Community Commentary: Workers deserve free choice on unions

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Article Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

America's working families are falling behind, even as those at the top of the economic ladder are raking in record profits. Wages are falling, health care costs are rising and retirement security is all but disappearing. America's once-powerful middle class is shrinking fast.

One of the primary reasons working people are getting left behind is they've lost their ability to bargain with their employer for better wages and benefits through unions. The laws covering how workers form unions are broken — gamed by corporations and not updated in 70 years. That's bad, because people who have a union earn, on average, 30 percent more than workers who don't have a union, according to government statistics, and they are much more likely to have health care and pensions.

In fact, unions are still the best support our nation has for our dwindling middle class. More than half of U.S. workers — nearly 60 million — say they would join a union right now if they could. But too few people ever get the chance.

Every day, corporations deny employees the freedom to decide for themselves whether to form unions to bargain for a better life. They routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to organize unions, and our nation's labor laws are powerless to stop them.

According to academic studies, three-quarters of companies make workers undergo intimidating one-on-one meetings where they are personally urged by higher-ups to oppose the union, while a quarter of private sector employers fire at least one worker during a union organizing campaign. By the time employees vote in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-sponsored election, the environment has been so poisoned that free and fair choice isn't an option. These types of dirty tactics have become business-as-usual and stacked the deck in favor of corporations.

The Employee Free Choice Act would strengthen penalties for companies that coerce or intimidate employees, and ensure that workers have a fair chance at winning a first contract with their employer. It would also remove barriers to workers who want to form a union by enabling them to organize a union when a majority signs union authorization cards, a process known as majority sign-up.

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safety in the workplace is left up to the individual to deal with management when there are no unions. Union representation makes sure workers are even aware of hazards in the workplace. Securing safer working conditions without a union is nearly impossible.