Support the Employee Free Choice Act - EFCA
"Revealing your wage or discussions about wages with other employees is grounds for disciplinary action up to and including discharge."
From an Employee Rules and Policy Handbook - 2010.
Can you believe this? It sounds too bizarre - archaic - to be true, but true it is. In this particular company, the 'rule' applies to office personnel only (the manufacturing force is unionized). Wage and salary tables for the 'white collar' and 'pink' portion of their workforce are secret, and any discussion of salaries among employees is totally verboten.
This is the situation in one Wisconsin manufacturing company, and one shouldn't be surprised to find it to be the norm in most others. Since the Reagan Era, unionized labor has shrunk to about 10% of the work force, non-union employees terrified to discuss unionizing for fear of termination.
This terrifying grip on employees has been a contributing factor behind the growing disparity of income in the workforce - and is one of the Draconian tactics used by management to hold their employees in submission. Linking this with what I call the 'Un-Happiness Factor' - the inability of employees to move from one job to a more fulfilling job for fear of losing their health insurance - positions too many of us as slaves to the corporate oligarchy, limping along with little zest for our jobs. Attaching the threat of outsourcing our job to countries with little or no civil rights, low wages, and environmental degradation helps to place our country in the lower tier on the 'Happiness' scale. And - Might you suppose? - contributes to the downsizing of American productivity on a global scale.
Anyone who was surprised at the economic collapse has not been paying attention. A country flourishes when there is a more even distribution of wealth; the greater the disparity the faster the decline.
It is time for change. And hopefully it will be coming with the passing of the Employee Free Choice Act. On March 10, 2009 versions of the bill were reintroduced in the Congress by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative George Miller (D-CA)
The overall purpose of EFCA, says Miller, is "allowing employees to make their own decision about whether they want to bargain together - to advocate for fairer wages, benefits and working conditions - without the threat or fear of harassment and retribution and fear of losing their livelihood."
The basic change is to give employees the right to choose a secret-ballot election in cases where less than a majority of employees have chosen to unionize through card-check. If a majority of workers have signed cards declaring their choice for union representation, a secret ballot would not be necessary.
Currently, it is the employer's choice to hold secret ballots.
Representative George Miller (D-CA) and co-sponsor of the bill stated:
The current process for forming unions is badly broken and so skewed in favor of those who oppose unions, that workers must literally risk their jobs in order to form a union. Although it is illegal, one quarter of employers facing an organizing drive have been found to fire at least one worker who supports a union?
Even when employers don't break the law, the process itself stacks the deck against union supporters. The employer has all the power; they control the information workers can receive, can force workers to attend anti-union meetings during work hours, can force workers to meet with supervisors who deliver anti-union messages, and can even imply that the business will close if the union wins. Union supporters' access to employees, on the other hand, is heavily restricted.
As Senator, President Obama co-sponsored an earlier EFCA, and supports the current bill. "I support this bill because in order to restore a sense of shared prosperity and security, we need to help working Americans exercise their right to organize under a fair and free process and bargain for their fair share of the wealth our country creates."
Passage of the bill, hopefully in May 2009, will not be easy. We have the CEO's and other despots of the corporate realm ranting and raving, screaming in desperation.
Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot calls the bill "the demise of a civilization?If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election," then these retailers "?should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs."
Walmart has been moving funds into the hands of Democrats towards this end (see above chart) - no doubt to discourage passage of the bill, preventing millions from organizing.
Tracking of the 22,000 union organizing drives between 1999 and 2005 shows that only one in five cases that filed an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board ultimately reached a first contract, this despite all the cases had shown substantial and likely majority support for representation.
The time for change is now. Please help the American workforce. This is where you can contribute to make America a better place to live and work. Workers of America need your support. If you have not contacted Herb Kohl to support this bill - he was a past co-sponsor but is now waffling - please do so. Do your part to put this bill on Obama's desk. He can't sign it if it doesn't get there.
Senator Herb Kohl
http://kohl.senate.gov/
Phone: (202) 224-5653
330 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
The
Manitowoc Progressive.
(This article appears in the April newsletter.)
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