Why Card Check Could Change the Economy

What is Card Check? Card Check will be THE most important labor change in the United states in a generation and a bill that encompasses card check among other things is called the Employee Free Choice Act. As of right now what happens if a majority of workers want a union? Currently, a majority of workers can sign up for a union, but the company can veto that decision and demand an election. This allows the company to fire or harass workers, and threaten that it will close the workplace, in order to coerce workers into voting against a union. I have seen it happen personally and I have been the subject of attacks both as a young worker and an organizer. One-quarter of companies illegally fire pro-union workers and 34% of companies coerce workers into opposing the union with bribes and favoritism. In 2005 alone, more than 31,000 employees were awarded back pay by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) due to retaliatory firings and other unfair labor practices by companies. Card check will allow workers to sign up for a union without all the harrassment.

Secondly, even when workers have won the right to be represented by a union, and even though both sides are required to bargain in good faith, companies can drag out the first contract negotiation process for years. And eventually kill the union. And companies face only minimal penalties if they violate employees’ rights to form a union or negotiate a first contract. There are several proposals floating around Washington to change this, but the best is called the Employer Free Choice Act. (EFCA)

Under EFCA, if a majority of employees sign cards indicating they want a union, the company has to recognize the union, as long as it is certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This is called "card check." Additionally, EFCA creates a fair process for resolving first contract disputes and EFCA would level the playing field by requiring the NLRB to take immediate legal action to reinstate workers fired for union activity and assess triple damages against companies that punish or fire employees for engaging in protected organizing activities.

Here is John Judas of the New Republic explaining it in layman's terms.

The National Labor Relations Board is Abominable

After coming home from Paris and dealing with striking railway workers for ten days it was interesting to come home to news of the abominable National Labor Relations Board. It is a bit of old news, but ironic that the workers in France, if unhappy - strike, upset the entire country and are joined in unison by Air France workers, all fonctionaire workers, teachers, students (yes, students), the museums, etc. It was both a little frustrating and completely invigorating. I heard about this assault by the Bush administration on labor by the NLRB, but after seeing real labor power in France, it strikes me as ever more important for the progressive movement to get behind labor and push for labor reform as soon as possible.

Recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board has unions and pro labor folks up in arms and the thought of a democratic presidency (one that is truly pro labor, not Bill Clinton) is also invigorating.

The National Labor Relations Board was established to encourage "the practice and procedure of collective bargaining" and to protect the "exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid and protection."

For years unions have been saying that the NLRB system is broken and has become a tool of corporate interests and not the worker interests it was supposed to serve. That is why the labor movement and its progressive allies are pushing to amend the law with the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). "But the recent NLRB decisions say that the corporate Bush backers are not satisfied. They want the law completely eviscerated before Bush leaves office to make it even more difficult for a new President and Congress to address the problems of the denial of worker rights in America."

The Change to Win Federation says that in the month of September alone, on the eve of the close of the fiscal year, the Bush NLRB issued 61, mostly anti-worker, decisions -- fully 20 percent of its total output of decisions for the year. Greg Tarpinian, the executive director of the Change to Win Federation wrote recently and most eloquently:

The onslaught of decisions that are a direct violation of the intent of the National Labor Relations Act that established the NLRB is particularly interesting given that more than half of the decisions were on cases that are over four years old. For an agency notorious in its use of delay as a way to deprive workers of their rights, the sudden spate of decisions suggests that the Bush Administration is in full court press mode and will use its last months in office to gut as much as it can in the area of worker, consumer, environmental, and other protections.

This President has not only run roughshod over the Constitution, he has also destroyed the administrative rules by which our progressive laws have been enforced. And he plans on finishing the job before he leaves office. Labor, consumer, environmental, and other advocates for the American Dream need to link arms together to stop him.

Here are some examples of the assault on labor cases. I am taking this from the Change to Win Federation website.

Harder to join a union, easier to get rid of a union

Dana Corp., 351 NLRB No. 28 (Sept. 29, 2007) – In its fervor to undermine majority sign-up - the right of a majority of workers to sign a card to express their desire to gain a voice on the job and join a union - the Board reversed 40 years of precedent and invented a new rule: even when more than 50% of the workers sign cards indicating they want a union and the employer respects that choice, a 30% minority of employees may, within 45 days of voluntary recognition, petition to decertify the union, prevent the parties from bargaining, and force employees to suffer through the NLRB’s lengthy and divisive election process. Adding insult to injury, the NLRB ruled that employers would henceforth be required to post notices making sure employees are aware of their rights to overturn the union’s representation, but the notice does not include any mention of employees’ right to form a union free from interference.

Wurtland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 351 NLRB No. 50 (Sept. 29, 2007) – The Board took the opposite view about the reliability of signing a card when it comes to getting rid of a union! In this case, the NLRB ruled that signatures on a petition were sufficient to get rid of an existing union and the Board rejected its own election process, arguing that employees who want to get rid of their union should not have to endure the delay involved in a decertification election. In Dana, the NLRB said that signature cards were not true indicators of employee support.

Harder for illegally fired workers to get back pay

St. George Warehouse, 351 NLRB No. 42 (Sept. 30, 2007) – The NLRB reversed 45 years of precedent and shifted burdens of proof onto illegally fired workers, making it harder for those workers to recover back pay.

The Grosvenor Resort, 350 NLRB No. 86 (Sept. 30, 2007) - The Board announced a new rule that workers who were found to have been illegally fired but who wait more than two weeks before giving up on getting their job back and looking for a new job work will be denied back pay for that period so as not to “reward idleness.”

Easier for Employers to Fire and Intimidate Union Supporters

BP Amoco Chemical-Chocolate Bayou, 351 NLRB No. 39 (Sept. 29, 2007) - The Board ruled that it was perfectly permissible for an employer to target union supporters for layoffs, and then to force them to sign release forms, as a condition to receiving severance pay, that prevented them or anyone else from challenging the legality of their termination.

This is a shocking assault on the power of the American worker. Know that every assault on any union worker is assault on all American workers, chipping away at what the labor movement achieved in America over the past 100 years. Take action and condemn the Bush administration's assault on workers.

Vive La France

I am sitting in a cafe in the latin quarter waiting to eat crepes and more crepes for dinner and dessert. I thought I would share the strikes with the states. Or at least some. The union(s) here are formidable to say the least. Here is an article that the postal service is joining the strike. What is more the students and professors are threatening a strike. Tourists are starting to complain.

The strike is certainly complicated, so much so my meandering through it would confuse. But, what is interesting to see (though many in France would disagree) is the power of the French worker. The strike is over a threatened cut in retirement, vacation and longevity. Instead of negotiation the workers striked (though not all are striking). The majority of the workers who have gained power and benefits that make ours look like a developing nation's benefits, do not want to give it up - including five weeks in the summer when the entire nation goes on holiday. Many say it is time for France to modernize and compete with America, Japan, China and India among others. I am not sure they are right.

What I am sure of is the French worker has power that the American worker cannot even dream of. Not only are they at the negotiating table they can paralyze an entire nation's transportation system. One metro user summed it up best. We were waiting for the Metro last night to go to dinner at the Eiffel tower which was breathtaking and suddenly an announcement came over the intercom that the Metro was retiring for the night. He looked at Nicole and I and said "vive la France." I join him.

I'm Sticking to the Union: Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger

Here is to the Writers Guild and democracy. Because unions are the most pure form of democracy Americans know.

The Office and the Writers Strike

october art events in the garden state

there are wonderful smaller museums, galleries and artist studios to visit in the garden state. bypass the crowds of manhattan, spend no $$$, and catch some art on the other side of the hudson!

passaic county community college houses a super collection at its broadway and LRC galleries and in the historic hamilton club, including photographer george tice, ben shahn (see his mlk, jr lithograph from 1968) and paterson sculptor Gaetano Federici.

see tons of artists' work at the jersey city artists studio tour.

take a walking tour of historic paterson on 10/27 to learn about Fred Wesley Wentworth (p-town's leading architect from 1890 to 1944), which includes visiting over a dozen buildings downtown such as the paterson ymca where i work and the courthouse where i served as a judge's "chambermaid."

check out celeste rapone's ultra-realistic oil paintings and portraits at the lena di gangi gallery in totowa. celeste is a recent RISD grad. (see gimme gimme gimme painting)

in honor of emma "the red" goldman, see a documentary on anarchists sacco and vanzetti by film maker peter miller at the american labor museum in haledon on 10/19 and also see the museum's union t-shirt quilts exhibit, the shirts off our backs.

Happy Labor Day

Kucinich speaking the truth.