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Human Rights Watch: Employee Free Choice Is a Human Right |
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Under current labor law, the United States is strikingly deficient in protecting freedom of association and the freedom to form unions, says a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an independent human-rights advocacy group. The solution? Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
In a new report, The Employee Free Choice Act: A Human Rights Imperative, HRW lays out the case for its quick passage to restore workers’ freedom to form unions without fear of harassment, coercion or termination. The report is part of HRW’s critical work as watchdogs for human rights, the freedom of association and the treatment of workers from Colombia to India and around the world.
The report analyzes international labor standards the United States has agreed to by treaty, points out where it’s deficient in meeting those standards and explains how the Employee Free Choice will remedy the situation and restore workers’ fundamental freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
Congress should pass the Employee Free Choice Act to help remedy glaring deficiencies in current U.S. labor law that significantly impair the right of workers to freely choose whether to form a union. Workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively is well established under international human rights law…the United States is legally bound to protect this fundamental right. In practice, it falls far short, and failure by U.S. employers to respect workers’ right to freedom of association is rampant.
In particular, HRW’s report points to three serious flaws in U.S. labor law that are addressed by the Employee Free Choice Act:
- Unfair election procedures that are badly slanted toward employers, giving the employer, in practice, the ultimate say over how workers form a union:
U.S. law also allows employers to refuse to recognize a union based on freely signed authorizations by a clear majority of workers explicitly indicating their desire to organize—a “card check”—and demand instead that a union demonstrate majority support through an NLRB election. The period leading up to that election, lasting at least several weeks but often longer, creates an opening for anti-union employers to make aggressive use of the tilted playing field.
- The lack of serious penalties for corporate misconduct, including intimidation and firing of workers, and the ability of companies to indefinitely delay and deter attempts to form a union:
Penalties for breaching U.S. labor law are so minor that employers often treat them as a cost of doing business—a small price to pay for defeating worker organizing efforts. Under U.S. labor law, an employer faces no punitive penalties and few, if any, economic consequences for violating workers’ right to freedom of association.
- The ability of companies to ignore workers’ choice to bargain collectively by refusing to reach a fair contract:
Even if U.S. workers successfully organize, however, their fundamental right to freedom of association is still not fully secure because of shortcomings in current legal provisions governing collective bargaining….Because there are no significant negative repercussions for illegal conduct…there is little incentive for intransigent employers to comply with the law.
The message of HRW’s report is clear: under existing U.S. law, the freedom to form unions and bargain is a hope, not a reality, for millions of workers. Passing the Employee Free Choice Act will go a long way toward making sure the United States lives up to its obligations to protect workers’ fundamental and internationally recognized right to form a union and bargain for a better life.
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Reid: Vote on Employee Free Choice Act card check bill, a labor priority, likely in summer
Washington — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate will likely turn its attention this summer to the Employee Free Choice Act — the union organizing bill being watched in Las Vegas and across the nation.
Standing beside fair-pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter late last week after the Senate passed landmark legislation named in her honor, Reid made clear that the wage discrimination bill was not the last on the labor agenda.
The union organizing bill, sometimes called card check, is an “important piece of legislation,” he said. “We’re going to get to that,” Reid said. “We’re hoping to get to it sometime this summer.”
The Senate will be where the action is on the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill passed the House in 2007, but died on a near-party line vote after only one Republican crossed over to support it in the Senate. With an expanded Democratic majority under Reid, it could be closer to passage.
The bill would make it easier for unions to organize and would likely bring union representation to workers at the remaining casinos on the Strip still without it.
The legislation would allow workers interested in forming a union to simply sign a card, returning to a system that had been in place for decades, until business persuaded Congress to require secret-ballot elections.
The secret ballots could still be used, but the new bill would provide the option of organizing with the sign-up cards. Unions say management often drags out the elections, using the time to pressure workers to vote no.
But business is mounting a fierce campaign to preserve the secret ballot.
The Employee Free Choice Act is the top issue for both the business and labor communities in Washington. Each side plans to spend $10 million on ads and other campaign efforts.
Reid’s announcement of a possible summer vote is timely.
Unions had initially pressed President Barack Obama to make the bill an early part of his 100-days agenda. Union organizing had been key to his reelection, and one branch of the labor community mounted a campaign for follow-through on campaign promises.
Yet corralling the votes necessary for passage in the Senate is also critical.
Even though Democrats have expanded their majority to just one or two votes shy of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster blocking the bill, support among senators is not a given. Some Democratic senators who initially voted in favor have since expressed reservations about the bill.
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://www.FreeChoiceActNow.Org
http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org
http://www.spfpa.org/UnionBusterPagemakerBrochure.pdf
While I agree fully with this article, I also submit that the all unions who represent workers in Washington Dc must unite because there is an all out war on the rights of workers in our nation’s capitol. The current sitting Mayorr does not feel he has to respect the rights of workers. Interview police officers, firefighters, principals, teachers, social workers and a host of other workers and ask them if they are being treated fairly. I am sure that most of them will tell you they lack the resources to adequately do their jobs but they are still being held to “high standards” regarding service delivery. Rather than to dwell on money issues ( which is futile in this economy), the unions should unify and demand that workers get the needed resources or that evaluations changed to reflect that workers have done their best given the circumstances with which they were faced. What good is the ability to organize if you can’t keep your job? Look at the numbers of members in the DC unions - they are dwindling quickly. It has been said by some that unions are obsolete. If that was true, I think even your detractors would now agree that DC management has given the unions new life. Please help us.