HOW UNION ORGANIZING REALLY WORKS

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=01&year=2009&base_name=how_union_organizing_really_wo

I gave this a shout-out in yesterday's tab dump, but T.A Frank's article on the effort to unionize Lancaster County's Rite Aid Distribution Center is an important read. Frank does something novel in the recent debate over easing labor law: He doesn't focus on card check. Rather, he focuses on the harsh realities of forming a union under current law. In the Lancaster organizing effort, for instance, the National Labor Relations Board -- Bush's National Labor Relations Board -- was so appalled by Rite Aid's brutal counter-organizing that they planned to take the company to court on 49 separate violations of federal labor law. Rite Aid chose to settle. That meant "agreeing to rehire two fired union supporters with back pay and to post a notice in a common area promising not to engage in thirteen types of illegal anti-union activity." Some settlement. The organizing campaign continued, and so too did Rite Aid's efforts:

Rite Aid insisted on an election, and the date was set for March 2008. Once again, the company did what it could to persuade workers to vote against the union. HR staff conducted mandatory hour-long sessions with employees once a week. They would lecture at length on why unionization would be damaging to workers. They would warn employees that the union would require high dues and stand in the way of healthy communication between management and labor. They would show videos about plants being shut down after becoming unionized. Meanwhile, by Warner’s count, more than 100 union supporters had been dismissed since June of 2006—although never, of course, for the explicit reason of having supported unionization. "We had a list of our people," she says. "And one by one we kept watching them get fired." By contrast, Warner says, only about ten non-union-supporting employees were let go in the same stretch.

Here is my fear: The unions have been so intent on defending card check that they have created a political battle over the specifics of their legislative solution. The air wars, thus far, have seen corporations on the offensive against card check -- taking away the secret ballot?" why that's undemocratic! -- while the unions defend its provisions.

That's insane.

There is no excuse for more Americans understanding the provisions of a hypothetical bill than understanding what a modern organizing campaign looks like. People get fired. Employees are forced into captive meetings where they are threatened and intimidated and warned of plant closures. Union supporters get brutal shifts, unpredictable schedules,and cruel workplace treatment. Those things are happening. Universal card check is not, at the moment, happening.

As such, there is no excuse for the conversation centering on the hypothetical actions of unions under some future legislative regime rather than the ongoing abuses of corporations under the current law. Towards the end of the article, T.A Frank notes that card check may be one of the least important portions of the card check bill. I don't agree with him: The unions and the corporate community are unlikely to both be wrong on the import of card check, which would completely short-circuit the employers ability to counter-organize. But he is right that there is much more in the legislation that matters. Frank continues:

Why did Rite Aid take so many chances with the law? Perhaps because it made economic sense. While the company’s actions may have been illegal under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, they were also nearly cost-free. If a company illegally undermines a union campaign by threatening to fire workers, or by spying on them, or by promising to shut down the facility, the most serious penalty it can expect to face is being ordered to post notices in the workplace promising not to engage in such activities in the future. If a company illegally fires a worker, and the worker can somehow prove his or her case, the penalty is a requirement to reinstate the employee with back pay—minus whatever the employee has earned elsewhere in the meantime. And if a company negotiates in bad faith, it can perhaps expect an order from the NLRB to start negotiating in good faith. Such punishments are the equivalent of punishing shoplifters by asking them to put the merchandise back.

FULL story at link.

[snot]

1. K&R'd!

[FreakinDJ]

2. It's what the Non-Union world doesn't know that they are scared of

Here in California when Pete Wilson was trying to eliminate the requirement of overtime pay after 8 hrs. 90% of the work force didn't know it was State Law they be paid overtime.

So education is also 1 of the most effective tools in organizing

[POAS]

3. The tactics used by employers

to stop organizing are in many ways identical to the tactics used against card check.

Fear, misinformation and diversion from the real problems. One could even draw an analogy between firings and targeting Congressional supporters of card check.

[.... callchet ....]

4. "Better dead than Red"

The right wingers have made such a propaganda victory battle out of that saying for the last 60 years. They make Americans feel guilty by association

of any social program. . We need a battle cry to counter that saying. We need a contest to get a slang term for demanding Human Rights For all

Americans. I come from a long line of union activists, My Avatar picture is of me giving a speech in Cleveland Ohio in support of the Teamster 20 years

ago. People need a saying that tells them it is there right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The right wingers have got the nation

feeling guilty about even thinking about any right to dignity let alone demanding it.

We need a battle cry to unify the workers, poor and underprivileged.

[FreakinDJ]

6. Unions are "Democratically Elected"

Everyone votes in a Union

There is nothing socialist about it

[.... callchet ....]

7. Neocons say the

very act of organizing for a "common" good is both socialistic and communistic. It has its roots in social behavior.

[FreakinDJ]

8. NeoCons = Dis-Information

and parroting it equals......

[.... callchet ....]

9. Is there a nickname for radical right wing conservative ?

[.... callchet ....]

5. You know what the dirty rotten shame is ? ? ?

We have a US Department of Labor. Ever hear of it ? We pay for it . I heard of it a lot. When they threatened my Local of which I was an officer with $5000 a day fines and federal warrants for contempt.