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Proposal to Gut Employee Free Choice Act: Written by CEOs, for CEOs
A group of three big corporations—Starbucks, Whole Foods and Costco—have floated a proposal for labor law reform that just won’t cut it. These big corporations are casting this proposal as a “compromise,” but it’s not. It’s not good for workers, it’s good for CEOs, and it fails to address the problems that are keeping workers from being able to form unions.
The new proposal would enable corporations to unilaterally reject the will of a majority of employees who are seeking to form a union—as they do now. Unlike the Employee Free Choice Act, this proposal wouldn’t put the choice about how to form a union in the hands of workers, and it wouldn’t guarantee that workers who form a union can get a fair first contract. It would also make it easier for corporations to initiate drives to get rid of a union, which should be up to workers, not management.
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), two sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act, say that the new corporate proposal would ultimately keep the broken, management-dominated status quo in place. It isn’t the change America’s workers and our economy need, say Miller and Harkin:
This proposal is unacceptable. It was written by CEOs for CEOs. It is not a serious attempt at labor law reform because it fails to fundamentally address key problems that currently prevent workers from being able to join together and bargain for a better life.
AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel says the new proposal misses the point because it fails to include provisions to recognize a union if the majority of workers sign cards indicating their support for one.
The Employee Free Choice Act is about protecting the fundamental freedom of workers to bargain with their employers for a better life and to join a union without corporate interference and harassment.
The proposal being circulated by these companies falls short of meeting these standards.
We are open to discussing the legislation with parties who are legitimately concerned with protecting workers. However, a proposal coming from corporations, some of whom have their own history of violating workers’ rights, is simply not an alternative that lives up to giving workers back the freedom to form unions.
(As David Groves of the Washington State Labor Council reports, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is no model employer—he’s a “poster boy” for why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.)
Miller and Harkin say that the proposal suggested by Starbucks, Whole Foods and Costco is a distraction—a way to deter real change, rather than an honest effort at fixing the system for forming unions.
It is nothing more than a classic Washington lobbying campaign intended to confuse the issues and disguise the real agenda of maintaining the status quo.
Despite largely leaving corporate power intact, this proposal is likely to be a non-starter among the Big Business lobbies who are carrying out the anti-Employee Free Choice disinformation campaign. Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called it a “no-compromise” bill in an address to business leaders in Denver last week—signaling division among corporate honchos about how to respond to the Employee Free Choice Act.
Religious denominations, civil rights groups, community organizations, hundreds of members of Congress and allies of workers around the country understand addressing the challenges facing our economy means ensuring workers have a voice on the job. And that means passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
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Employee Free Choice Act Compromise No Compromise at All
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
Yesterday Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Whole Foods Market Inc. offered an alternative to the union-backed “card-check” legislation that U.S. business groups are spending millions of dollars to defeat. The proposal is being presented through Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton.
Beware of Employers Trying to Make Compromises on The Employee Free Choice Act!
Employers Just Want To STEP on Workers RIGHTS – NO Compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act!
Inside sources have revealed to us some key problems with the proposal include:
The proposal eliminates workers’ ability to choose majority sign-up, the one method for organizing proven to reduce coercion and pressure from all sides on workers. Instead, the proposal would force all workers through the broken, corporate-dominated NLRB system.
The proposal rejects first contract arbitration — a tried and proven method for ensuring good faith bargaining and one of the core elements of the Employee Free Choice Act. Under this proposal, employers would continue to have the union-busting power to drag out bargaining indefinitely and keep employees from gaining the kind of enforceable contracts that CEOs always give themselves. First contract arbitration provides the necessary incentive for the parties to reach agreement on their own terms.
Rather than respecting employees’ choice, the proposal gives CEOs the power to initiate drives to eliminate unions. Current law forbids corporate-initiated decertification campaigns, for good reason. Instead of bargaining a contract in good faith, employers would be initiating drives to get rid of the workers’ chosen representative. Organizing a union or getting rid of a union should be the workers’ choice, not the CEO’s.
Rather than offering a level playing field, the proposal preserves CEOs’ ability to force employees to attend one-on-one meetings with supervisors or mandatory mass anti-union meetings at work. We do not tolerate such undemocratic, coercive behavior in federal elections. Yet, while forcing employees to go through the NLRB election process, the proposal would preserve this coercive aspect of corporate-dominated NLRB elections.
The proposal does not offer pro-union workers or union organizers the same access that employers have to workers. In fact, the proposal does not improve access to workers one iota. According to the proposal, unions and management would be “permitt[ed] each to make presentations to employees at a neutral location concerning the issue of whether to form a union.” Nothing in current law forbids such presentations at a neutral location. The problem is that the one place workers convene everyday, the workplace, is off-limits to union organizers and completely controlled and monopolized by management. While management has no restrictions on campaigning at work, both the union and workers are severely restricted.
The AP reports that another compromise fashioned by an attorney for certain unnamed companies in the service industry would also give unions equal access to employees if 30% of employees sign cards. If a union succeeds in getting 50% of employees to sign cards, then it may petition the NLRB for a “quickie” election to be conducted in 15 days. If a union succeeds in getting 70% of the employees to sign cards, then the union would be certified without a secret-ballot election (EFCA as currently drafted permits certification once 50%+1 of employees sign cards). This compromise is arguably worse than EFCA – retaining the essential features of EFCA while providing the fig leaf of maintaining the secret ballot according to CEO Executives.
Strengthening and growing America’s middle class depends on the ability of employees to exercise their democratic rights at work. The Employee Free Choice Act is simple: it will help our economy work for everyone again by giving workers, not CEOs, a say about their job security, their wages, their retirement savings and their health care. Workers will not benefit if CEOs continue to have a veto over their rights at work.
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://www.TheTruthAboutEFCA.Org
For more information on Employer Intimidation and Union-Busting FEAR Tactics Press Below
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/2009/02/just-say-no-to-employee-free-choice-act.html
Tags: Employee Free Choice Act, EFCA, Free Choice Act, Employee Free Choice,Costco, Starbucks, Whole Foods Market, EFCA Compromise, Free Choice, The Truth about EFCA, Employee Free Choice Bill, EFCA Information, Compromise Employee Free Choice Act, The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, Sphere: Related Content
Labels: Compromise Employee Free Choice Act, EFCA, EFCA Compromise, EFCA Information, Employee Free Choice, Employee Free Choice Act, Free Choice, Free Choice Act, The Truth About EFCA
Excellent article. We can expect Management to pull out all stops to keep Congress from passing the Employee Free Choice Act and we have to ready at every turn to fight back. We can waste to opportunity to let our elected representitives, friends, neighbors, and co-workers know how important this issue is.
Finally we agree on something: This compromise is unacceptable. It removes the right of private ballot!
From the Washington Post today:
California’s Rep. George Miller who, with 15 other Democrats, in 2001 admonished Mexico: “The secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.” Last year, Mexico’s highest court unanimously affirmed for Mexicans the right that Democrats want to strip from Americans.
The Employee Free Choice does not take away the secret ballot.
Rinse. Repeat.
Tula
Tula,
You can say that it does not – but we both know that so called “EFCA” effectively removes a private ballot as an option. Or do you think that after 50% of workers sign a petition (through desire or intimidation) that then a whole bunch are then going to risk incurring pro-union organizer wrath and sign a petition demanding a secret ballot? In your heart of hearts how does a right exist if to exercise it you can be subject to intimidation? Freedom of religion is fine – as long as it is exercised in a manner of the other religion’s choosing.
The intimidation card is a red-herring.
“A study by the HR Policy Association, a pro-business organization, identified just 113 cases since the inception of the National Labor Relations Act as involving fraud and coercion in connection with card collection. Upon review, however, only 42 of those cases actually found misconduct in the signing of union authorization cards—since 1935. That’s about one case every two years.”
Now, if you want to talk about employer intimidation against workers trying to form unions, there’s lots and lots of fodder there.
so all those people who contact us and tell us about union intimidation are lying? all those workers who don’t want a union and are concerned about union opressure?
The Supreme Court disagreed with you.
George McGovern disagrees with you.
Al Sharpton disagrees with you.
When it comes to Mexico and other countries, even Democrats disagree with you.
I have worked in factories and on assembly lines and I disagree with you.
Management intimidates and so do unions. That’s why we need the NLRB. That’s why we need a guarantee of a private ballot. That’s what we insist on in other countries. That’s what we will insist on here.
This is a sure loser issue for unions and all the political contributions and union endorsements in the world will not change that.
Who are these people that you are talking about, Mr. Shapiro? Unions do not have an even hand right now in having an election anywhere in the corporate-dominated system in America. They couldn’t intimidate even if they wanted to (not that they need or want to). With the EFCA, if they don’t want one, they just vote “no”. Simple as that.
Yeah, we need the NLRB alright…a board cleansed of the current watered-down version stacked with Bush Jr. appointees that made a mockery of existing labor laws via lame enforcement of them.
Libs, EFCA is dead. Move on to another lost cause issue.
It’s not over yet.
Quote from a book called “Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government – And How we Take it Back” by David Sirota.
“In 2003, lawmakers from both parties Introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have cracked down on companies that deliberately intimidate workers when they tried to form a union. Despite almost half of all House members cosponsoring the bill, corporate lobbyists made sure that it was never even permitted to be brought up for a vote.”
EFCA (HR1696) was introduced on 4/19/05 and gained 210 cosponsors in the House and more than 30 in the Senate, but the Republican leadership refused to let it go to the floor for a vote.
I agree with W3 – it’s not over yet. Americans are angry as Hell, banding together and ready to fight for what is rightfully theirs.
David Sirota’s book is a real eye-opener on how low and dirty our elected and appointed officials have become. Disgusting, but we keep re-electing them so the blame comes back to us, too.
I agree, no compromise on Employee Free Trade Act. This is long overdue and is a right of the workers being ignored.