The labor movement is taking the expected smears from the right-wing that it's an archaic relic of the industrial past. National Review's Henry Payne derides the "anachronistic union cultures which hold that guaranteed jobs and benefits are an entitlement."
But with half of all people who don't have a union saying they want one, the need for unions to improve the lives, working conditions and benefits of working people has never been more necessary. Unfortunately, widespread union-busting, as I learned for In These Times when I went undercover to attend a seminar offered by a "union-avoidance" law firm, works to block organizing by using current pro-corporate labor laws to block workers' rights to form a union.
As the AFL-CIO labor blog summarizes my findings:
Polls show most Americans are unaware of the extent to which some employers will go to stop workers from exercising their freedom to form a union. But a chilling new article, by journalist Art Levine, exposes the dirty details of these often sinister actions.
In the October issue of In These Times, Levine gives us a blow-by-blow account of a seminar he attended in Las Vegas led by two attorneys from Jackson Lewis, one of the major law firms in the field of union-busting. Union-busting--the so-called "union avoidance" industry--is a multibillion-dollar industry involving more than 2,500 lawyers.
In "Unionbusting Confidential," Levine exposes the techniques these lawyers teach their clients to keep unions out of their workplace. The first suggestion to employers: Act respectful of workers' concerns to prevent union sympathies from growing. They even suggest writing out--but not adhering to--a mission statement that includes treating workers with dignity.
The lawyers then give seminar participants a litany of tricks to derail the efforts of their workers to do what the law says they have a right to do: join together to form a union and bargain for a better life. The Jackson Lewis lawyers encourage the employers to be proactive, to take a leading role in denying their workers their freedom to form a union.
Here are just a few of the comments of what the lawyers told Levine and the other seminar participants:
* If a supervisor sympathizes with the workers who want to form a union, one of the lawyers jerks his tie upward against his neck to suggest a hanging.
* Tell employees stories about other workers in a union going on strike and losing their jobs to replacements because "It's lawful. What happens if this statement is a lie? They didn't have another strike, there were no replacements? It's still lawful: The labor board doesn't really care if people are lying."
* Firing workers for seeking to form a union is illegal under current labor law, so Jackson-Lewis encourages employers to make sure they fire union supporters for other reasons.Levine also shows that these actions have human consequences. They hurt families and communities. He cites the story of Bill Lawhorn, who was fired the day after he and his fellow workers narrowly lost an election to join a union and bargain for better wages and working conditions. Five years later he is still without a steady job.
Lawhorn, 51, worked 12 years at the Consolidated Biscuit Co. in McComb, Ohio, before he was fired:
"It's always right there in my mind," Lawhorn says. "My children thought I got really mean, and I did for that first year." Back then, everyday, after a fruitless search for a new job, he would drink beer heavily. "I'm definitely a victim of union-busters," he says. "They're the ones who told [company officials] what to do."
Of couse, the fragile state of the labor movement is back in the news again with the risky -- if necessary -- national strike against General Motors by the United Auto Workers designed to preserve benefits for retirees and protect jobs. Yet, the need to organize workers who want unions -- but are blocked from doing so -- is underscored at today's Change to Win convention of seven allied unions, including the Teamsters and SEIU, in Chicago. As a Chicago paper reported:
"Two years after its controversial birth, Change to Win labor federation is making good on its pledge to reinvigorate the labor movement with more expansive and comprehensive organizing targeting tens of thousands of workers, its leaders contend." The highlights of their organizing goals:
The seven-union affiliates of Change to Win labor federation have a long-term goal of organizing 50 million workers. What have they done to help achieve that?
• Targeted industries that can't be outsourced, including construction, retail, hotels and hospitality, food production, manufacturing, transportation, health care and real estate.
• Committed 75 percent of the federation's resources to organizing through the establishment of a strategic organizing center.
• Each affiliate has developed an organizing plan to bring about net growth in each of their core industries by next year. That would translate into 250,000 newly organized workers next year.<
• Affiliates have committed more resources to strategic research and training more organizers.
• Put in place capital stewardship programs focused on using union pension funds to help pressure employers.
• Focused on organizing through majority card-check instead of National Labor Relations Board secret ballot elections.
In the meantime, there's plenty you can do to help workers gain rights by working on behalf of the Employee Free Choice Act, now stalled in the Senate. Check out the resources online at this blog posting on the In These Times website ( as well as hear me talk about going undercover at a union-busting seminar with Air America's Thom Hartmann):
If you've read Art Levine's article "Unionbusting Confidential", and wanted to know what you could do to protect working Americans, here are some resources that will tell you what you need to know about unionbusting and how to support the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act would create a level playing field for workers seeking to form a union and strengthens penalties against employers who violate workers' organizing rights.
While the debate over the UAW strike continues, don't forget all the workers -- 92% of the private sector workforce -- who don't have union representation and the many who want unions. As the AFL-CIO reporting on union-busting points out:
Consider the findings of Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner, who studied hundreds of organizing campaigns:
*Ninety-two percent of private-sector employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent require supervisors to attend training sessions on attacking unions; and 78 percent require that supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee.
* Seventy-five percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.
* Half of employers threaten to shut down partially or totally if employees join together in a union.
* In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.
* Even after workers successfully form a union, in one-third of the instances, employers do not negotiate a contract.Working people are determined to put workers' freedom to join a union on the front burner of the 2008 elections.