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Spokane Leader: Don’t Believe Anti-Union Smear Campaign
As the grassroots effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act unfolds across the country, the corporate campaign of disinformation and distraction against workers also is under way. Advocates for the freedom to form unions and bargain need to work hard to fight the smears and promote the truth about employee free choice.
In an op-ed this week, Beth Thew, secretary-treasurer of the Spokane Regional Labor Council, cuts through the spin and notes who’s behind the big-dollar corporate campaign against the freedom to form unions and bargain—and what they’re really fighting for.
In the article published in the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Thew writes:
The provision that strikes fear in the heart of Corporate America is allowing the workers to decide for themselves whether they want to form a union through the traditional government-supervised ballot election or by signing authorization cards.
It doesn’t eliminate “secret ballot elections,” as you’ve been told. It lets the workers decide if they want one, instead of letting the boss decide, as he now does.
Here is the sad truth. If you support forming a union in America, your employer can—and often will—harass, demote or fire you. It doesn’t matter that it’s illegal. Federal labor laws are so weak, and so weakly enforced, that it could take years of litigation just to prove you were unlawfully fired. Even then, the fines are minuscule.
Thew notes that while majority sign-up has been a legal method to form unions for decades, companies usually are quick to thwart the will of a majority of workers by forcing them into the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) process, which gives them a chance to delay, harass, coerce and even fire employees who are trying to form a union.
We have example after example of companies right here in Eastern Washington where workers have reached out to union organizations asking for representation. The results have been intimidation and threats by the employers, fear mongering from the employers to the point of retreat from employees. This doesn’t sound like the America or the community that I know and love.
Be sure to read Thew’s entire op-ed, “Propagandists Mask Free Choice Act Facts.” It’s a great corrective to the misinformation that’s being spread by corporate shills and shady front groups.
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Employee Free Choice Now . Org
Educating The World on The EFCA.
Myth vs. Reality: The REALITY is the Employee Free Choice Act Helps American Workers and their Families.
Despite the need for reform, critics of EFCA continue to misinform the public about the bill and hide the serious shortcomings of current labor law. Democrats are committed to setting the record straight and passing this important legislation on behalf of American workers and their families.
MYTH: EFCA will prevent the use of secret-ballot elections.
REALITY: EFCA does not strip workers of their right to choose a secret-ballot election to decide whether to select — or not to select — a union representative. EFCA simply gives workers the additional option of selecting a union representative by majority sign-up.
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org
http://www.spfpa.org/UnionBusterPagemakerBrochure.pdf
http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/dmdocuments/ARAWReports/UROCUEDcompressedfullreport.pdf
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n2_v46/ai_15515998/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1
A little “tune-up” would be good if laws are going to be changed. The Americans With Disabilities Act is also a good law, but it intruded on my happiness more than once. Contract negotiations could not alleviate my pain concerning 1) start times, because I worked for a contractor to a sizeable Transit authority on the west coast, our start times could be adjusted either way up to four hours with notification (supposedly) the night before. The reason I was fired, however, had more to do with my refusal of “mandatory” sixth days. Once these start, usually during holiday seasons or some other such excuse–there was no end in sight. My application for unemployment was appealed by my former employer. No way to get there on time by public transit (or get home, take your pick) an irony not lost on me. Wear and tear on my personal vehicle (1990) was getting expensive. Whatever else happens, working people need inexpensive transportation too!