Showdown Looms Over 'Card Check' Union Drives

[question everything]

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Showdown Looms Over 'Card Check' Union Drives
By MELANIE TROTTMAN
WSJ


WASHINGTON -- While Washington debates how much unions are to blame for Detroit auto makers' woes, a broader face-off is brewing between labor and employers. The stakes in the struggle went up Tuesday, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it will spend about $10 million in the coming months to fight legislation that would allow workers to organize without a secret ballot vote. Such "card check" organization drives are a top priority of union leaders, who want President-elect Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress to enact legislation easing union-organizing rules.

(snip)

The auto-industry bailout, card check and other items on labor's agenda cut to a signature Obama issue: how to produce more gains for middle-class Americans, whose wages have largely stagnated during the past decade. The coming debate of worker-employer issues also will turn on questions about whether companies can be adaptable enough to compete in a global economy if they also have strong unions. Union leaders say giving workers more power through collective bargaining and labor-friendly federal rules is critical to Mr. Obama's effort to boost the economy by raising living standards for the middle class. Union membership dropped to 12% of the labor force last year from 20% in 1983, the earliest year that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses for its comparisons.

(snip)

Employers, led in Washington by the Chamber, counter that returning to New Deal-era unionism will make the U.S. less competitive, and they point to the travails of Detroit's unionized auto makers. But James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin, said "unionization and competitiveness are not incompatible." He cited the aerospace and oil industries as examples where the two coexist. "You can't say the decline of the auto industry is due to the strength of the UAW," he added. Many Republicans in Congress have expressed opposition to both the proposed Detroit bailout and the Employee Free Choice Act, which is how the card-check measure is officially known.

(snip)

After Congress decides on the Detroit bailout and the card-check proposal, unions have more measures they will press to get passed. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, approved by the House but blocked in the Senate, would effectively eliminate the statute of limitations on pay-discrimination lawsuits, making it easier for workers to sue their employers over unequal pay. The proposal is named for a woman whose suit for back pay was denied because the courts ruled she had waited too long to file her claim. The Healthy Families Act would improve paid sick leave for union workers. The Respect Act -- Respect is an acronym for Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers -- would sharply limit which workers are classified as supervisors, a boon to unions, which now can't organize supervisors under federal law. Some in union circles talk of trying to reverse the Right to Work laws that are enforced in 22 states, which forbid unions and employers to make union membership or dues a condition of employment.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122791812946865653.html (subscription)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

1. Bookmarking for later. Thank you. nt

[NYVet]

2. We have private elections for our politicians

Why can't we have private elections to see if a company should allow a union to enter into a private company?

I would think that having management or union organizers not know if you voted for or against them would be a good thing.

[eilen]

3. Alex Keyssar says it better than I can

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-keyssar/unions-the-secret-ballot_b_53714.html

The conflict over elections under the Employee Free Choice Act is also about economic power and coercion. NLRB-conducted secret-ballot elections likely do protect some workers against unwelcome peer pressure as well as reprisals from employers. Yet the very process of conducting a workplace election campaign opens the door to distinctive dynamics of pressure and coercion from employers. In the six weeks that typically elapse between the signing of pledge cards and the casting of ballots, workers are commonly subjected to employer-sponsored campaigns more intrusive and threatening than anything that happens in the arena of electoral politics. Employers often require workers, individually and in groups, to attend workplace meetings where anti-union arguments and claims are put forward (without any union representatives present to counter those claims); attendees at these meetings are frequently told that their plants will close if the union wins the election. (Unions also campaign during this period, but they do not control the paychecks of their prospective members.) Meanwhile, company officials actively try to gauge the views of individual workers, and, according to one study, roughly twenty percent of all pro-union activists end up getting fired. Such firings are illegal and can be reversed, but the process of reversal is arduous and can take years (and would become more costly for employers under the new legislation).

A secret-ballot election, then, does not effectively shield workers because the coercive power of employers is structural and ongoing; the weeks preceding election day offer employers a prolonged window in which they can mobilize that power to pressure workers to reverse their already-stated preferences. This is a far cry from the purity of the secret ballot. Notably, no secret-ballot elections are required when an employer is seeking to withdraw recognition from an already-existing union and can provide evidence that a majority of workers no longer wish to be represented by an incumbent union.

Claims about democratic procedures and the intrinsic virtues of secret-ballot elections are misleading, at best. The fundamental issue underlying the possible passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is quite simple: should the basic framework of American labor law be amended to make it easier for workers to unionize? In an historical era when workers' wages have been stagnating while income inequalities have widened dramatically, when the number of Americans without health insurance is growing, when polls indicate that between a third and a half of all non-managerial employees would like to have union representation, it is an affirmative answer to that question seems most consistent with both American values and democratic principles.

[Yogi]

4. Alex is exactly right.

The pressure put on by management thought mandatory meetings in the time span till the NLRB vote is unbelievable. We were not able to unionize but I’m still a strong believer Unions. If you can sign a card to become a voter, you should be able to sign a card to become a Union member.

[question everything]

13. I can certainly see the pressure that employers would put on workers

wanting to organize.

However, I would like to think that putting pressure on employers, making it illegal to use such tactics, would be better measures while still keeping the elections secrets. After all, I can envision employees who'd rather not unionize yet are feeling pressure from their co-workers.

[Omaha Steve]

14. Card check is legal now

It is up to the company IF it wants to accept it. AT&T (formerly Cingular) accepted it. And the employees have received no intimidation tactics. It works well. Again the proposed card check does not end private election. It put the decision of card check OR election the the hands of the employees with a simple majority of 50% +1.

[Omaha Steve]

5. All the employee has to do is check ELECTION on the card

I was fired in 1980 for organizing. Once the company knew I had the votes to win, the fired me 48 hours later on Friday at shifts end. That scared all the others away. Fear of loosing a job is a huge factor to overcome. See my sig art. It was 3 & 1/2 years for me to win my case in court. 110 CNN employees were illegally fired 5 years ago. An administrative law judge said so. CNN is appealing. It will be another 10 years before a decision is finale. The cards are stacked for the employer to keep the union out. Read the book :Secrets of a Union Buster". Written by a union busting lawyer.

The power of choice on simply signing or having an election is in the employees hands this way. Either way needs a majority of 50% +1. The cards can be mailed to the NLRB, so nobody sees your card IF you so desire.

Right wingers that say it eliminates the election are lying. Read the proposed bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.800:

[NYVet]

6. Sorry, but I am not in favor of unions.

I have worked in 2 businesses where the union came in and neither time was a good result, imo.


In the first business I worked at, I was only part time (15 hours a week for some extra cash), and when I got my first check after the union came in, I had wages equal to 2 hours pay deduced as union dues. When I went to the manager about it, I was told that the deduction was mandatory for all employees. I went to the union rep and asked what benefits I was getting from the deduction from my paycheck and who I had to talk to to get them.
He laughed, and told me that since I was part time, I didn't get anything, but but the privilege of working there.

Second job, I was full time, and the discussion of union vote came up. We had about 30 people working there, it was a minority of people who wanted the union to come in. We all knew who they were. The vote was held, punch ballots were used, and there were more votes cast then employees who were working there. The union won by 3 votes.
The owner of the business challenged the vote to the department of labor and won, the union appealed the ruling, the court costs ended up bankrupting the owner, who closed the business to pay the debts. End result, over 30 people lost their jobs.

[Omaha Steve]

7. Strange you didn't mention this in your first post here

Your experiences are different than most. A union is only as good as the input of the members. It takes more than paying dues. I see it doesn't bother you that I was fired for trying to unionize my shop. Or that I had the votes to win until I was fired. Add in my current union won my job back in June of 07, and I'm 2-0 on getting reinstatement for ILLEGAL actions. Fired for organizing. Fired for making an ADA complaint.

In the first case what did you make per hour compared to the minimum wage of the day?

In the second case, why did the employer fight till he was broke. Apparently it was badly managed, or would have figured out a union contract is better than going out of business. Ya I know it ain't that simple. But why were you against the union there?

But I did answer your question that reeks of right wing press that the election is up to the employees with card check. It seems this would have helped keep your second workplace open.


http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/why/uniondifference/index.cfm


Get the facts on why

* Unions Raise Wages—Especially for Minorities and Women
* Union Pay Is Higher in Nearly All Occupational Groups
* Unions Workers Have Better Health Care and Pensions
* Workers’ Incomes Are Lower in States Where Workers Don’t Have Union Rights
* Unions Are Good for Business, Productivity, and the Economy
* Unions Help Bring Low-Wage Workers Out of Poverty
* Unions Help Bring Workers Into the Middle Class

Learn more about

* Unions and Professional Workers
* Union Membership by State
* Union Membership by Industry
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* Download a one-page flier of the “Union Advantage by the Numbers.”
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* Unions 101, a one-page “crash course” on unions.

[NYVet]

8. For your curiosity

In the first case, I made about 5 cents more than the minimum wage of the day.

In the second case, it was because the business owner was an older man (in his 60's) who had run the business for almost 40 years and in his words, (I still talk to the old man and his family occasionally, I get Christmas cards too) "he would be damned if some outsider was going to come in and tell him how to much he was going to pay his employees and what benefits he had to give them".

It was a family owned butcher shop and he treated us employees fairly well. I think that the reason I was against the union coming in was because it was the same union I had dealt with at the first job ( at the time I was living in Binghamton NY and if I remember right, it was UFCW Local#1 that I dealt with).

And while I am sorry that you lost your job, I guess I didn't mention it because I have this dislike of the union due to my personal interaction with them.

[Omaha Steve]

9. That pretty much is what ALL employers feel, but that is against the law

He let his attitude put you and the others out of work fighting unionization even though employees have the legal right to try. And you wonder why labor laws need to be changed? Had card check won or lost at the shop, he wouldn't have gone broke. Read the proposed law. If he really treated them so good, why were people trying to get a union in?

One the first job, why didn't you go to a meeting to voice your opinion? You have that right too.

[NYVet]

10. The card check vote was a fraud.

At the first job, it was only a part time job and I was young. I didn't know my rights and instead of fighting, I quit and moved on to another job in the same field, which had equal pay and no union involvement.

As I said in my previous post, we had about 30 people employed there. When the ballots were counted, there were more ballots cast than there were employees.
He challenged the vote, won a revote and the union appealed the decision for a revote. They took it to court and that got some of us pissed off, along with the boss. We felt like we were being forced to take the union, like it or not.
I have no clue why some people were trying to get a union. Like I said, he treated us well. We were paid what other people in the same field were paid and had vacation time, and health insurance.
If we needed a couple hours off for a personal reason every once in a while, he would cut us out early and pay us for those hours instead of asking us to take the time without pay or use vacation hours.

It is in the past now and I have moved on, except for my dislike of the way some unions go about doing what they do.

[Omaha Steve]

12. The NLRB case files are all online

Care to post a link to the decision so we call all read it?

http://www.nlrb.gov/

Search:

[NYVet]

11. Edit for dupe post

Dupe post