In todays Globe, Joanna Weiss has in interesting editorial about public perception of unions. See here:
http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
She qoutes a recent Pew survey that shows that a majority of the public does not support unions. This survey result should not be surprising given the last three months of saturation from the main stream media about public sector unions being the cause of the state fiscal crisis. Though, this poll conflicts with other polls that show that a majority of workers would like a union in their own work sites, and recent polls that show that over 60% respondents oppose taking away collective bargaining rights from public workers as Gov. Walker is proposing in Wisconsin.
However, the more interesting part of her column takes on the issue of why don’t unions organize more workers. She ends her column: “If you can’t win them over, sign them up.” In order to be represented by a union, workers must under go a laborious and lengthly election process that barely qualifies as democratic.
In a nut shell, after a group of workers petitions that the NLRB for an election, the employer gets about 6 weeks of time to dominate and harass workers against organizing. Workers are called in to closed door meetings with their supersvisor or the company ceo, or with special anti union consultants who tell them the worst could happen to them if the union is voted in.
The union is not allowed to attend these meetings and is not given access to any
worksite meetings.
But the worst happens on the day of the election. Imagine if during the last presidential election all the voting locations were stationed in John McCain campaign offices; and Obama supporters had to confront McCain operatives who were massing out in front of the voting location and hired guards were filming everyone who came in to vote.
This is what happens during a union election. The voting location is most often the headquarters of the company. Managers patrol the voting area. Scarey looking security companies are hired to “militarize” the voting process. Is there any wonder that most unions try to avoid this “democratic” process.
Most polls show that a majority of workers want a union in their own work site. Yet only 8% of private sector workers are in a union. The broken process for forming a union is at fault. If it were as simple as “signing up” workers, then we would have much different balance of power in this county.
…a few relatively simple laws could be passed to alleviate this. For starters, people need to be given legally protected rights to organize. Currently we have requirements to display posters in workplaces regarding wages, hours, and safety; I would extend that to require postings about organizing rights and procedures. Ballots should be secret, which I realize goes against the card check idea that some unions advocate, but you could always tell the guards that OF COURSE you voted against a union (wink, wink), but if the ballot is secret who would know. Votes should be done at the worksite, or at a public or other neutral site in town, with access allowed to union leadership.
“service economy” even know where to start, in terms of getting into a union. A great topic for discussion, and one which I’m afraid I’m not terribly well informed about myself.
the only way to figure out how someone voted is if there is a challenge to the ballot, and it turns out to make a difference in the outcome (just like with regular voting), so the litigation over the ballot reveals the person who voted. Secret ballots have not prevented retaliation and intimidation, unfortunately.
The Employee Free Choice Act, for example. However, politicians from the Democratic Wing of the Corporatist Party seem uninterested. Those from the Republican Wing are thoroughly opposed.
“It is beyond me how one can possibly claim that a system whereby everyone – your employer, your union organizer, and your co-workers – knows exactly how you vote on the issue of unionization gives an employee ‘free choice,'” said Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the Subcommittee’s Senior Republican. “It seems pretty clear to me that the only way to ensure that a worker is ‘free to choose’ is to ensure that there’s a private ballot, so that no one knows how you voted. I cannot fathom how we were about to sit there today and debate a proposal to take away a worker’s democratic right to vote in a secret-ballot election and call it ‘Employee Free Choice.'”
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p>Former Union Organizer Details Tactics of “Manipulating Workers Just to Get a Majority on ‘the Cards
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p>The “Employee Free Choice Act” is anything but free choice, you vote becomes public.
And there’s no employer influence in the election process. No captive audience assemblies, no thinly veiled threats, no well-timed termination of union supporters, no keeping union organizers off the premises, none of that. The current “free” elections resemble those in Uganda and Myanmar.
A union never agrees to a card check unless it is certain it has a victory.
Thanks for your clarifying comment in the promotion….spot-on!