Employee Free Choice Act and Americans' Conception of Themselves
As a Union staffer I'm eagerly awaiting the renewed effort to pass EFCA and keenly watching the maneuvering around it. And unfortunately, I'm seeing EFCA as currently conceived to be a strategic blunder that may not only fail but also undermine efforts to expand workers' rights in the workplace.
The main pillar of EFCA is that it allows workers to form a union through a simple card check and dispense with the rigged and unfair NLRB election. This pragmatic approach has resulted in rhetorical response from the business lobby claiming that big bad union bosses want to take away workers' rights to a secret ballot and force workers to join unions against their wishes.
Those of us familiar with the massive unfairness and dishonesty of boss-controled NLRB elections know this argument to be dishonest and at best misleading. Captive meetings, closure threats, harrassment, firings, and lack of organizer access to the workplace are just a few of the obstacles workers have to contend with if they go the election route; no wonder why the most successful Unions now avoid the NLRB like the plague. Nevertheless, few Americans are as deep into the weeds of the issue and the argument does have enough resonance that we are forced to defend our position
The plain fact is that the argument - regardless of its dishonesty - taps into a basic American belief that our votes are our own and need not be disclosed to others.
And this is the problem. Once we're fighting on this conceptual terrain we're in an uphill battle.
A better approach is to see the Chamber of Commerce's Americanistic rhetoric and raise the bar to the Free and Fair Union Election Act.
The FFUEA would have these basic tenets:
First, it would be consistent with the values that Americans ascribe to themselves when it comes to voting and elections. Second, it would open up the workplace to organizers, giving them greater access to workers and dramatically reducing the climate of fear that comes with an organizing drive. And third, it would completment the important work of the very important organization American Rights at Work (which is supporting EFCA).
Workers have a lot of hills to climb and hurdles to leap in order to win the basic rights of association needed to improve the workplace and the country. We should make it easier by linking the struggle to a worldview that most Americans already hold.
The main pillar of EFCA is that it allows workers to form a union through a simple card check and dispense with the rigged and unfair NLRB election. This pragmatic approach has resulted in rhetorical response from the business lobby claiming that big bad union bosses want to take away workers' rights to a secret ballot and force workers to join unions against their wishes.
Those of us familiar with the massive unfairness and dishonesty of boss-controled NLRB elections know this argument to be dishonest and at best misleading. Captive meetings, closure threats, harrassment, firings, and lack of organizer access to the workplace are just a few of the obstacles workers have to contend with if they go the election route; no wonder why the most successful Unions now avoid the NLRB like the plague. Nevertheless, few Americans are as deep into the weeds of the issue and the argument does have enough resonance that we are forced to defend our position
The plain fact is that the argument - regardless of its dishonesty - taps into a basic American belief that our votes are our own and need not be disclosed to others.
And this is the problem. Once we're fighting on this conceptual terrain we're in an uphill battle.
A better approach is to see the Chamber of Commerce's Americanistic rhetoric and raise the bar to the Free and Fair Union Election Act.
The FFUEA would have these basic tenets:
- Criminal penalties with liquidated economic damages for harrassment, threats, or firings related to a Union election
- Equal access to the workforce, allowing Union organizers to speak with workers at the workplace during non-work times. Captive meetings would be outlawed.
- Secret ballot for certification and decertification.
- Mandatory arbitration on 1st contract if no deal reached through collective bargaining in 180 days.
- Card-check by supermajority (2/3)
First, it would be consistent with the values that Americans ascribe to themselves when it comes to voting and elections. Second, it would open up the workplace to organizers, giving them greater access to workers and dramatically reducing the climate of fear that comes with an organizing drive. And third, it would completment the important work of the very important organization American Rights at Work (which is supporting EFCA).
Workers have a lot of hills to climb and hurdles to leap in order to win the basic rights of association needed to improve the workplace and the country. We should make it easier by linking the struggle to a worldview that most Americans already hold.
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