Teabag the Boss, Card Check for the Masses

The business community is scared shitless by the prospect of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) becoming law. They have conjured up images of aggressive union organizers stalking defenseless worker prey, of American productivity undermined by archaic union contracts at the very moment the American economy needs neoliberal flexibility the most. Rush Limbaugh has invoked the specter of Tony Soprano-inspired pipe-wielding mobsters.

Limbaugh & Co. do not, of course, spend much time explaining the labor law status quo.

EFCA restores balance to a broken process. Currently, workers are often forced to go through National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections, maneuvering through a gauntlet of threats, firings and one-on-one pressure meetings, courtesy of their boss and outside anti-union consultants. And first contracts? Good luck.

With EFCA, workers could organize by signing union authorization cards, a system known as "card check." The bill would also allow binding mediation and arbitration for first contracts and stiffen penalties for all too frequent employer violations of labor law.

EFCA is not about what John Sweeney or Andy Stern want. Indeed, it is workers who go it alone, without the support of a large, national union, who need card check the most. The weaker the union, the more the byzantine NLRB elections process tilts in the bossman's favor.

As I wrote for In These Times, Philadelphia security guards have been trying to organize a union since 2005. And they've been doing so without the support of a strong, national union (SEIU left town after a controversial 2006 neutrality agreement with AlliedBarton, the guard's contactor).

The guards, 85% of whom are African-American, are paid just $10.03 per hour and receive minimal benefits. The majority of guards at the Philadelphia Museum of Art signed cards in November 2008 -- if EFCA were law, they would have a union now.

Things are looking tough in the Senate, especially after Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter's politically cynical flip flop on the issue. The move may, however, fail to save him his seat. And if Pennsylvania sends two Democrats to Washington in November 2010, EFCA might just pass over his politically dead body.

Comments

[MarthaQ]

I am shocked every time someone tries to tell me that unions are "shaking down" their bosses for more than they deserve. In the current process, it's hard to imagine anyone actually being able to organize at all -- much less shake anyone down.

[Fmxr]

Business leaders claim that this would lead to worker intimidation by union organizers. What they don't tell you is that in the current reality, 85% of employers will wage a anti-union campaigns when a union drive is discovered. These campaigns are nothing more than campaigns, often with the implied threat of job loss, to frighten workers into not using their rights in the work place. An anti-union campaign is the bosses effort to convince a group of workers that they are better off letting the employer make all the decisions about the professional fate and work place welfare for the employee. http://phillyjwj.blogspot.com/

[CommieD]

Thanks to Denvir for keeping up the dialouge.
EFCA is one part of what is needed to reverse the trend toward the demise of the middle class and the unjust distribution of wealth.
The high point for the middle class was 1973, and it has been downhill ever since; families could live comfortably on one income. It was that year that the steady growth of middle- and working-class incomes began to level off and later decline, never to rise again. What was different then? The U.S. had a trade surplus, health care cost less than half what it does now and unionism was at its highest.

[Esteban Andrés]

The logic of one-time-supporters of EFCA now backing away because of the economic crisis is frighteningly stuck in neo-liberal dogma. If anything, the crisis makes the need for EFCA even stronger.

I forget who said it, but someone once said something along the lines of unions being the best anti-poverty mechanism ever invented, and they don't cost the federal government a dime.

[LeftRight]

Sure they do, when they are unions of federal employees. Of course, when ANY employees are happier (which they generally are if they are in a union....) they perform better work, and more of it, meaning that the employer (even the federal government­....) is getting more for what they are spending..­.

[Chris White]

The right wing systematically studied the tactics of the civil rights movement and then used them against civil rights. Denvir makes a very good point that we need to follow all populist organizing and redirect into people's own self interest.

[Vurz]

The last three places I worked at had special meetings (mandatory of course) to talk about how horrible the unions were. Interestingly we didn't get paid for them.

We need unions.

[LeftRight]

Wow..... I'm impressed.­.... This has been posted for close to four hours now, and not a single tr0// has come out to complain about the big bad union bosses taking everything from the poor workers!!!

So I would like to take this opportunity to point out that in the six decades that they've been keeping track of this, there have been 42 complaints made to the NLRB against unions for intimidating workers. Not 42 per year, or even per decade, but TOTAL!! By comparison, in the year 2006 ALONE, there were 27,000 complaints made against EMPLOYERS for intimidating workers!!

Let's assume that those numbers are off..... If they are underreporting union intimidation by a factor of ten, and 2006 was a REALLY bad year and they are normally 1/100 as bad, that's STILL a matter of 7 complaints each year made against the unions and 270 complaints each year against the employer!!