U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Betting Against the American Middle Class
Randel K. Johnson, vice president of that esteemed group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, recently revealed a corporate-squelched truth in a slip of the tongue.
During a debate on May 15 with Stewart Acuff of the AFL-CIO about the Employee Free Choice Act, Johnson admitted - finally - that the act preserves secret ballot elections for unions. The act would allow workers - rather than employers - to decide whether to form a union by conducting a secret ballot election or by collecting signed membership cards from a majority of workers.
Incredibly, for as much as unearned-bonus-grubbing-CEOs have lied about secret ballots in their relentless campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act, that was not Johnson's revelation.
No, here's what he disclosed: If the act passes, he said, "It would be a rare union that would decide to risk a normal secret ballot election."
Risk. Interesting word, Mr. Johnson.
The Chamber of Commerce knows there's a huge risk to secret ballot elections. And the Chamber likes it that way. Employers stack the deck against workers in secret ballot elections. They don't publicly admit it though. That's why Johnson's use of the word "risk" was so surprising.
The Chamber and big corporations like Wal-Mart are intent on defeating the act because it would remove from employers the power to force workers to conduct secret ballot elections. It would strip from employers that ability to generate risk, to defeat unions, and thus to further shrink wages and the American middle class.
A Cornell University professor, Kate Bronfenbrenner, who has researched labor issues for a quarter century, issued a new study last week that clearly illustrates the risk of secret ballot elections and how employers have labored long and hard to increase that risk in recent years. It's called, "No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organization."
Among the tactics she documents employers using in the weeks before the "secret ballot" election to thwart unionization are firing of union organizers, threats to close the plant or cut wages and benefits, and forcing workers to meet one-on-one with supervisors who intimidate and interrogate them to determine whether they support the union.
Bronfenbrenner concluded, "This combination of threats, interrogation, surveillance, and harassment has ensured that there is no such thing as a democratic 'secret ballot' in the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) certification election process. The progression of actions the employer has taken can ensure that the employer knows exactly which way every worker plans to vote long before the election takes place."
Her study showed employers implementing these tactics more frequently than in the past. When she compared organizing campaigns in this five-year period to those in the studies over the previous 20 years, she discovered two disconcerting facts: the cases in which employers used 10 of these threatening techniques in the run-up to elections more than doubled. And employers focused much more on coercive and punitive methods rather than positive procedures such as unscheduled raises and promotions.
Not surprisingly, she also found that as employers exploited harsher tactics and intensified their attacks in the weeks before "secret balloting," the union was more likely to lose. And, conversely, she found that in campaigns where public sector workers tried organizing and government agencies refrained from coercive and illegal tactics, the union was significantly more likely to win.
If it weren't so easy for employers to create risk for workers, millions more could get the union protection they want. Surveys show an increasing number of American workers desire a union. In the mid 1990s, it was 40 percent. Now it's 53 percent. Yet only 12.4 percent of American workers have that protection - and the better wages and benefits that go with it.
Bronfenbrenner addressed this issue in her report: "Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime that neither protects their rights nor provides any disincentive for employers to continue disregarding the law."
She continues: "Unless serious labor law reform with real penalties is enacted, only a fraction of the workers who seek representation under the National Labor Relations Act will be successful."
That reform is the Employee Free Choice Act, and there's the point of Johnson's use of the word risk. The Chamber of Commerce intends to kill the act and leave risk fully on the shoulders of workers. As Bronfenbrenner showed, that would mean fewer will be unionized. Middle class wages and benefits would continue to decline.
It is time for American workers to stop bearing all of the risk. They're working for less and bailing out the very people who are obstructing their ability to fairly bargain for more.
In October, Bank of America, which has received more than $45 billion in taxpayer bailout money, hosted a conference call with conservatives and business officials, including a representative of AIG, which has received more than $100 billion in taxpayer bailout money, to organize opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. Then in March, just days after the act was introduced, Citigroup Inc., which got $50 billion in bailout money, hosted a similar conference call, this one led by Glenn Spencer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
During the October call, Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, said he should be on a 350-foot boat in the Mediterranean, but he thought fighting the Employee Free Choice Act was more important because, "This is the demise of a civilization. . . This is how a civilization disappears."
Yes, the Employee Free Choice Act could contribute ever so slightly to dissipation of a decadent class. Unionization is how the middle class re-emerges. America could do without a few filthy-rich boys lolling on yachts in the Mediterranean. At the heart of America, however, must be a strong and broad middle class.
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Unions have been demonized by the media and corporate america. The companies have people believing that they close plants, and move overseas because of unions and the corresponding wages etc... not so!.. They move because they get labor for one dollar a day.. or less... they can get kids to work and make them work fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, they have no environmental regulations so they can use chemicals with zero concern for the health of their workers or the surrounding communities and then they get tax breaks for spending overseas.. Anyone hear of the chineese drywall debacle? do you let you kids play with chineese toys laden with lead based colors?
remember the thousands of blinded peasants in India?? How about the kids making your reboks and nikes??
In the south, where wages are the least of anywhere else in America the people, - the poorest in the nation- all fear unions because of constant anti union propaganda by churches and politicians... and yes by a few companies who will fire anyone even thinking union thoughts... And profits are up...
I am about to give up....
"The act would allow workers - rather than employers - to decide whether to form a union by conducting a secret ballot election or by collecting signed membership cards from a majority of workers."
Question: how would "workers" decide this? By secret ballot? What percentage of workers would be required to decide this?
The way it works now is that when a third of workers sign cards seeking a union, a secret ballot election is held. That would continue to be an option. Alternatively, those who want a union could try to get cards signed by more than half of the workers, and then the union could be recognized without a secret ballot election. The workers organizing the union get to decide. Not the company. Now, even if workers get signatures from more than half of the workers, the employer can still insist on a secret ballot election. In the election, only 30 percent of the workers can show up and vote, and if a majority of them vote for the union, it's recognized. But somehow a union that's selected by that small majority is considered better than collecting signatures from more than half of the workers. IT'S NUTS!
So what good is a union for when they shut the plants and move the industry overseas because it is not profitable over here?
Any good?
Please. Just ask a former Boeing white collar worker from the Wichita plant what happens after you vote in a union. Boeing sold the plant to a foreign company who promptly proceeded to pink slip everybody, then hire back the "ones they wanted" at the prices they wanted. If you are a white collar worker, try getting a job there now. Your main hope is getting on as a temp through a local contracting agency.
yes... con-agra did the same thing in Colorado a decade or so ago... doesn't make them right for so doing though. If the people would band together and refuse to purchase products made by these companies then our workers would fair much better... And yes... I will always believe that American workers can be the most productive in the world... are there some "bad apples" that skate with union protection? again yes, that is where the other workers should have a few "blanket parties" to get them to see straight. (I am not really advocating a blanket party per se)
The industry in which I worked for 30 years has an organization with over 1,000 member companies. But it is dominated by 6 giant producers who use it to further their interest, often at the expense of the smaller, dues paying companies.
The Chamber of Commerce is exactly the same. They profess to be all about small American companies and owners, but are in fact the tool of big business. Even though billions of dollars in contracts meant--by law--to be given only to companies of a certain small size, were instead fed to multinational behemoths, costing small (er) business America to suffer substantially, the Chamber has been unusually quiet.
They are not now, nor have they ever been supporters or representatives of the American small business owner, let alone working Americans. In their way, they are worse than any union.
The dirty little secret is that business actually LIKES REGULATION. It's just the regulation that they want, to keep others out.
Businesses enter into as many bargaining unit relationships as they can in order to influence government and society that paying living wages to the people that they depend on for their profits would be detrimental. I cannot understand that giving working people a fairer playing field to counter the associations of business related interests is such a social evil in this country. As for the social and economic Darwinists' arguments, well, it's just a very mean, and archaic, way of seeing the world.
Legalize hemp more steel will be needed for the processing equipment!
Obama $30 for bankers and $1 for the peasants in the stimulus plan
I agree with the author that the "heart of America.....must be a strong and broad middle class" and I could care less about the yachting habits of the wealthy. Easier unionization, however, is unlikely to achieve anything but a temporary reallocation of wealth to a few industrial sectors at the expense of the rest of the middle class which will have to absorb the volatility from which the unionized work forces are protected. There is an inherent amount of risk in the economy and protecting certain classes of people from such risks with guaranteed salaries, benefits and job security simply passes those risks on to the unprotected of us, until of course the unionized companies go bankrupt like the U.S. auto industry. In an ever more competive global market place this attempt to shield workers from risks and limit managements ability to evolve with the markets inevitably fails and takes the companies down with it. That is what these honchos mean by the "demise of a civilization". Of course government agencies do not fight off unionization as intently, they have little risk of going out of business and have no personal investment stakes to protect. If you want to build a stronger middle class, focus more on education, retraining and R&D investment so our workers remain the most productive in the world. Don't hamstring our businesses with more unionization. That will surely kill the gooses that laid the golden eggs.
If you want to build a stronger middle class, focus more on education, retraining and R&D investment so our workers remain the most productive in the world. ---
To remain the most productive in the environment you are talking about means working 12-hour days for $2.50 an hour. The multi-nationals take out all of the profit, and the people die at their work stations.
Don't forget, workers in countries like Germany are unionized, make good wages, get good benefits and vacations and aren't abused by corporations the way American workers are.
Sorry, but that's utter total B.S. that part about education and retraining. Also the part about R&D, unless you keep the R&D on-shore that is. White collar, educated workers, have just as high unemployment rates as the uneducated. In fact, I would say that the technical workers who work with their hands, probably have an advantage over white collar workers as working on a vehicle, or doing plumbing, or electrical wiring, cannot be off-shored, nor is it likely to be outsourced, since its already mostly the self-employed and small business that provides those types of services to begin with.
The US Chamber of Commerce no longer represents US business when they lobby European countries to accept more Asian made products. They should be registered as a foreign lobbyist.
I said it before and I say it once more: if you need to work for someone else to make a living, you are not middle class. You, my friend, are deep, deep working class. You will always depend on somebody else to supply you with the technology/infrastructure to make a buck. And that somebody else will be able to control most of your life because you are dependent on them.
The best any union could do is to tell their members to send their kids to university so they will not need a union to take care of them like their parents. Now... the union which does that still has to be organized.
:-)
And who is now going to 'take care' of the millions of college graduates who can't find jobs or are working for peanuts? Most people in the U.S. who work for themselves can have their business destroyed by big corporations in no time at all. No employee or small businessperson is safe from the Wal-Martization of the U.S., whether educated or not.
"And who is now going to 'take care' of the millions of college graduates who can't find jobs or are working for peanuts?"
I wonder where those are... I for one don't know any who can't take care for themselves. Of course, when I talked about going to university, I meant studying hard sciences and engineering, not another major in English Medieval Poetry. Sorry... I should have been more specific.
"Most people in the U.S. who work for themselves can have their business destroyed by big corporations in no time at all."
Hardly. What I am doing is such small fish to major corporations that they will never spend a dime on trying to put me out of business. That keeps me safe. Now and in the future. One part of intelligent career planning is to know your niche.
:-)
"No employee or small businessperson is safe from the Wal-Martization of the U.S., whether educated or not."
Of course, if you are competing with Walmart, they will plow you under. The trick is not to compete with them while still making a good buck. And it's not as hard as you think.
The apathy is real cute but, let me paint a picture for you Heir-I've-Got-Mine:
Based on current unemployment/underemployment trends, - 60% of the country will be unemployed (even by establishment statistics) Do you think these unemployed blue-collar people and college kids are going to sit by and obey the Social Contract and remain orderly, act lawfully or do you think some of these people have strong, raw survival instincts (not to be confused with Capitalist-hoarding survival) and will be looking to take care of their own outside of the laws set down as part of the Social Contract?
When Anarchy is abound and teetering on chaos, American cities have IEDs in street gutters and kids with machine guns and the cops, even the military too scared to travel in some areas......
...how well do you think you'll fare then?
If you want revolution, you will have to do it yourself, I do not think a whole lot of people will join you, especially those with degrees of higher education. There are a lot better ways to spend the rest of your life than in prison for terrorist activity. Even unemployment is better than that.
:-)
You sure twisted around his use of the word "risk" now didn't you? He correctly pointed out that EFCA "effectively" eliminates the use of secret ballot elections. EFFECTIVELY! Why would a union risk a secret ballot election when they already can simply declare victory with 50% of the cards? Where you went with that word is simply fiction, and certainly manipulative on your part
Under EFCA, if 50% plus one person signs a card (or is intimidated into signing one, or if they're FORGED by overzealous Organizers or co-workers) it won't matter if 100% of these same employees request a secret ballot election. There just won't be one.
As far as employers "stacking the deck" in these elections, perhaps you can tell me why unions win 67% of the time? Apparently, they're not stacking too high.
You clearly know nothing about National Labor Relations Law. If 100 percent of employees request a secret ballot election, there will, in fact be one.
Also, 50 percent of the cards is more fair than 25 percent of the workers showing up in an election, isn't it? When 51 percent of the workers actually sign the cards, and they are verified for fairness and accuracy by the National Labor Relations Board, then you know more than half of the workers want the union.
In an election, if 30 percent of the workers show up and a majority of them vote for the union, then you still get a union -- even though that is a tiny percentage of the total potential voting population. Is that really fair? Is that what you really want?
Stack: I might know more than you think about the process. Been an organizer for 25 years and a union officer and president. Been present for hundreds of elections. If 50% plus one sign a card, but ALL employees want a secret-ballot election, under EFCA, there will NOT be an election. The cards, signed publicly become the vote.
Union elections under todays laws typically have turnouts over 90%. Can't say that for any other type election, can you? NLRB keeps these stats, and I know from personal experience.
Secret balloting is the only way to keep it fair from employer AND union intimidation. Isn't that what you want?
Very good post, Leo !
Unions are only fighting for what is taken for granted and part of the landscape in every other civilised country except the U.S. : universal health care and retirement.
My only hope to achieve what American people want and deserve is NEW POLITICAL PARTIES.
We should have an upheaval like in Italy in the 90s : the existing political parties dissapeared and were replaced by different ones, and it was no big deal !!!
that universal health care and retirement thing worked wonders for the UAW.
also, will Speaker Pelosi be visiting America Samoa to help the poor workers there?
That it has failed is just another confirmation that the U.S. is the most backward developed country in the world. The last 30 years have been a constant attempt to financially benefit the top 2% and big corporations to the detriment of the other 98%. Socialism for the rich and cold hard capitalism for everyone else.
my spouse was pretty much forced to join the flight attendants union.
what....a....huge....joke....they.....are.
also, can't wait to see what a great job the uaw will do running chrysler as the new owners. here's a hint: it will fail miserably.
Well, she can always quit of she doesn't like her job. There are literally thousands of energetic young women who would leap at the chance to become a flight attendant with union protection.
Those old false anecdotes were worn out in the Reagan era, they don't work anymore. At least 53% of Americans want union protection since the corporate oligarchy has enslaved them and stole their wealth in one swoop.
Your rhetoric is stale and ironically humorous, time to leave the island. Thanks for playing!
rand:
1. obviously you're a sexist by saying "...she can always quit..." I said "my spouse"
your sexism is stale and ironically humorous.
2. my spouse was laid off. my spouse was making 19,000 per year with horrible medical coverage and was working full time. great union protection making 19000 per year.
3. you are right about thousands wanting this job, but it's not just energetic young women but men as well.
my island does not tolerate sexism.
nor paying dues to a joke of a union out of a gross annual salary of 19,000.
Isn't that what employers say when they're employees want to unionize? You can always quit if you don't like it? They can always get someone else. Pretty stupid of you.
Oh, like the current owners of Chrysler have done a steller job?
BTW, pay attention. The UAW will not be running Chrysler. So don't blame the union if the new, out-of-bankruptcy company fails.
the current owners of Chrysler have done a terrible job, aided and abetted by the UAW.
the new company will fail by the way. it's in the cards. you'll see.
I'd like to learn about the salary structure for Union leaders and spokespeople. Where would I go to find that information. You know, in the spirit of the same 'transparancy' the EFCA affords. Allegedly.
What's disheartening is that many working class Americans still don't understand that strong labor management balance is the foundation of their pourchasing power. I hear white collar bitching all the time about abuse by their employers but they'll knock unions in the next sentence.
It's a sickening joke that Americans can give you finite details of the lives of American Idol contestants or sports statistics but they have not a clue about how their lifestyle is sustained.
amen... when nobody has the money to buy things .... oh wait, that's now isn't it.
ive been confused about the employee free choice act for months. this article finally cleared things about.
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