In Washington state workers are allowed to organize and form unions so they can win good wages and benefits. In "right-to-work" states like South Carolina, though, the government sides with big companies against their workers. (They used to have even harsher anti-worker laws there but the North stopped rounding up the escapees...)
Boeing workers in Washington go on strike, so Boeing sets up an assembly line in anti-union South Carolina and tells the Washington workers to take what they offer and like it. This is a standard move from companies these days, telling workers, "Take the cuts or we'll close the plant and move your jobs somewhere where workers can't do anything about it."
Illegal, But So What?
You probably didn't know this but retaliating against workers like that is against the law. It is even illegal to threaten workers in order to avoid a strike. It is illegal to fire or intimidate employees for organizing.
But companies go ahead and do these things anyway, and other illegal things, because no one does anything about it. And it has been so long since anyone did anything about it - just like with banking fraud or age discrimination - that it is now standard operating procedure. No one even remembers that it is illegal. No one cares.
Like age discrimination. Look at the faces of the employees behind President Obama when he visited Facebook and tell me if Facebook is the least bit worried about age discrimination enforcement.
Or this picture of the President visiting Google:
Workers' Rights A Thing Of The Past
With labor-law enforcement -- or even a sense that workers should have rights -- seemingly a thing of the past, these anti-worker sentiments are spreading. Recently, for example, Arizona and South Dakota passed anti-worker laws, forbidding the formation of a union after a majority of workers sign cards asking for one. Wisconsin and other states have passed laws restricting the labor rights of public-employees and restricting the ability to collect union-membership dues.
But THIS Time!
But THIS time something unusual happened. The government has actually threatened to enforce the law! The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing and is suing Arizona and South Dakota for violating labor laws!
Boardrooms across the land are rising up in indignation. How dare the government threaten giant corporations that they might enforce the law? Don't they know who's the boss? The Wall Street Journal explains, "Boeing management did what it judged to be best for its shareholders and customers and looked elsewhere... As Boeing chief Jim McNerney noted on a conference call at the time, the company couldn't have 'strikes happening every three to four years'" and calls Boeing's threats against unions a "reasonable business decision."
Conservative columnists and bloggers are earning their pay, writing indignant column after column about "union bosses," some even praising Ayn Rand. Conservative astroturfers (also) and politicians are not far behind them.
How dare We, the People (government) tell a business that it has to respect its workers and our laws!!!
Who Is Boss?
Do We, the People have the ability to enforce our laws? Do we have the power to tax corporations and the wealthy?
Do we have the power to protect the protections of democracy?
Democracy provides workers with safety protections and fair wages. We fought so hard to build and maintain this democratic society so that We, the People could share the benefits. We passed laws allowing union organizing, as a balance to the immense power of corporations and wealth. We passed laws prohibiting companies from telling workers, "Work for what we give you or don't eat."
And for a time this built our prosperity. But we let the protections slip, and allowed companies to cross borders to escape the protections democracy offers -- to non-democratic countries like China where workers have few rights, where pay is low, environmental protections practically non-existent. Companies locating manufacturing in places like have huge cost advantages over companies located in democracies that respect and protect the rights of citizens.
The Threat Against Us
Won't companies just move out of the state/country if we try to enforce labor laws or tax them? Won't China just stop selling to us if we apply a tariff to protect democracy, or try to enforce trade laws? Won't the rich just pack up and move or stop working if we don't just give them everything they want? Won't they move even more factories out of the city/state/country if We, the People try to demand our rights?
We Still Have The Power
Here's the thing. We, the People still have some power left in our hands. For one thing we still have a huge market. We still have the power to make demands on those who would like to sell into that market. And we can still choose to enforce tax laws, and wage laws, and tariffs, and labor laws, and trade laws to protect and strengthen what remains of our democracy.
But we can only do this if we decide to stand up for ourselves and do something about what is happening. We have to put our foot down, and demand that our politicians listen to We, the People and do what we say. It is time to get organized, to talk to neighbors and relatives, to show up at town hall meetings and protests. We can demand that news media begin to cover more than just the corporate/conservative viewpoint. We can go out and register others to vote, and get them to the polls, and demand that votes be counted accurately. We can take back our democracy and put We, the People back in charge.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
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Nothing in the Constitution guarantees any of us a job, or a certain standard of living or power over our employer. We are guaranteed only the freedom to pursue happiness not the happiness hand delivered to us. We do have the right to organize and join labor organizations but that still doesn't guarantee us the right to a job, only equal opportunity to obtain those jobs that exist.
Here's what we all do have or should have -- a sense of personal responsibility for holding a job and expanding our opportunities for better ones. Surprisingly, when one has marketable skills that are in demand one find an employer will bend over backwards to hold onto you.
And I'm going to have to call you out on your misrepresentation of card check and the NLRB complaints against Arizona and South Dakota. No employer anywhere in any state is required by law to recognize cards. "Card check" is still ultimately a deal cut between a union and an employer behind closed doors and there's no guarantee that a majority of workers would have to sign cards for an employer and union to enter into a card check agreement. Laws like those in Arizona and SD that ban card check only require all workers effected have the opportunity to vote in a secret ballot election and end backroom card check deals.
Your misrepresentation of the NLRB complaint against Boeing is absolutely shameless. Do you really understand labor law that little? Or is this a deliberate attempt to mislead?
Not one job was lost in Washington to Boeing opening a plant in South Carolina. Not one. No layoffs, no lost hours, no eliminated positions -- thus there is no "retaliation". What the complaint is saying is all FUTURE Boeing jobs must be located in Puget Sound. This is simply ridiculous.
The existing plant cannot keep up with demand for the 757. (in no small part due to repeated labor stoppages) Nothing in the NLRA prevents expansion beyond a unionized facility for sound business reasons (including repeated work stoppages.) And post Sendai, there's nothing sound about concentrating capacity on a fault line, in a tsunami zone surrounded by active volcanos.
You forgot to mention that the IAM has repeated offered to bargain away the right of Puget Sound members to strike in return for neutrality elsewhere or that the workers in the SC plant decertified the IAM two years ago out of frustration with poor representation and top down bargaining. So I could argue that the IAM and the NLRB are only using this complaint to "retaliate" against those South Carolina workers for exercising their right to decertify.
The NLRB under Obama, filed a complaint seeking to force Boeing to bring an airplane production line back to its unionized facilities in Washington State instead of moving the work to a "right to work" stateSouth Carolina.
Republicans, Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, denounced the board’s move.
Not one word was heard from representative Clyburn the only democrat elected to represent the people of South Carolina. Almost every time Rep. Clyburn (Pelosi’s go for) has a chance to chastise the GOP about job creation, he does along with all the Democrats.
Well it is time for the Democrats to put no the big boy pants and do what is best for the people who elected them and stop playing favorites.
A state that has "Right to Work" laws means that you don't have to join a union to keep your job, but you are not restricted from joining one if you choose to. Think about, if unions are so great why do they oppose giving the working people the right to choose.
Expanding production capacity beyond a unionized work force has never been against the law before. Do you understand that? Boeing has not violated the LAW. Can I email you a copy of the NLRA?
From 2002:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0823-02.htm
What About Corporate Terrorism?
"Until 1998 Sherri Bufkin happily worked as a manager for Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, N.C. But in 1997, when workers in the giant meatpacking plant there began to organize a union, her superiors - she has testified - forced her to join their campaign to "do whatever was necessary to keep [the union] out."
Bufkin also said she had to tell workers that they would suffer violence and lose jobs if they formed a union, and that she had to discriminate in assignments against pro-union workers. Worse yet, her bosses insisted that she fire some workers simply because they openly supported a union. Then they demanded that she sign false affidavits about management's tactics - many of which clearly violated laws protecting workers' right to organize.
Shortly after she refused to lie for the company at a National Labor Relations Board hearing, Smithfield fired her, plunging her into prolonged unemployment and bankruptcy. "I don't regret standing up for the truth," she told a June 20 Senate committee hearing on obstacles to forming unions, "because now I can look my daughter square in the eye."
Senators also heard from workers - like nurse Nancy Schweikhard, ship captain Eric J. Vizier and hotel worker Mario Vidales - who told of being the direct victims of management harassment, threats to close their workplaces, a beating by anti-union thugs, and..."
I'm glad to see the laws finally being enforced. Nice change.