Oregon this week joined New Hampshire in this legislative session in allowing state employees to organize a union whenever a majority sign cards asking for a union- a majority signup provision that's part of the federal Employee Free Choice Act that the Senate will be voting on next week.

But here's the thing-- states like Oregon & New Hampshire have the power to protect the labor rights of employees who work directly for them, but the second they hire a contractor to perform any public service, federal law prevents them from screening out companies that repeatedly violate their workers labor rights. This is one reason so many state legislatures have passed resolutions demanding tougher labor enforcement by the feds, including passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), but it's a criminal situation that repeat labor law violators have mandatory federal access to public funds.

According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), over 20,000 American workers are illegally fired or disciplined each year for demanding their rights at work. But since the NLRB doesn’t have the power to issue anything more than a slap on the wrist, these labor violations just keep going. And there are no penalities for chronic labor law violators at the federal level.

Decades ago, states had passed laws reserving government contracts for law-abiding firms, but a 1986 Supreme Court decision called Wisconsin Dept. of Industry v. Gould struck down a 1979 Wisconsin law which had denied state funds to companies breaking federal labor law three times within a five year period. The Supreme Court declared that however weak the punishment for illegal behavior was under federal labor law, those punishments were the maximum allowed and states could not screen out such companies from government contracts. Companies can therefore cut their costs by illegally violating their employees' rights and get an unfair advantage in bidding against law-abiding firms-- and states have to look the other way and hand over government funds to such union-busting firms.

Putting Teeth in Federal Labor Law Enforcement: Since states therefore can’t deter repeat labor law violators themselves, they need the federal government to help stop those corporate repeat offenders. This is what the Employee Free Choice Act would change.

Currently, the punishment for a company illegally firing a worker for speaking out in favor of having a union is that the company must restore any pay the worker lost due to the illegal firing. That’s it. There are no additional fines or penalties, just giving the worker back his or her lost pay-- minus any money they've earned since being fired. It’s equivalent to punishing a shoplifter by making them return stolen merchandise to the store with no other penalty—and has about the same deterrence effect on illegal corporate behavior as such a weak theft statute would have. And there are no increased fines for repeat offenders under current labor law.

Under EFCA, however, companies would be required to pay treble damages to employees who suffer illegal firings or other retaliation during the course of a union organizing campaign. And firms found willfully or repeatedly violating the law would be subject to an additional civil fine of up to $20,000 per violation. These are real deterrents to illegal corporate behavior.

It is unbelievable that a person who steals multiple times from a store can go away for life, but a company that illegally steals the livelihood from their employees through chronic labor law violations not only CAN receive public monies but is MANDATED by federal law to be able to compete for them.

EFCA is actually only the beginning of the reforms we need for serious federal enforcement of labor law. But as long as the feds are going to retain a monopoly on protecting workers labor rights, they sure as heck should be tightening enforcement.

The Senate will be voting on the bill next week and, especially those who live in state or have friends in states where the Senators make noises about being "moderates", it's worth jamming the lines with phone calls to demand that they address the problem of the 20,000 victims of labor law crime each year.