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Leading Economists: Employee Free Choice Key to Rebuilding Economy |
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In a statement delivered today to Capitol Hill and published as a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post, more than three dozen of the nation’s top economists call on Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to help restore an economy that works for everyone, built on a sustainable, wage-based growth.
The statement, signed by 39 of America’s top economists, including two Nobel Prize winners, points to the failure of U.S. labor laws to protect employees’ freedom to form a union and bargain as a major factor in our economic crisis. The statement says in part:
Indeed, from 2000 to 2007, the income of the median working-age household fell by $2,000—an unprecedented decline. In that time, virtually all of the nation’s economic growth went to a small number of wealthy Americans. An important reason for the shift from broadly shared prosperity to growing inequality is the erosion of workers’ ability to form unions and bargain collectively.
These economists, representing respected universities and policy institutions from across the nation, point to the corporate-dominated system for forming unions—and the coercion and anti-union campaigning by management—as the causes for declining wages and a gravely weakened economy.
A rising tide lifts all boats only when labor and management bargain on relatively equal terms. In recent decades, most bargaining power has resided with management. The current recession will further weaken the ability of workers to bargain individually. More than ever, workers will need to act together.
Although current headlines are dominated by the crises in the stock market and the financial sector, working families have been struggling for years under the weight of an unbalanced economy. These economists say that restoring bargaining power and ensuring working people have a voice in their workplace, and in their health care, pensions and wages, is critical to rebuilding our economy.
James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas, one of the economists who has signed on, says the freedom to form unions and bargain has many benefits for the economy and the country.
I support the Employee Free Choice Act for two reasons. First, it levels the playing field after a generation of anti-union policies, and in a world where far more workers are in decentralized, hard-to-organize workplaces than was true a generation back. Second, unions are a proven ally of progress, not only in politics but also in economics: unionized workforces promote technical change and productivity growth, because they make it possible to distribute more fairly and less brutally the costs of change.
Eileen Appelbaum, of Rutgers University, says:
To get our economy back on track and growing again we need to strengthen wages, make sure that workers have health and retirement benefits, and reduce inequality. Unions play a unique and significant role in achieving equity and efficiency in the workplace and, more broadly, in society.
You can view the ad as it ran in today’s Washington Post here. It includes a full list of the prominent economists who have signed on.
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I am in complete agreement. For years, I have been talking about this on my Democratic Talk Radio program and writing about it in my opinion columns.
For the vast majority of Americans, we have an income crisis. The weakening of unions is a major part of this income crisis.
Last night, I listed in a column the dire situation of labor law in America along with several other policy problems arising from the Republican Right since Reagan as creating the current economic crisis. The column is titled, “The Jindal Lesson: Keeping Those Republicans Out of Power.” It can be read at Mid-Atlantic Labor.com.
If the vast majority do not have high enough wages to buy goods and services then the economic system breaks down. Credit both delays and deepens the eventual breakdown.
Strengthening unions helps increase wages. As a result, consumers (who almost all are workers) can start buying goods and services they previously could not afford. Everyone gains from unionization in the long-run.
Very good. But where is Paul Krugman’s name? That would add to the weight–he’s a Nobel prize winner!
American corporations have removed any expectations American workers might once have had in the unorganized private sector. They have no hope for real full time employment, with benefits or retirement. Ask anyone displaced from Mervyns or Circuit City what happens when you give a company years of loyal service! Without a contract, without collective bargaining agreements,those workers got no return for the time they invested in those companies. They were lucky to have even had a job.
Most recent college grads will tell you that there is no more employer cradle-to-grave promise. Most companies don’t want you to stay longer than five years, let alone ask you to make a career with them. They short-term talented folks to use them up and spit them out; no promises no incentives—it’s an employer’s market, and the future is what it is.(By the way, don’t make any plans in the mean time, and don’t try to organize a union while you’re here.) The laws are not on the side of the workers, and the corporations would rather spend millions on an anti-union campaign than give a nickel to benefit them.
American workers know that they have worth. They need the freedom to ask for a living wage and benefits, to have security and stability at the end of their working lives— without worrying that they will be fired for aspiring to the middle class. That’s why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
Even with such convincing arguments from such learned individuals there is still going to be a lot people in management and sadly to say to many in the workforce that will use nothing more that their opinions to rationalize away why forming or belonging to a union is not the thing to do. The problem I find more troubling is Right to Work Laws! I am represented by a union at the company where I work. But because the company is in a right to work state, employees who don’t want to join the union don’t have to. These people don’t pay dues but still reap the benefits that the union has negotiated. And these people are usually the most vocal in their distain for the union but the union is the one that they want to hide behind when they end up getting in trouble.
Secret Ballot Protection Act The Republicans NO Employee Free Choice Act Bill
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/02/25/18573203.php
Republicans Unveil Bill to Guarantee EMPLOYERS
Right to a Secret Ballot Election
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 25, 2009
CONTACT: Alexa Marrero
(202) 225-4527
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. House of Representatives’ leading Republican voices on issues impacting American workers joined a key member of the U.S. Senate today to introduce legislation that will guarantee workers’ right to a secret ballot in union organizing elections. Their legislation, the Secret Ballot Protection Act, is a preemptive strike against legislation soon to be introduced by congressional Democrats to do away with secret ballot elections; instead, the Democrats’ legislation would force workers to make their vote public for all to see through a “card check” public sign-up process.
The Secret Ballot Protection Act was introduced by Reps. John Kline (R-MN)and Tom Price (R-GA), the top Republicans on the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee and the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, respectively.
They were joined in introducing the legislation by Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), the Labor Committee’s Senior Republican Member.
Companion legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).
“Secret ballots are a hallmark of American Democracy. They protect individuals - whether they are voters on election day or workers deciding whether to organize - from public pressure, intimidation, or post-vote retribution,” said McKeon. “The Secret Ballot Protection Act makes clear once and for all that no one should be able to deny workers the right to a secret ballot.”
The Secret Ballot Protection Act was introduced with 101 original cosponsors in the House.
For more information on Employer Intimidation and Union-Busting Tactics press Below
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/2009/02/just-say-no-to-employee-free-choice-act.html
For More Information on EFCA please visit our websites and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://efcaunionbustingclub.blogspot.com/
http://www.FreeChoiceActNow.Org
http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org
The Repubs like to claim the card check intends to make an end run around free elections (even though free elections will still be able to decertify a union). Labor says the present unionizing set up empowers ownership to end run free elections (except elections to decertify of course).
My answer (naturally) is to have mandatory free elections on a regular basis at every workplace (to certify or decertify!). The latter would clean up the biggest objection people make to unionization: that leadership gets complacent and ossified because it has no real electoral opposition (unless there is some terrible abuse going on). Nonunionized (decertified?) employers could still be forced to work under contract conditions negotiated with unionized firms if we also adopt the Canadian (”lite”) version of sector-wide labor agreements here.
Airline and supermarket workers would kill for sector-wide — the only real answer to the race to the bottom anywhere (used almost everywhere in the better paid world).
Airline captain Capt. Chesley Sullenberger says that his pay has been cut 40% lately and his pension reduced to pennies on the dollar. He says that pay cuts are forcing experience pilots to leave in droves. (Reminds me of my taxi cab decades — can’t find a driver who knows where he is going in NYC or Chicago?: pay them to stay on the job long enough!)
Sounds like Capt. “Sully” is ready for sector-wide.
It is well past the time for stockholders to get a grip on runaway Executive pay and get the working mans earnings back in line.
The days of placing the blame for losses on the backs of the working man are long over. but the right wingers will never stop beating a dead horse.
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