Big Corporate Dollars Fund Shoddy Studies
With the insurance industry releasing a “study” today that uses dubious numbers to fight health care reform, it’s useful to remember that the tactic of relying on fake numbers is nothing new to corporate lobbies.
Case in point: a study by Anne Layne-Farrar, paid for by business interests that use it as a cudgel against the Employee Free Choice Act. Layne-Farrar’s study contended that passing the Employee Free Choice Act would cost the U.S. economy hundreds of thousands of jobs—a figure without factual grounding but useful to those interested in preventing workers from forming a union and bargaining for a better life.
At In These Times, Art Levine takes a close look at Layne-Farrar and other scholars whose work do not reflect reality, but instead pushes the anti-worker agenda of groups—like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—who paid for the study. These groups are fighting to protect the status quo for CEOs, not jobs for workers.
EPI: Majority Sign-Up Doesn’t Result in Coercion
A new study shows that the majority sign-up process is not susceptible to intimidation and that such claims just don’t hold water. Like so many corporate attacks against the Employee Free Choice Act, this myth doesn’t stand up to reality.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report is based on a study of four states by Robert Bruno of the University of Illinois, who noted that across more than 1,000 campaigns that involved some 34,000 workers, there was not one finding of union intimidation or coercion. A total of five complaints were filed, of which zero were found to have merit.
Hawaii Workers Win Majority Sign-Up
Yesterday, the Hawaii State Legislature overrode the governor’s veto of a bill that gives thousands of workers the freedom to form unions without interference from their bosses.
In a special session, the Hawaii House of Representatives and Senate overrode Gov. Linda Lingle’s veto of House Bill 952, which gives workers the freedom to choose unions through majority sign-up. The bill had passed the House by a 38-10 margin and the Senate on a 20-5 vote, both on May 5.
In addition to the majority sign-up provision, the bill allows for first-contract arbitration if a company and its workers cannot reach agreement after 110 days.
New Study: You Won’t Face Coercion if You Sign up for a Union
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If you sign up to join a union, you won’t face coercion or intimidation from your co-workers—or employers. Despite dire warnings by corporations against the majority sign-up process, a new study shows majority sign-up (card-check) protects workers and gives them the chance they need to form a union. It’s another critical point in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers across the country the choice about how to form a union and bargain for a better life.
The study, “Majority Authorizations and Union Organizing in the Public Sector: A Four-State Perspective,” written by top labor policy scholars under the direction of Robert Bruno of the University of Illinois, looks at the experience of four states (New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon) where public-sector workers have the freedom to form unions through majority sign-up. If passed, the Employee Free Choice Act would give millions of workers the option of using either majority sign-up or a National Labor Relations Board election to form a union.
Study: Majority Sign-Up Works, Without Coercion, for Thousands of Workers in Illinois
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A new study shines an important light on what the process for forming a union could look like under the Employee Free Choice Act—and cuts through misleading, baseless corporate spin claiming the majority sign-up process exposes workers to coercion or intimidation.
“A Study of Illinois’ Majority Interest Petition Provision,” authored by Robert Bruno, a professor of labor policy at the University of Illinois, is based on Bruno’s in-depth analysis of every majority sign-up petition filed in Illinois since the passage of a 2003 law allowing workers in state, local and educational institutions the right to choose to form unions through majority sign-up. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers around the country would be able to choose majority sign-up as a process to bargain for a better life, so the experience of Illinois workers is a real-world test that offers critical data to the debate over Employee Free Choice.
Know-Nothing Newt
Grandstanding is a favorite pastime of the former speaker of the House, Republican Newt Gingrich. Truth, however, has never played a big role in his self-trumpeting.
In a recent Politico column, Gingrich advances a laundry list of falsehoods about the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s the latest grab at public attention in his angling for a place in the 2012 elections.
First, he pushes the lie that the Employee Free Choice Act takes away the secret ballot process for workers deciding whether to form a union. The Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot. It gives to workers the right to use an already legal process for deciding on unionization—a streamlined process called majority sign-up, or card check.
The bill adds choice for workers, who will decide which process to use. The Employee Free Choice Act is an amendment to existing federal labor law that makes no change whatsoever in the current election procedures.
Beware of the Big Lie Bill
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Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.
Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:
The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.
The alleged goal of S. 478 is to:
amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
