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Corporate Anti-Worker Tactics on the Rise |
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A landmark study examining workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain shows that the problems the Employee Free Choice Act would address are getting worse.
“No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” authored by Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations, documents a disturbing increase in corporate tactics to interfere with, block and delay workers’ attempts to form unions. Workers who want to form a union all too frequently are subject to harassment, mandatory meetings, threats and even illegal firings.
The study, released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the American Rights at Work Education Fund, updates earlier studies by Bronfenbrenner. “No Holds Barred” examines more than 1,000 union representation campaigns over four years and finds that “intense and aggressive” tactics to block workers’ freedom to form unions are becoming more commonplace.
- Coercive tactics to defeat attempts to form a union are all too common, with bosses threatening to close plants during 57 percent of union campaigns and threatening to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent of cases.
- In more than 60 percent of union campaigns, workers are forced to attend mandatory one-on-one sessions with supervisors and given anti-union messages or interrogated about support for a union.
- The use of negative tactics by employers during union campaigns, like threats of layoffs, has increased, while the use of positive tactics, like promises of wage hikes, has decreased.
- The number of employers using 10 or more identified coercive tactics has doubled.
- Even for those who do win the election, 52 percent still have no contract a year later, and 37 percent are still without a contract two years after they vote to join a union.
Brofenbrenner writes that these coercive tactics have a chilling effect on workers, which means they’re not able to exercise their basic freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life:
Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime that neither protects their rights nor provides any disincentives for employers to continue disregarding the law. Moreover, many of the employer tactics that create a punitive and coercive atmosphere are, in fact, legal.
We’ll be covering the release of this report in greater detail later today, as Bronfenbrenner and other workplace experts discuss the findings today in a Capitol Hill briefing. It’s a critical study in why we so badly need reform that protects the freedom to form unions.
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If there was ever a time for the Employee Free Choice Act, that time is now. Not only is it nearly impossible to form a union without fear and intimidation by employers, but union-busting has grown into a $4 billion a year business in the U.S. alone. Companies that previously had good relationships with their union employees have been emboldened by weak labor laws. One of those is the McGraw-Hill Companies. Read more at:
http://nabetcwa54.org
Gosh, I hear it from both sides! That is, that both sides (unions & management) harass workers to get what they want. In fairness, I don’t think companies have exclusive dibbs on this!
I wish there was a more neutral voice in this, because from companies you hear one thing, and from unions we hear another. They both tend to push their own agenda (and don’t tell me unions are only looking out for worker interests, they have an empire to attend to as well).
American workers’ rights have been trampled for long enough. The Employee Free Choice Act restores the right of an employee to join or form a union, free from harassment or interference from the employer.
The act imposes more realistic punishments in the event that an employer fires a worker for union activity, refuses to recognize the validity of a simple majority, or delays a first contract. Under current labor law, employees are subject to the will of the employer—or should I say, the depth of has pocketbook—as some employers spend millions of dollars to hire special union avoidance firms to do their dirty work.
Jobs are scarce. Good jobs even more so. But if you could make a good job into a better job by negotiating better working conditions, or fair wages, why not? If you could get your bosses to put those conditions into writing, and insist that they be honored, why not? If you had the opportunity to get something better for every man and woman on the job, just by the act of signing a card, why not?
If both sides were to adhere to simple rules and work toward common goals, fairly, why not? This is the intent of the Employee Free Choice Act. Work union, live better—restore the American Dream.