Bookmark and Share
Comment and read the comments of others on the BlackCommentator.com Blog.  http://blackcommentator.blogspot.com/
Click to go to the home page.
Click to send us your comments and suggestions.
Click to learn about the publishers of BlackCommentator.com and our mission.
Click to search for any word or phrase on our Website.
Click to sign up for an e-Mail notification only whenever we publish something new.
Click to remove your e-Mail address from our list immediately and permanently.
Click to read our pledge to never give or sell your e-Mail address to anyone.
Click to read our policy on re-prints and permissions.
Click for the demographics of the BlackCommentator.com audience and our rates.
Click to view the patrons list and learn now to become a patron and support BlackCommentator.com.
Click to see job postings or post a job.
Click for links to Websites we recommend.
Click to see every cartoon we have published.
Click to read any past issue.
Click to read any think piece we have published.
Click to read any guest commentary we have published.
Click to view any of the art forms we have published.
Road Scholar - the world leader in educational travel for adults. Top ten travel destinations for African-Americans. Fascinating history, welcoming locals, astounding sights, hidden gems, mouth-watering food or all of the above - our list of the world’s top ten "must-see" learning destinations for African-Americans has a little something for everyone.
 
The Employee Free Choice Act: Corporate America’s Sly Approach - African World By Bill Fletcher, Jr., BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
 
Custom Search
 
 

So, the battle has been joined.  The announcement of efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act—legislation to make it easier for workers to join or form unions—was accompanied by the announcement of efforts on the part of corporate America to derail it even before it entered Congress.  Now that the legislation is in Congress, the battle lines have been drawn.  But corporate America has been handling this situation in a very sly way.  They are framing their opposition to EFCA in terms of their allegedly protecting the right of workers to a secret ballot election to choose a union.

One of the issues that is never being discussed is why is it that employers should have ANY say in what is or should be the right of workers to make their own decisions.  When you think about it, it is quite amazing.  The workers are attempting to decide on whether they wish an organization to help them to bargain to improve their lives and the employer has a right to intervene in this entire matter and, for all intents and purposes, intimidate workers into submission.

EFCA proposes that workers be able to choose a union via a mechanism called “card check.”   There is no mystery to this.  The idea is that workers sign membership cards and if they get more than 50% of those in their bargaining unit, the employer will recognize the union as their representative.  In fact, one can do this right now, but employers do not HAVE to accept card check today; they can in fact demand that there be an election.  EFCA would give the choice of an election or card check to the workers and not to the employers.

I have been on talk show radio programs where some callers will insist that an employer should be able to express their opinion on the worker’s choice of representative.  I continue to ask, why?  First, there is a power imbalance between workers and employers.  Workers know that an employer can fire and dismiss workers, therefore, the opinion or even an implication by the employer can distort the democratic decision making process.  Think about elections that have taken place in authoritarian societies where the election may “technically” be secret ballot, but the reality is that the voters know that if they vote the wrong way there will be profound implications (e.g., military coups; physical intimidation).  Thus, when employers call a worker into their office and begin to express their views on a union, and particularly suggesting that a union will result in the business closing or the loss of jobs, this creates a situation where it is impossible to have a free and fair election.  In fact, it is amazing that unions win as many elections as they do!

The second point here is that workers are explicitly restricted from involving themselves in most managerial decisions.  There are entire sections of collective bargaining agreements that are called “management rights.”  This means that the employer has the right to run the company as it wishes; pick supervisors; etc., without ANY involvement  by the union.  In other words, corporate America is saying to workers that capitalists have a right to run their own businesses as they wish without any involvement by workers, but they also have a right to interfere in the right of workers to join or form unions!

EFCA does not go far enough.   Employers should have no right to involve themselves in the worker’s right to choose their representative.  There should be severe punitive damages against any employer that involves themselves in a worker’s choice of whether to unionize or not.  This is not a matter of free speech.  This is a matter of restricting the ability of employers to intimidate workers and distort their (the workers) ability to freely exercise their statutory rights.

We need EFCA to pass.  In order for it to pass, millions of people need to be mobilized to realize that EFCA is not about building the union-as-institution, but about expanding democracy and advancing a process that has historically proven to be a mechanism to raise the living standards of working class people.  That is the significant challenge that faces organized labor and its allies, but it is a challenge that must be addressed if the fight for EFCA is to be understood by the people of this country as a fight that they must themselves enter.

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.

 

Any BlackCommentator.com article may be re-printed so long as it is re-printed in its entirety and full credit given to the author and www.BlackCommentator.com. If the re-print is on the Internet we additionally request a link back to the original piece on our Website.

Your comments are always welcome.

eMail re-print notice

If you send us an eMail message we may publish all or part of it, unless you tell us it is not for publication. You may also request that we withhold your name.

Thank you very much for your readership.

Your comments are always welcome.

 

April 9 , 2009
Issue 319

is published every Thursday

Executive Editor:
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield
Publisher:
Peter Gamble
Est. April 5, 2002
Printer Friendly Version in resizeable plain text format or pdf format.
Frequently Asked Questions
Comment and read the comments of others on the BlackCommentator.com Blog.  http://blackcommentator.blogspot.com/
click here to buy & benefit BC
Cedille Records Sale