Constitutional Law

Why Can't 60 Million Americans Get What They Want?

by Julie Martinez Ortega, Director of Research, American Rights at Work

Sixty million non-union workers say they would join a union if they could, yet only sixteen million workers belong to unions in the United States. There are many ways to explain this discrepancy—for instance, aggressive unionbusting by employers and changes in the global economy—yet it’s hard to deny the impact of our weak labor law, made much worse by the Bush-appointed members of the National Labor Relations Board. 

In her ACS Issue Brief about last September’s slate of anti-worker decisions by the Labor Board, Ann Marie Lofaso highlighted the Dana Corporation ruling as symbolizing the “Bush Board’s vigorous resistance to union organization and perhaps even signal[ing] a new era of government repression of unionization.”

For years workers have successfully formed unions through voluntary recognition, a process where employers agree to recognize a union once a majority of workers sign cards. This peaceful, swift, and non-disruptive organizing method provides an alternative to the flawed NLRB election process. Yet in Dana, the Republican majority of the Board radically changed the law, allowing a minority of workers to thwart the will of the majority and attempt to de-certify a union just recognized by the employer.

For forty years, the NLRB protected a newly-formed union from an immediate threat of decertification to allow for stability during the negotiation of a first contract. In Dana, the Board created a 45-day window in which as few as thirty percent of anti-union employees can sign a petition triggering an election to decertify the union. 

Lofaso wrote that coupled with other recent decisions, Dana shows the Board’s “predilection not only for making unionization more difficult but also for making decertification easier.” For evidence that these decisions are already frustrating the efforts of workers seeking to form unions, look at the recent experience of a group of AT&T employees.

On April 3, AT&T technicians in New York voted in favor of a union for the second time with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), 26 to 7. Two months prior, AT&T recognized these workers’ union after the American Arbitration Association certified that a majority of employees signed union authorization cards. Yet rather than winning the benefits and protections of CWA’s regional agreement with AT&T immediately after forming their union, workers had to endure the rigamarole of an NLRB election after a minority of the unit filed a decertification petition. They now enjoy the benefits of a union contract—but waited unnecessarily to win them.

While we can hope that the next Labor Board will actually uphold the purpose of the law—to support workers’ efforts to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions—the law itself is deeply flawed. That’s why it’s crucial that Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to form unions. A majority in the House passed the bill last year, yet it couldn’t survive an implacable filibuster in the Senate. Yet the bill will be reintroduced next year, when it will hopefully gain a more positive hearing. Those 60 million workers are going to need all the help they can get to start organizing and rebuilding the middle class.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on May 20, 2008 (boomark / email).