Union-Busting Hotel Ordered to Rehire Fired Workers, Return to Bargaining
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Last week in Hawaii, a federal judge ordered the Pacific Beach Hotel to rehire at least seven workers fired during contract negotiations. The illegal firings were part of 15 findings of unfair labor practices by the hotel. Hotel management’s behavior here is another sign that we need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, to restore the freedom to bargain to all workers.
Pacific Beach workers voted more than four years ago to form a union with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 142, but hotel management used the all-too-common tactics of delay and worker intimidation, in the process denying employees the freedom to bargain for a contract. The findings of abuses by hotel management by the federal court include interrogation of employees about union support, threats of job loss or punishments for union support and targeting of contract negotiators for firing.
After 3 Years, Illinois Mental Health Workers Get a Contract
They fought for more than three years through a strike, a lockout and unfair treatment by management, and now mental health care workers at Heartland Human Services finally have a union contract.
The ordeal these workers went through to get their union contract is another example of why workers need the Employee Free Choice Act. If workers choose a union, they should get a fair first contract.
AFSCME reports that workers at Heartland, based in Effingham, Ill., formed a union with AFSCME Council 31 in February 2006. More than a year passed as workers tried to bargain for a fair first contract, and they finally decided to go on strike in July 2007. After a year on strike, workers tried to return to the bargaining table, but they were locked out by management, who refused to let them return to work. Finally, thanks to the hard work by Council 31 and action from the state of Illinois, which contracts with Heartland, Heartland and its workers have reached agreement on a contract that will let these hardworking mental health care workers get back to serving those in need.
Ask Johanna Moon and Dianne Heeley Why Workers Need Arbitration
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The freedom to form a union and bargain depends on the ability of workers to get a fair first contract. Unfortunately, the nation’s broken labor law gives companies the ability to deny workers a contract with impunity. The Employee Free Choice Act would change that.
The legislation would provide a process to help negotiators reach an agreement through mediation and, for issues the parties are unable to resolve on their own, arbitration. However, arbitration would occur under the Employee Free Choice Act only if either side requests it, after months of negotiations.
An article published yesterday by the Associated Press examines the growing corporate attacks on this critical provision, quoting a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official calling arbitration “poison.”
The AP article focuses on workers at Central Maine Power Co., who voted for a union and saw no contract for 18 months. But these workers aren’t alone—52 percent of workers have no contract a year after forming a union and 44 percent have no contract after two years. That means thousands of workers are deprived of their basic freedom to bargain for a better life.
Contract Arbitration: Critical to Workers’ Freedom to Bargain
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One of the critical provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act would guarantee that workers who form a union get a fair first contract. Because right now, writes Catherine Fisk of the University of California-Irvine:
“During the past decade, nearly half of all newly certified unions failed to reach a first contract within a year, and one-quarter of new unions did not have a contract after three years of bargaining.”
Writing in the National Law Journal, Fisk says that by not getting a fair first contract, workers who exercised their right to select union representation
never got what the law guarantees them: collective representation in establishing wages and working conditions.
Big Business: Two-Faced Talk on Arbitration
The big-money corporate interests against the Employee Free Choice Act are continuing their disinformation campaign, throwing around misleading rhetoric and bad-faith arguments, seeking to confuse policymakers, the press and the public.
The latest Big Business tactic is to attack the provision of the Employee Free Choice Act that guarantees workers who form a union a fair first contract—a vital provision, because more than 50 percent of workers who form a union don’t have a contract after one year and more than a third still don’t have a contract after two years.
Corporations are crying about the possibility they might have to take part in arbitration with employees if they don’t reach a first contract after three months of talks—even though they’re enthusiastic about arbitration in a wide variety of circumstances where they have the advantage.
Corporate Hypocrisy on Bargaining Highlights Need for Employee Free Choice
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The misleading attacks by Big Business on the Employee Free Choice Act now are aimed at the provision that would guarantee that workers can get a fair first contract. Their scare tactics are not only misleading, they’re hypocritical.
Right now, workers lack a legal means to ensure they get a fair first contract. Recent research shows that even after workers successfully win a union and the ability to bargain, they’re too often blocked from getting a fair first contract. Fifty-two percent of workers don’t have a contract a full year after the election, and 37 percent don’t have a first contract two years after the election. For too many workers, the promise of the freedom to bargain is out of reach because the law doesn’t offer them any help.
The Employee Free Choice Act provides a process to help first-time bargainers to reach an agreement, through mediation and, for issues the parties are unable to resolve on their own, arbitration. The reason we need first-contract arbitration is to create an incentive for companies to bargain voluntarily with their workers.
