Frank on GritTV: Laws Tilted Against Forming a Union on the Job
In a recent edition of GRITtv, host Laura Flanders brings together three panelists for a talk about the economy, the labor movement and political organizing.
In one of the highlights of this episode, Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew, does a great job of explaining our broken labor laws and how they’re preventing millions of workers from exercising their basic freedom to form a union:
You’ve got to remember that one of the reasons it’s so hard to organize in the workplace is that there’s a whole industry out there that has developed to stop people from organizing. There are polls all the time asking, “Would you like to join a union,” “Would you be interested in bargaining with your boss,” that sort of thing, and mostly, people think that’s a good idea—but that doesn’t mean you get to have a union just because you want one. There’s a whole bunch of structural impediments in your way.
Stanford: Don’t Believe the Spin on Unions in Canada
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In a new column in the Globe and Mail, economist Jim Stanford looks at the way Big Business lobbyists use myths about Canada to block policy changes in the United States.
While much of this disinformation is aimed at health care reform, Stanford notes, corporate front groups and pundits also are using the same tactics to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.
Stanford notes that one method of attack is via hired-gun “studies” that misrepresent the facts. Speaking about one such “study” that uses Canadian data to try to argue that the Employee Free Choice Act would cost jobs, Stanford says:
This study’s methodology was bizarre and inconsistent; it wouldn’t pass muster in an elementary statistics course. But its findings are repeated ad nauseam by business lobbyists and anti-union editorialists, pulling out all the stops to keep American unions on the defensive.
Shuler to White House: Let’s Revive Manufacturing
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler joined Vice President Joe Biden and other leaders at yesterday’s meeting of the White House Middle Class Task Force. The topic: restoring our crippled manufacturing sector.
The White House Middle Class Task Force yesterday issued a framework detailing the challenges facing manufacturing, and Shuler delivered a message to the White House that fixing manufacturing must be a priority in building a stronger economy.
Speaking to administration officials as part of a panel with other business and labor leaders, Shuler emphasized the need for government to step up and create policies to encourage manufacturing. In short: We can’t sustain a strong economy based on debt, imports and financial maneuvering.
Trumka Answers Your Questions, Lays Out Economic Vision
In a great live Web discussion yesterday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka answered a wide range of questions on the nation’s economic crisis, setting out a vision for short-term job creation and long-term progress toward a fairer economy.
Trumka touched on trade, green jobs, the challenges facing young and older workers, unity in the labor movement and more in an hour-long conversation. More than 6,700 union members and activists took part by submitting and voting on more than 150 questions.
The AFL-CIO has offered a five-point plan to put people to work and turn around the economy. We can and must create jobs now and spur consumer demand, Trumka said in explaining the plan.
Our current economic crisis is just a symptom of larger long-term weakness and inequality in our economy, Trumka said, and good jobs are the solution:
Remember, wages have been stagnant for years, so people had to start borrowing…we got to the point where people just couldn’t borrow any more and the economy just sort of collapsed at that point…we reached the limit of that. Debt can’t continue to be the engine that fuels the economy.
Grad Students’ Struggle Shows Need for Employee Free Choice
In a big victory last week, more than 1,000 graduate students at the University of Illinois exercised their freedom to bargain and won a contract that includes what all workers deserve: fair wages and better working conditions.
Unfortunately, too many employees around the country are denied the freedom to bargain. Trying to come together with your co-workers, to form a union and fight for a better life, can get you threatened, harassed and even fired. In a new piece at the Huffington Post, Robert Naiman says the graduate students’ win shows that all workers need the Employee Free Choice Act, to make sure everyone has the chance at a voice on the job:
…there’s a political barrier that obstructs many private-sector workers in the United States from being able to taste the victory that GEO [Graduate Employees Organization] members tasted: the need for labor law reform. If the Employee Free Choice Act were law, currently unorganized private-sector workers from Miami to Fairbanks would have the same ability as GEO members to advocate collectively and effectively for their interests, largely free of the fear of retaliation.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case today.
American Rights at Work Honors Sweeney, Employee Free Choice Champions
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AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney received the top honor at last night’s 5th annual American Rights at Work Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for his long-term dedication on behalf of workers’ freedom to form unions.
Business Leaders for a Fair Economy and “West Wing” actor Richard Schiff also were recognized at last night’s event in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of labor activists and our allies gathered to celebrate their outstanding leadership.
Sweeney credited the union members, activists and advocacy groups who make up the coalition for making real progress on the Employee Free Choice Act:
You are the front-line fighters for social and economic justice, working towards a better future for America’s working families.
Speakers noted the tough fight ahead for passage of the bill but said we are closer than ever to passing the Employee Free Choice Act and making sure that the freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life is a reality.
Canada’s Experts Skewer Shoddy Study on Employee Free Choice
Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act often claim the legislation would hurt employment. They base that falsehood on a study paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its cronies, which purports to examine the effects of majority sign-up on the labor market in Canada.
Now, a devastating new critique shows the bought-and-paid-for “study,” by consultant Anne Layne-Farrar, is “misleading and poorly supported”—and that’s the nicest thing they could find to say. Just Labour, the Canadian labor-studies journal, features a series of articles on the Layne-Farrar piece by the experts who best know Canada’s labor market.
Among them, Noreen Pupo, director of the Center for Research on Work and Society at York University, says:
We refute efforts by business lobbyists opposing the [Employee Free Choice] Act to manipulate Canadian data and experience for purposes of defeating any strengthening of collective bargaining systems in the U.S. The vested interest of these business lobbyists in the continued erosion of collective bargaining in America has led them to misrepresent the Canadian experience.
Baseball Stars Knock It Out of the Park for Employee Free Choice
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Just in time for the World Series, 12 members of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) have added their names to the broad coalition in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The players have signed a statement and appeared in print ads in Washington, D.C., papers yesterday. World Series participants Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino and Mark Teixeira took part. They were joined by Heath Bell, Dave Bush, LaTroy Hawkins, Torii Hunter, John Lannan, Andrew Miller, J.J. Putz, Justin Verlander and Adam Wainwright.
In a joint statement, these players say:
All Americans should have the same opportunity we’ve had—to be able to join a union without being fired and to negotiate with their employers without being penalized. Today, our country is facing some tough times. Health care costs are skyrocketing. Families are losing homes. Savings and retirement income are disappearing overnight.
Shuler in Oregon: The Sharks We Defeated Are Still Circling
At the Oregon AFL-CIO convention, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who got her start organizing in Oregon, spoke yesterday to hundreds of delegates from across the state and encouraged them to start now on educating and mobilizing union members. Shuler told delegates:
Last year, you helped transform our country. And everything you did in 2008, we must do from now to 2010—and here’s why. The sharks you defeated last November are still circling out there. They’ve never given up. They’re just as vicious now, and they want to destroy everything you won. Don’t let them do it.
You have a big job next year: electing a governor who’s pro-working family, pro-union, pro-us; making sure we re-elect the representatives who stand up for what’s right; and beating back the two initiatives that our right-wing pals have dreamed up for 2010….So it’s not too early to get ready.
Traub: Workers Need Employee Free Choice Now More Than Ever
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Amy Traub, research director at the Drum Major Institute, has a great piece on the economic crisis and why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
Traub says the nation’s economic crisis is making workers feel powerless on the job—more willing to accept poor treatment, long hours and most crippling for the economy, cuts in wages and benefits.
What they need, she says, is the freedom to form a union and bargain so they no longer end up bearing all the pain from the economic crisis. Traub writes:
“Productivity is soaring as fewer workers get more work done. But working people are not seeing many of the benefits. And that’s bad news for the economy as a whole. Consumers aren’t likely to resume spending when wages are down, especially without the ability they once had to borrow against high home values. It’s a recipe for a vicious economic cycle.
“The way out should include additional public stimulus, but it must also involve shifting more power to employees—enough to push back and stop making America’s working families the single easiest target for every negative economic development.”
