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Staff writer for the Post, Mr. Fletcher, in his article “Battle Intensifies Over Bill to Expedite Union Organizing” was silent on several points in addressing the highly controversial Employees’ Free Choice Act (“EFCA”).

Notably, passage of the bill would also establish more meaningful damages against employers who elect to maintain a union-free environment by engaging in union busting tactics that include -- captive audience meetings, wholesale intimidation and coercion of workers with threats of plant closings, relocations, outsourcing, downsizing and, more often then not, the disciplining and/or firing of workers advocating for a union.

These pervasive union-busting tactics have been reduced to an art form and have given rise to one of the fasting growing industries in the U.S. -- an industry in which lawyers and consultants make billions as hired henchmen for the employers. This -- despite the current “law” that prohibits these type of employer practices. Interestingly, such employers’ conduct is classified as “unfair” under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) -- a term that diminishes the severity of these outright “unlawful” practices that so brutally impact workers and their families -- both in financial and emotional terms.

In our society unlawful conduct/acts generally carry with them severe penalties that serve as a deterrent to lawbreakers. Not so when employers violate workers' rights under the NLRA. For example, a worker found to be unlawfully discharged under the federal statute can, at best, receive a back pay award for time lost -- provided they can first meet the onerous burden of proof demanded of them. Such back pay award is reduced however by any post-discharge wages that the worker may have earned elsewhere. In effect, in this convoluted application of “relief” in the current statute (NLRA), it is the victim that is required by law to mitigate the damages caused by his/her employer. Add to that the fact that adjudication of these cases can be prolonged by the employer for as much as 5 years or more, it becomes a win-win situation for the employer inasmuch as the victim is forced out of necessity to move on.

Against this background, is it any surprise then, that organized labor's ranks have been steadily “dwindling” in the U.S. Can we seriously expect workers who are seeking to be represented by unions to voluntarily put their heads on a chopping block -- in these, our American industrial slaughterhouses? Yet this is the real world and it is what workers and unions cope with on a day to day basis.

The second notably provision of the EFCA, would be those provisions that would force employers and unions into arbitration at the end of a one year period following certification of the union as the workers collective bargaining agent and when the union and employer fail to reach agreement on the terms of an employment contract. If workers survive the initial slaughterhouse tactics of the employer and manage to establish the union as their collective bargaining agent, an employer will invariably violate the law a second time, with impunity, by using dilatory tactics designed to frustrate and undermine the union's authority. This provision, although it will not prevent an employer from bargaining in bad faith during this one year period, would allow a third party “neutral” to scrutinize the employers’ conduct and to issue an award that would be final and binding on both parties.

It is easy to see and understand why the business community and the Chamber of Commerce would strongly oppose the EFCA. What is really objectionable, indeed laughable and insulting at the same time, is the reason the business chamber advances for their opposition to the EFCA -- that is, the corporations’ “concern” for preserving the right of workers to vote in NLRB supervised elections for or against union representation. Truth is, these “elections” simply buy an employer more time to intimidate, coerce, and punish union supporters at will. And why not? There are no real punitive damages assigned to such unlawful acts.

It should be sufficient, as proposed by the EFCA, that when a majority of workers within a workplace sign a document authorizing a particular union to represent them for the purposes of collective bargaining -- the workers’ expressed designation should be recognized and supported by the full force of law -- in the same way that one transfers a limited power of attorney to another. This is the standard that should be set for determining whether there is a sufficient showing of interest among workers favoring union representation.

Finally, the right of a workers to join or assist a labor organization flows from their constitutional rights of freedom or speech and association -- rights that should be as vigorously supported at the workplace as they are elsewhere. As it currently stands, the NLRA serves more as a bar to a worker securing these rights. Passage of the EFCA would move us just a wee bit closer to a real solution.

Paul Poulos

IWW PEOPLE

Benjamin Harrison Fletcher 1890-1949 dockworker, organizer

THIS MONTH in IWW HISTORY

In memory of Joe Hill and the universal workers’ struggle, The James Connolly Upstate New York Regional General Membership Branch of the IWW will be presenting an evening of songs and music in support of the universal workers’ struggles featuring George Mann and Julius Margolin & The Flames of Discontent on Saturday, 15 November 2008, at 7:30 p.m. at the Albany Free School, 8 Elm Street (at the corner of Grand Street, one block south of Madison Avenue), Albany.

For more information call (518) 833-6853 or email secretary@upstate-ny-iww.org

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The James Connolly Upstate New York
Regional General Membership Branch
Industrial Workers of the World
P.O. Box 235
Albany, NY 12201-0235