When Barack Obama was elected, he promised a law to allow workers to choose to have collective bargaining. It has come up against massive opposition from industry and the US’s army of union-busting lawyers…
The United States of America has often been held up as a beacon of freedom, where everyone is free to choose. For those workers whose choice involves establishing a trade union, the choice is somewhat limited.
Even in health care the situation is dire, and largely unreported in Britain. For example a private health company called Resurrection Health Care (!) has settled 15 cases recently under the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB). These are cases which were identified as “unfair labour practice charges” filed by workers who have alleged interrogation, harassment and interference in organising activities against the prohibition of the distribution of union literature.
A veteran nurse employed by Resurrection Health Care, Kelly Beringer, says, “We are made to feel like traitors and disloyal when we talk about forming our union. Union newsletters and legislation updates have been removed from break rooms and torn down from our locker rooms. We are constantly told we are free to choose, but how is this freedom of choice, when words like ‘disloyal’, ‘extortionist’ and ‘negative’ are used to describe those of us who have made a pro union choice?”
One of the many promises made by Obama in his election campaign is to establish new legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). This, act, which has not yet been passed, promises to remove current obstacles for employees who want collective bargaining, guarantee that workers who can choose collective bargaining are able to achieve a contract (an agreement between the union and the employer) and allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorising union representation.
This point is seen as critical for employees like Beringer. Currently, an employer can demand a company-controlled election and workers would have no say in the matter. The EFCA would require the NLRB to certify a bargaining representative without mandating an election if the majority of the bargaining unit’s employees sign up to such cards. Critically, the choice would be up to the workers not management.
This “sign up” was a feature of the National Labour Relations Act in America, enacted in 1935 by the least reactionary of American presidents, Franklin Roosevelt. Lest it be thought that Resurrection Health Care is an especially bad employer, the following figures might enlighten:
• 78 per cent (91 per cent in Chicago) of employers force workers to attend one-to-one meetings against the union with their own supervisors.
• 51 per cent of employers threatened to close the plant if the union wins recognition.
• 75 per cent of employers hired consultants or union busters to help them fight organising drives.
Exporting union-busting
The union busting, for which America should be well known, has been exported all over the world.
Opponents of EFCA have immediately launched a $200 million campaign to defeat it. Working through front organisations with innocuous sounding names such as the Centre for Union Facts, organisations like the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chambers of Commerce, as well as giant corporations, are bombarding the air-waves and filling major newspapers with expensive advertisements designed to turn public opinion against the proposed legislation. They are also deluging members of Congress, who will have to decide whether or not this becomes law.
There are more than 2,500 lawyers in America involved in what is euphemistically called the “union avoidance” industry. These lawyers are engaged in such pleasant activities as, when involved in one-to-one discussions with workers, jerking their tie upwards to suggest a hanging, and openly telling other workers to spread negative lies about unions because the Labour Relations Board “doesn’t really care if people are lying”
A recent visitor to America (a former LSE scholar studying this multi-billion dollar industry) said recently, “The United States has an entire industry dedicated exclusively to stopping workers from forming a union. Several of these US consultants are now operating internationally and are seeking to expand their businesses in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. It is essential that union busting is not allowed to flourish on this side of the Atlantic. It is already here though; a recent case of a company being fined £5,000 for running an illegal blacklist of union members was described as an ‘inadequate’ response.” You can say that again!
The response of the TUC, to work closely with the AFL-CIO, is interesting. “Winning the organised workplace” has been one of the objectives of unions such as Unison for many years. And if unions are not seeking to win the organised work place, then what are they there for? The fact that in America union membership has dropped in the private sector to 7.5 per cent, compared with 30 per cent in 1960, means that the American unions’ approach may be a much-needed one; it certainly hasn’t been a successful one though, so we should beware of copying it too slavishly.
Whether or not the EFCA becomes law is a matter over which we in Britain have no control (although various interfering lawyers have arrogantly prevailed upon the TUC to seek to “mobilise support” for the passage of the act).
What we have got control over is recruiting workers into unions in Britain, and in particular going to young workers who are benefiting from generations of union organisation. They must be made aware now of what the risks of losing these benefits will be.