Bush’s Supreme Court (and I use that possessive advisedly; it’s sure not “our” Supreme Court any more) has ruled the Holy Corporation supreme over mere employees. This story is widely reported, and Jeffrey Toobin’s comment on it in The New Yorker is particularly eloquent. In sum: you must bring suit within 180 days of any form of discrimination against you, even if you can’t possibly know about it until much longer after the fact. This, despite the common practice of corporate culture that raises and bonuses are not to be discussed among employees. Some companies, when executing a broad layoff, make you sign a statement that you will not discuss the amount of your severance package with other employees (still employed or laid off) as a condition of receiving your severance pay.

The cloak of corporate secrecy regarding employee compensation is on a par with Vice-president Cheney’s claims of privilege for his own office (whichever branch of government he finally decides he’s in). Forcing sunshine into that dark, dark corporate realm can take years, not a meager 180 days.

Maybe the narrow (and narrow-minded) majority of the Supremes believe that corporations are part of Bush’s faith-based initiatives whose support with federal funds it also favored by ruling against tax payers’ rights to challenge such funding. For now, I have zero faith in our highest court. How about we bring a reason-based initiative against them?

This just in, June 26, 2007:

Today, the New York Times reports that the Senate Republicans blocked the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have given workers “majority sign-up” rights, easing the way for unionizing. Given Bush’s ownership of the Supreme Court majority and the Court’s recent decision on employee rights in the face of discriminatory corporate practices, that’s not surprising.

Summer’s here, and the time is right for … or are you too overworked or too insecure about job security to take a vacation?

News of layoffs in the first half of 2007 may have contributed to your workplace collywobbles. The International Business Times lists: IBM cutting 1570 jobs; Hawaiian Airlines laying off 98 nonunion employees as part of its tactics to cut $4 million from its annual budget; Nokia Siemens Networks, the telecom equipment maker that began operations in April, laying off up to 9,000 people worldwide (about 15 percent of its work force); medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp. laying off between 500 and 600 workers; and ABN Amro bank cutting 900 U.S. jobs in 2007. Reports elsewhere remind us that Circuit City laid off 3500 long-term employees earning above the market rate, saying it would replace them with lower-paid workers; and reporting professionals themselves have been laid off at the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News and two dailies in Philadelphia.

The Economic Policy Institute provides another view of the potential we have for banding together for power in the workplace in its June 20 posting Strong unions, strong productivity. In brief, clear language and charts, the article reaches this well documented conclusion: “The dramatic drop in unionization in the United States from 1979 to 2005 did not lead to faster productivity growth than in the seven largest European countries with union density greater than 60%.  In fact, those countries’ average annual labor productivity growth of 1.7% equaled productivity growth in the United States. … If Congress is concerned about protecting middle-class incomes, it should pass measures to facilitate union organizing and collective bargaining coverage, including the Employee Free Choice Act.  There is no reason to fear that higher rates of unionization will impede efficiency or labor productivity.”

In light of those statistics, we should seriously consider encouraging our elected representatives in Washington to support the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800, S. 1041), which would “enable working people to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions by restoring workers’ freedom to choose for themselves whether to join a union.” The Senate began consideration of the bill on June 19.

Professionals need similar protections when we band together to ensure workplace equity. United Professionals is working for you.

“This morning, my nine year old son and and his friends were engaged in a heated discussion. They were excitedly rehashing the plight of striking workers struggling for higher wages and more vacation time. In the end, one of the workers, emboldened by union organizing fever, (supporters of The Employee Free Choice Act beware!), destroyed the workplace and they got their jobs back but at lower rates and what amounted to a giveback of benefits. …”

Click on link to read entire story

On March 1, the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800 - http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/) passed the House (241-185). Created by a bi-partisan coalition consisting of Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) the EFCA will give employees back the opportunity to join and form unions by:

• Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
• Providing mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
• Allowing employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation. (AFL-CIO)

But before the bill can become law it must pass the Senate and see the light of President Bush’s pen, so don’t start singing Billy Bragg’s “There is Power in a Union” just yet.
In fact workers in America may be humming a different tune especially since Vice President Dick Cheney let it slip in a recent speech to the National Association of Manufacturers, a group who has seen most of their jobs and industry shipped elsewhere, that the President will veto the bill anyway. If that happens, the only recourse is for a 2/3rds majority override of the veto by Congress.

I first became aware of the bill through my friend, Lisa May, a high school history and social studies teacher in Florida who sent out an email to everyone she knew about contacting our local reps to get the bill pushed through. She’s had plenty of union experience whereas I, however, work in an industry that has no real union representation or, seemingly, a glimmer of hope for one (welcome to the world of IT).

She tells me labor unions were given legal status in the U.S. in 1935 by The Wagner Act also known as the National Labor Relations Act.

“Once unions were legalized workers started forming and joining unions like crazy,” she says. “But in 1955 The Taft-Hartley Act, aka Labor-Management Relations Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft-hartley_act) was passed, which made organizing unions more difficult.” The Act was originally vetoed by President Harry Truman who labeled it a “slave-labor bill” but the Republican majority overrode the veto and passed the bill into law.

It’s ironic how the tables are switched these days, but will there be enough of a majority vote to override the imminent veto?

The Taft-Hartley Act also allowed states to pass “right-to-work” laws that made union shops illegal. So, while the NLRA gave unions the green light to operate for worker’s rights, the LMRA changed it to red and gave employers sharper knives to use to cut out unions in their shops.

“Managers would put employees through union busting meetings – workers were required to go to these meetings and during this campaign time unions were not allowed to be on company ground. It was intimidating to workers and made it difficult for workers to join because of the tricks employers would do,” May says.

“American workers have no idea how much the unions do for them. The [Republican] congress tried to get rid of overtime pay – they were trying to reclassify workers as salary workers to avoid paying overtime,” May explains. “The AFL-CIO was the only group fighting against them.”

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) have their fight cut out for them now as the wave of anti-EFCA propaganda hits the media from labor lawyers (union busters) and otherwise. Just recently, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an opinion piece penned by Richard Hankins, an Atlanta labor lawyer, not 24 hours after the bill passed the House. He claims that the bill will have “unintended devastating effects on the workers the unions claim to protect” and, oh my God what if Wal-Mart were to experience unionization of their thousands of underpaid, no-benefit employees – “One can easily imagine than an employer such as the retail giant Wal-Mart — a prime target of today’s unions — might choose the temporary inconvenience of a lockout over permitting an arbitrator to topple the first domino that could lead to a nationwide loss of control.”

Too bad Hankins wasn’t in the room while the House mediated for five hours about the EFCA on March 1. Testimonies from workers about harassment, job termination, threats of plants closing, intimidation and physical assault by employers and their lackeys to keep them from forming or joining a union filled out the debate and gave the bill’s bi-partisan authors plenty of ammunition to help it pass.

John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO states, “Because of today’s vote, the future looks a little brighter to all Americans who have watched corporations celebrate record profits, but have themselves been shut out of the party, left with stagnant wages and facing soaring costs. A union card is the single best ticket into the middle-class and, thanks to the Employee Free Choice Act, working people may finally have the chance to be part of a union.”

We unrepresented workers can only hope. So keep those cards and letters going to our elected officials to make sure the EFCA gets a fighting chance. Go to the AFL-CIO’s site at http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/ and follow the prompts under Take Action.
Videos of speeches from the House during the debate:
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=74