Employee Free Choice Act restores worker protections

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/18/EDRI1474GR.DTL

Aaron T. Knapp

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Legislation that makes it easier for workers to form unions died in the Senate last year but union advocates are hoping Barack Obama can perform some CPR. Obama has said that if the Employee Free Choice Act comes across his desk, then he will sign it into law. Still, union interests probably shouldn't count their chickens. The filibuster remains, as does a powerful anti-union lobby, to derail this legislation. Our president-elect has lots of squeaky wheels to fix in January as well, but only so much grease.

Organized labor has been the victim of captive politicians and business leaders over the last 60 years. Our labor laws originally were designed to protect workers from their powerful employers by encouraging unionization and punishing employers who interfered with the collective bargaining process. But a rash of strikes after World War II caused a legislative about-face. Enacted over President Harry Truman's veto in 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act shifted the focus from protecting workers, to protecting big business from the purported abuses of workers. The Harvard Law Review in 1947 deemed Taft-Hartley an outright rejection of our previous policy of encouraging collective bargaining.

The kiss of death for unions, however, was President Ronald Reagan's 1981 firing of 11,345 striking air-traffic controllers who had ignored his work order, sending a rallying cry to employers across the nation, which they promptly heeded. Union membership as a percentage of the workforce has declined and is today but a small fraction of what it used to be.

And no wonder. Under the current law, unions have about as good a chance of getting off the ground as Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, an enormous wooden aircraft that flew only once. Even if all employees in a workplace sign up for union representation, employers, backed by armies of corporate lawyers, can still force workers to suffer through labyrinthine National Labor Relations Board-sanctioned elections, which can take years. In these elections, employers have every advantage - more resources, virtually all of the economic leverage and unimpeded employee access.

The Employee Free Choice Act resurrects common sense. It says that if a majority of employees want union representation, then the employer must deal with the union. Democracy anyone? It also streamlines dispute resolution in initial contract talks, and imposes stiffer penalties on employers for unfairly interfering with union organizing.

FULL story at link.

[midnight]

1. The Employee Free Choice Act resurrects common sense.

let's pass this....