Organized Labor

Labor Center Conference Looks at Challenges Facing Pro-Worker Legislation

What are the prospects for labor law reform under the Obama administration? That was the question front and center at a UC Berkeley Labor Center/California Labor Federation forum in Oakland Jan. 5. Speakers focused on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), labor’s number one legislative priority for 2009, and how its passage would enable workers to unionize without the interference, delays, and legal and illegal barriers put up by employers.

What exactly is EFCA?
The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers to form a union when over 50 percent of the employees sign union membership cards. It would also impose greater penalties on employers who discriminate against union supporters, and would provide for mediation and arbitration when employers and unions fail to negotiate first contracts.

But business has pledged to fight passage of the Act tooth and nail, and has already gathered millions of dollars in a campaign to ensure its defeat. AFL-CIO General Counsel Jonathan Hiatt said labor needed to “win the public education battle” to get more people behind changing the current union election system administered by the National Labor Relations Board that favors employers.

John Logan, an economist with the Labor Center, explained that under the NLRB elections, when workers try to organize unions, employers launch anti-union campaigns that he said have become more aggressive. Using anti-union consultants and legal firms, employers can force workers to attend captive meetings and one-on-one meetings where they are fed anti-union propaganda and warned that workers will be laid off or companies will close down if the union drive is successful. Many union organizers and advocates have also been fired during or after union drives. EFCA would address some of the anti-union tactics.

Union organizer and former Contra Costa Times reporter Sara Steffens talked her own plight as one of 29 workers laid off by the newspaper after the Northern California Media Workers Guild won its unionization campaign last June. The Communication Workers of America responded to the retaliatory firings by filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board last July, dubbing it an “outrageous assault” and a good example of “why we must pass the Employee Free Choice Act.”

“They wanted me out of the newsroom,” said Steffens, “to keep me from engaging co-workers as we pushed for our first contract and they hoped this would send a message to scare people away from further union activity.”

Steffens described the use of captive meetings and intimidation of workers by the newspapers. “They spread misinformation about the union, formed an anti-union committee within the workforce and threatened to freeze wages and lay people off.” She said a supervisor who refused to sign an anti-union pledge was also fired. “They sent a message that union organizing is dangerous,” she said.

The AFL-CIO’s Hiatt said that Steffens’ experience was typical under the NLRB elections which are tilted in favor of management. He explained that EFCA would address the delays in winning a first contract for new unions by mandating arbitration if a first contract is not agreed upon within 90 days of the union vote.

He noted that this was a provision of the law that opponents are expected to fight and try to weaken or remove. He said that including the provision for arbitration “grew out of the reality that in almost half of the cases the employer never agrees to a first contract. Winning a first contract then becomes an extension of the organizing campaign. In many cases the employer can use tactics that are legal to stall.” A third element of EFCA would impose penalties on employers who discriminate against union supporters and “add enforcement and remedies to the law that is toothless now,” Hiatt said.

Hiatt said he felt the Act had a good chance of passing, especially if labor gets the message across to the general public and Congress that “Labor law and workers’ rights are critical to the economy. That has become even more apparent with the obscene disparity in pay between CEOs and the average worker.”

Hiatt noted that McDonald’s had announced that it would throw its super-sized weight into defeating the Employee Free Choice Act, and pointed to the company as an example of the extreme disparity in CEO and worker pay: McDonald’s CEO James Skinner took home over $12.3 million in total compensation last year – nearly 600 times what his 600,000 employees earns. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott is paid $31 million annually, or $16,000 an hour — the same as a Wal-Mart worker earns in a year. “Labor should play up this CEO pay issue now, when more Americans are aware of and concerned about it,” Hiatt said.

Hiatt added that unions are a benefit to the economy as union workers earn more (and are better able to afford to spend more), and unions impact the non-union sector by raising standards for workplace safety, health care, and employee rights. “Many economists see unions as necessary for growing the middle class,” Hiatt said.

On the political side, Hiatt noted that while EFCA would likely pass in the House and that president-elect Obama has already pledged to sign it, the challenge for labor would be getting the bill through the Senate because of the need to have 60 votes to invoke cloture (to stop debate or a filibuster and call for a vote). He mentioned that there may be a few Republican Senators who would vote for the bill, while a few Democrats were waffling.

Also featured at the labor law forum was New York Times Labor reporter Steven Greenhouse, author of the book, The Big Squeeze. Greenhouse is one of the few full-time labor reporters left in the country.
There’s no doubt the middle class worker is getting squeezed, Greenhouse explained. While income for the middle one-fifth of Americans has gone up by 21 percent (largely due to a second member of a household having to work more), those in the top one percent of income have seen a 228 percent increase. “People are working 500 more hours annually, about 12 weeks more than a few years ago,” he said.
Greenhouse noted that 53 percent of workers — about 60 million — say they would join a union if they could, but that union density has fallen from 24 percent to 12 percent of the labor force. “The main reason for this is employer opposition to unions,” he said. “In theory, we have a federally protected right to form a union, but in reality it is risky. A study in the 1990s found that one in 18 union organizers was fired.” Greenhouse cited stories from his book and said that in one case a pro-union nursing home worker was harassed and then fired. “After four and a half years of litigation, she was awarded $1,757 in back pay,” he said. “For the employer that was a small investment in union busting.”

“Employers can propagandize 24/7 but union organizers can be stopped from setting foot in the workplace,” Greenhouse continued. The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had pledged that business will spend $50 to $100 million to defeat the bill and that the battle would be “Armageddon.”

“If Obama gets behind the bill and says it is an important vehicle to lift the middle class then some Democrats will follow and even some Republicans will come on board. But it will need to happen within the first 100 days while he has the momentum,” Greenhouse predicted