by James Parks, Mar 23, 2007

One of the major contributors to the middle-class squeeze is the difficulty workers face when trying to join together and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. That freedom has been further reduced by several misguided decisions by the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which eroded the ability of millions of workers to exercise their freedom to join unions.

Late yesterday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the House and Senate that would begin to reverse some of the most egregious of those NLRB decisions. The Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers (RESPECT) Act would reverse a Republican party-line NLRB vote in September 2006 to slash long-time federal labor law protections of workers’ freedom to form unions.

The RESPECT Act would clarify the National Labor Relations Act to ensure it is not misinterpreted or undermined on a fundamental question of coverage.

Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.), chairman of the House Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee (HELP), and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) introduced the bill, along with Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Don Young (R-Alaska).

Jay Witter of the United American Nurses (UAN) says Young agreed to co-sponsor the bill after meeting with two UAN members from his home state. The nurses explained the detrimental impact of the NLRB decision on the 6,000 nurses in Alaska and their patients. During the meeting, Young agreed that the NLRB decision undermined workers’ ability to form unions and agreed to be an original co-sponsor.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:

The RESPECT Act will right a wrong done to millions of Americans when the Bush-dominated labor board stripped away their right to bargain for better wages and benefits.

The NLRB rulings came in three cases, collectively known as the Oakwood decisions after the lead case, Oakwood Healthcare Inc., which reinterpreted the definition of “supervisor” in a way that greatly expanded the number and types of workers that may be classified as supervisors.

Although two of the three cases involved only nurses, the expanded definition applies to workers in every industry and means up to 8 million workers, including nurses, building trades workers, newspaper and television employees and others, may be classified as supervisors and barred from joining unions. Under federal labor law, supervisors are not protected against retaliation for forming unions.

The NLRB’s new definition of supervisor—which the bill would reverse—essentially enables employers to make a supervisor out of any worker who has the authority to assign or direct another and uses independent judgment.

Amazingly, the board also ruled a worker can be classified as a supervisor if he or she spends as little as 10 percent to 15 percent of his or her time overseeing the work of others. That breaks down to less than an hour a day or one full shift every two weeks.

Andrews says that, unfortunately, the Oakwood decisions are not an anomaly for the current NLRB:

In the last five years, the Board has repeatedly ruled to deny or restrict the fundamental rights of entire categories of workers. These include 45,000 disabled workers who lost their right to organize, 51,000 teaching and research assistants who lost their right to organize, and 2 million temporary workers who have had their right to organize severely curtailed. This hurts workers’ ability to earn decent wages and receive decent benefits. With the introduction of the RESPECT Act, we intend to restore those important rights.

Dodd says the RESPECT Act is a “critical and common-sense step to help protect workers’ rights.”

Allowing employers to deny workers the right to unionize because their tasks require occasional and minor supervisory duties is unjust and frankly un-American.  It is our responsibility to ensure that these hard-working individuals are treated fairly by their employers.

And although the legislation may appear to be a technical dispute, “it is nothing of the sort,” says DeLauro.

Says Sweeney: