KEN ZELLER: Restore freedom to organize and bargain

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20090927/OPINION/909270321

By KEN ZELLER • September 27, 2009

The Employee Free Choice Act will provide much-needed, common-sense reform by making what amounts to rather modest changes in the National Labor Relations Act, which has not been updated in some 75 years. The basis for the reform is to restore workers' freedom to form unions and bargain for better lives.

Opponents of the legislation have been spreading untruths about what the act will or won't do. Let me try to dispel these distortions of the truth. First, the act does not eliminate the secret ballot election. Today, companies decide how workers form their union. This act lets workers, not companies, decide how the union is formed.

Let me be clear -- the Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot. The section of the act that deals with elections is still there. The act adds another, separate section that allows workers to form a union through majority sign-up. The choice will be up to the workers -- as it should be. Majority sign-up is a common and effective procedure already used by workers and companies. Businesses such as Kaiser Permanente, AT&T and Harley Davidson all use majority sign-up.

Our opponents say that the act will increase penalties that are unwarranted against employers that break the law during organizing campaigns. Our opponents also say that unions are the ones that intimidate and harass workers, but the facts say something altogether different. Since 1935 when the National Labor Relations Act was first enacted, there have been 42 cases against union representatives. But just last year there were more than 29,000 violations and in 2007 more than 30,000 violations upheld
by the NLRB against employers in this country for harassment and intimidation during organizing campaigns.

Workers should not be unjustly fired just because they want to be represented by a union. There must be real penalties to deter this kind of behavior by corporations.

FULL 2 page story at link.

[gratuitous]

1. This needs a kick

Yes, EFCA is highly necessary to bring just a little more balance to a very unbalanced labor picture. George McGovern and his pals in the Chamber of Commerce can go suck eggs. America does better when its workers do better. Gilded Era, Roaring 20s and Me Decades ruin the country for the benefit of a very few.

[Union Yes]

2. Rec.. Solidarity is patriotic!

:patriot: