Labor pains

Law reform is long overdue; act levels field for bargaining

 

By RUSS UNGER

Columbia Tribune

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act, led by the Chamber of Commerce, the National Right to Work Committee and, here in Missouri, the Save Our Secret Ballot initiative, are attempting to use the issue of the secret ballot to defeat passage of the first meaningful effort to reform U.S. labor law since the Carter administration. The issue of the so-called secret ballot is a red herring designed to exploit the general public’s lack of knowledge about labor law by drawing a comparison with the political election process.

Russ Unger

Since the 1980s, the labor movement has suffered greatly under the combined weight of free trade policies that lack provisions to protect workers’ rights and a concerted political agenda designed to turn a blind eye toward corporate greed and union busting. The Employee Free Choice Act is not revolutionary legislation that will automatically restore power to workers and their organizations. It is, however, an effort to restore a semblance of balance to industrial relations by giving workers an opportunity to bargain collectively in today’s harsh economic reality.

Under the NLRA, one way workers can gain union recognition and collective bargaining rights is if the employer voluntarily agrees to majority sign-up, often referred to as card check. Card check is a simple process where the employer agrees that if a majority of the company’s employees desire to be represented by a union, it will recognize the union and bargain with that organization. The Employee Free Choice Act merely extends this right to workers as well as employers. There have been thousands of workers organized under this process, with Cingular and Dana Corp. being well-known employers that have agreed to allow card check recognition.The Employee Free Choice Act will amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935. The NLRA did not mandate unions, but it did recognize the potential social good that collective bargaining could bring to the United States. Based on a belief that workers should have the ability to join a union of their own choosing and an opportunity to bargain collectively, the NLRA provided workers a voice and a stake in the success of their employers.

Where the Employee Free Choice Act will diverge from the NLRA is in the area of bargaining. The Employee Free Choice Act will encourage more efficient bargaining of a first contract between an employer and a union. If an agreement is not reached in 90 days, the Employee Free Choice Act allows for mediation of the unresolved issues. If mediation fails, the Employee Free Choice Act requires that both parties submit to binding arbitration 30 days later. The reason for this is simple: For too many years, too many employers have refused to bargain in good faith and have not signed an agreement in a reasonable period of time. By stalling, these employers erode union support and, most important, deny workers their goal of having a collective voice at work.

The Employee Free Choice Act will also increase penalties for violating the NLRA — which forbids discrimination against workers during an organizing drive — because, once again, some employers have willfully violated this aspect of the current law. The Employee Free Choice Act will require employers who violate the law to pay triple back pay to workers victimized by the violations and an additional $20,000 fine per violation. Even these increases in penalties for violating workers’ basic rights to organize free of harassment, intimidation and discrimination are far less than the penalties to employers who violate anti-trust or civil rights laws.

The debate about the Employee Free Choice Act should be placed in a broader context. Card-check union recognition “elections” have been around for years. Many companies have allowed their use in the United States, and the world did not end. It is a process that gives workers a more efficient means to exercise their legal right to have union representation where they work. The act promotes workplace democracy and does not, in any way, curtail the democratic rights of working people to improve their economic well-being.

Russ Unger is apprentice coordinator for the Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 36 and president of the Mid-Missouri Labor Club.