Labor & Employment Law

Frank on GritTV: Laws Tilted Against Forming a Union on the Job

By Seth Michaels

In a recent edition of GRITtv, host Laura Flanders brings together three panelists for a talk about the economy, the labor movement and political organizing.

In one of the highlights of this episode, Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew, does a great job of explaining our broken labor laws and how they’re preventing millions of workers from exercising their basic freedom to form a union:

You’ve got to remember that one of the reasons it’s so hard to organize in the workplace is that there’s a whole industry out there that has developed to stop people from organizing. There are polls all the time asking, “Would you like to join a union,” “Would you be interested in bargaining with your boss,” that sort of thing, and mostly, people think that’s a good idea?but that doesn’t mean you get to have a union just because you want one. There’s a whole bunch of structural impediments in your way.

For one thing, it’s very easy for management to bring consultants in to try and figure out how to keep it from happening. They have compulsory meetings with staff, they do one-on-one meetings with employees, they do all these things leading up to a union election to make sure a union doesn’t win.

All very true, and it’s why we need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act?to reform our broken labor laws and give everyone the chance to bargain for a better life.

You can watch the whole conversation here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on December 29, 2009 (boomark / email).