Looking Out for the Rich, Not Workers

Lucye Millerand, president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-AFT, responds to a recent opinion piece in The Washington Post by former Bush adviser Lawrence Lindsey, in which he opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. In the column, Lindsey claims workers will be open to intimidation if they are allowed to freely choose how they want to form a union.  

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so when I saw the editorial by Lawrence Lindsey on the Employee Free Choice Act, I started to wonder. Who is this crusader for justice, so concerned about my rights as a worker?  

Is this the same Mr. Lindsey who, as an economic adviser to President Bush in 2001, was one of the architects of the giant tax cut for the top 1 percent of taxpayers, robbing funds from programs like health care and college assistance that support the middle class? 

Is this the same Mr. Lindsey who is president of the First Jobs Institute—a front group for Richard Berman, a beltway for-hire hack who takes liquor and fast-food industry money to attack Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and defend trans fats in foods? 

Forgive me for doubting that Lindsey is looking out for me or my family when he rails against the Employee Free Choice Act—legislation that would make it harder for employers to violate workers’ rights. 

When employees want to form a union, they have to go through a process that looks more like the discredited practices of rogue regimes abroad than like anything we would call American. That’s why we need to change the law—unless we believe our country will be better off if working people continue to lose earning and political power.    

Union “elections” are in fact unlike any other elections because management holds a unique kind of power over employees—the power to deprive employees of their livelihood and control their pay, hours and working conditions. That’s why we must change the law. 

For an election to be “free and fair,” both sides must have equal access to media and the voters. But not under labor law. Managers can campaign to every employee, every day, throughout the day; but pro-union employees can campaign only on break time.   

Management can post anti-union propaganda on bulletin boards and walls—while prohibiting pro-union employees from doing the same. By law, employers can force workers to attend mass, anti-union propaganda events. Not only are pro-union employees not given equal time, but they can be forced to attend on condition that they not ask any questions. Recent data show that workers who try to organize a union are forced to attend between five and 10 such one-sided meetings. 

Last year, I formed a union with my co-workers at Rutgers University. Under New Jersey’s pioneering card-check legislation, the university didn’t have the power to make us go through an election. We signed cards showing that we wanted a union and our majority was certified. It was a fair process and it was more democratic than the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections most workers go through. In fact, card-check has a higher democratic standard than an NLRB election—in card-check, a majority of the workers must sign up for the union, not just the majority who vote. 

Union representation is going to make it easier for me to build a good life for myself and my family. During uncertain economic times like these, a union card is the single best ticket into the middle class for America’s working people. In fact, union workers earn 30 percent more than nonunion workers and are also much more likely to have employer-provided health care and pensions. 

Those incumbents and candidates for public office who support the Employee Free Choice Act do so because unions are one of the key factors in a strong, secure economy. And Mr. Lindsey opposes it, not because he cares about my rights, but because he’s made it his life’s work to look out for the interests of the very rich, not regular working people like me. 

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