated against every year for trying to exercise these rights.
A few years ago, some expressed doubt that our efforts to change the nation’s labor laws could ever happen. But Nov. 7 showed the need to combine a robust program to organize workers with equally strong political action. Just days after the Nov. 7 elections, newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised after the first 100 hours Congress would move to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Says Pelosi:
The right to form unions, the right to quality health care, the right to bargain collectively, and the right to safe workplaces are non-negotiable. Too often American workers face harassment, intimidation, and coercion when they try to exercise the right to join a union. The Employee Free Choice Act preserves this fundamental freedom, benefiting all American workers and their families.
On Feb. 6, when the bill is introduced, we’ll publish the full list of Employee Free Choice Act co-sponsors along with an e-mail campaign so everyone who supports workers’ freedom to make their own decisions can ask their members of Congress to be sure and vote for the bill. In the meantime, stop by here to sign a petition telling Congress it’s time to support the Employee Free Choice Act.
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11 Comments
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Out here in Montana, it’s doubtful that Rehberg will sign on to this, but I’ll be doing my part to make sure both my Senators are on board.
Good luck!
I have been looking forward to the passage of this bill for some time. With the present NLRB it is very hard to qualify employees for a certification count with so many now considered ineligible. This proposal would help simplify and take the fear out of organizing. Everyone, please support this as much as you possibly can.
There is no democracy in this country when we have laws like those forced on us by the NLRB. Employees forbidden to speak positively about the union while at work; employers slapped on the wrist for firing and imtimidating workers; no penalties for employers when they are caught firing workers —- the current system is corrupt and has to be replaced and the only way to do that is through the Employee Free Choice Act.
American labor laws regulating unions and collective bargaining are deeply in need of thoroughgoing reform, and a return to the first principles that guided the shaping of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, the Wagner Act. That act, written in the midst of a Great Depression which owed in part to long-term, chronic maldistribution of income gains and increasing inequality, was premised on two beliefs—beliefs which recent history has only confirmed. First, the framers of the Wagner act believed that it is in the national interest that wage earners be organized so that through their collective power they might maximize their ability to retain a fair share of the national income. When workers are unorganized, the NLRA’s framers believed, employers and stockholders tend to use their power to take an unfair share of income and productivity gains. Over the long term, they believed, low levels of worker organization would undermine income growth for workers and endanger the economic health of a nation whose growth was premised on workers’ ability to consume the products they made. History has borne out the truth of this principle. Second, the Wagner Act’s framers believed that employers should not be able to obstruct workers’ ability to organize, nor should control or influence the organizations that workers joined. If employers had the ability to obstruct workers’ organization or undermine the strength or independence of worker’s organizations, then in effect they had the ability to undermine the first principle, and the national interest would thus be compromised. Again, history has borne out the truth of that second principle.
What was true in 1935 remains true today. As employers thwart unionization efforts with impunity today, driving union density levels to historic lows in recent years, inequality is rising to levels not seen since the 1920s or the Gilded Age. Hopefully it will not take a social and economic calamity on the scale of the Great Depression to awaken us to our need to revamp our labor laws in ways that recover and restore the two essential principles the undergirded the Wagner Act. It is in the national interest that we do so, and do so now.
How did we get to this point? With the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, employers achieved ways and means of weakening the second of the two pillars upon which the NLRA stood. Over the half-century that followed, they found ways to utterly negate in practice the second principle of the original act, and by doing so have made the first principle moot. Because the Taft-Hartley Act allowed employers to campaign against union representation during organizing drives, while providing no penalties strong enough to serve as a significant disincentive for lawbreaking, employers increasingly preferred to break the law and commit unfair labor practices rather than see their workers choose union representation. Successful union resistance among some employers drove other employers to also resist unionization so that a trend toward disorganization of the workforce gathered increasing momentum over time. That trend has been exacerbated by globalization, the chronic shift of jobs out of the once heavily unionized manufacturing sector, the deregulation of the once even more heavily unionized transportation sector, and other factors.
The results are that today it has become all too easy for employers to block unionization. Indeed, because it now so possible to block union formation, it would seem to be in the interest of any employers who CAN block unionization of their workers to do so. If such an employer does not block the unionization of their workers, that employer must worry that they will soon find themselves at a disadvantage in competing with others who have no compunction about flouting the law’s weak penalties in order to block an organizing drive. In fact then, the present state of our labor law actually ENCOURAGES disorganization rather than organization by creating what amount to disincentives for employers who might otherwise follow the law and respect workers’ desires to organize. How far indeed we have come from 1935.
Given the fact that present day labor law actually encourages disorganization it should not surprise us that this is what we are seeing. The unionization rates in the private sector have hit a level not seen in a century. Nor should we be surprised that as unionization rates have fallen we are seeing a return of the very conditions that the framers of the Wagner Act sought to correct: inequality is increasing, incomes for the bulk of wage earners have been stagnating, and the larger shares of worker productivity gains have gone to investors rather than to the wage earners themselves. It should not take another Great Depression to get Americans to see how unsustainable this pattern will prove to be over the long run.
It is time to return to the basic principles that laid a foundation for nearly a half-century of broadly distributed, widely shared American prosperity. First, today, as in 1935, this country’s economy is healthier when private sector workers are better organized and therefore able to create a fairer distribution of wealth and income. Second, our laws should not give employers the power—and still less should they give employers the incentive—to block workers’ organization.
The Employee Free Choice Act offers the only serious proposals now on the table for restoring the Wagner Act’s second principle, and thereby reestablishing its crucial first principle, the rehabilitation of which is vital to this nation’s social, political, and economic health. Thus the introduction of the EFCA represents an historic step forward.
Joseph A. McCartin
Department of History
Georgetown University
Doen America protect the rights of workers?
Those who do not remember their history, are apt to repeat it.
The labor leaders of this generation should long remember the history of the labor movement, and how it was a struggle to form unions when it was illegal to do so. Our grandparents took on the compnay goons and the llikes of the Pinkertons to fight for the right to form uniions, and to make them strong. Every worker should belong to a union and the union should be active in recruiting workers into the unions. The fact that there are no laws on the books should not deter unions from getting all workers into one, history has shown that the laws will come after the fact and not before. I truelyl believe in that old unionizing spirit, but I, also, believe that if you are in a union, you filght like hell to make it strong.
Workers in this country have been taking cut backs for a long timem, to the point that a slight step forward seems like a leap. Wages in the US have been on the decline since the introduction of the “Two Ties Wage System” and the great cuts in what was called heavy industry in the Steel Belt, once known as the rust beltm now known as the no belt. In the begining of the Regan Era, they claimed that we neede to be competitive on the wold economy by racing to the bottom: who will work for less and less wages in order to be in par with workers in the Third World Free Enterprise zones. Now they say higher wages would raise our standard of living. Heny Ford said the same thing, to bad we are not living in those times. Labor needs a new strategy for a new era.
I want to thank Professor McCartin for providing some historical context. He is absolutely correct. This has been a long struggle. I would like to echo his sense of urgency. History also teaches that during times of national stress it is vitally important to defend civil rights and civil liberties. In fact, as the history of World War I and World War II show, now is the time to fight to expand rights. During these times of conflict, the passage of the EFCA is vitally important to the defense of working Americans.
This bill is a long time coming and necessary to balance the power for the sake of quality in the workplace. Decades of research show that unions are essential to a healthy democracy and productivity, yet the oppression in many workplaces continues unchecked. I and my fellow workers experienced textbook anti-union harassment when we formed our union and also during every contract negotiation period. Managers at the top of the organization were everything that business research revealed to be the least effective, yet the law effectively allowed them the right to harass, intimidate, threaten, and fabricate at every turn with numerous anti-union meetings, emails, and announcements. Many of the professionals who comprised much of the membership of the union finally left for higher-paying jobs, but the employee issues for in the workplace remain: dignity, respect, and the right to do the best work possible for the clients. It’s time to right the terrible wrongs done by managers who are willing to sacrifice the quality of work to clients in order to prevent employees from having a voice.
When American Workers do not have free choice to join a union, then I have a suggestion. Iraq needs a good constitution. America has one written by freedom loving people. Give ours to Iraq because we aren’t using it here in America anymore.
For far too long workers in the U.S. have not had the proper backing from the NLRB as they should. I believe that the Employee Free Choice bill is long overdue. In the past I have personally been fired, harrassed and discriminated against due to my labor activities both in the private and public sectors!
If the Democrats are as committed to working people as they claim this bill should pass! If not perhaps the U.S. labor movement should begin considering alternative choices in it’s political work/action!
Boy I sure hope this bill DOES NOT PASS.
I sure hope this bill DOES PASS!
I was fired by the company I worked for, because I tried to organize a union.
In July 2002 the major corporation, I worked for, sold part of their division to a small group of investors in our comminity (Endicott, NY).
Those investors, the NY State Governor, and a NY State Senator made speeches to 4000 workers and told them that their jobs were safe, after this sale was finalized.
Two weeks after they announced the finalization, (November 1st 2002) they layed off 200 people. They lied.
As an organizer, I spoke to the newspaper about those lies and about how much pain the workers had to suffer after being told their jobs were safe.
I was disciplined and told by the company president, not to talk to the Press. So I went to an Internet forum, and posted a message that encouraged the workers to unionize. I criticized the company.
Two weeks later, the company president called me to his office and
showed me a printed copy of the internet forum post. Then he fired me for what he termed as insubordination and misconduct.
Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701 filed a ULP (Unfair Labor Practice) with the NLRB.
The hearing took place in June 2003. In August 2003, the judge ruled that my “protected actvity” rights were violated. We won.
The company appealed the decision to the NLRB.
In September 2005, the NLRB affirmed the first judge’s decision: We won again. The company appealed to the US District Court of Appeals in Washington DC.
In July 2006, the DC Circuit Court overturned the two previous decisions: We lost. The future of this case in uncertain.
I never got my job back, nor was I reimbursed for the pay that I lost (4 years worth).
There are hundreds of other organizers and workers who have been through the same as me. They lost their jobs trying to organize a union.
We need the EFCA to help push back on the anti-union activities of corporations in the USA. We need the EFCA to help encourage and allow workers to form unions without fear of losing their jobs.
Congress needs to Pass the Employee Free Choice Act!
Rick White
Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701