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What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?
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Employee Free Choice Act: Myth vs. FactMYTH: The Employee Free Choice Act abolishes the National Labor Relations Board's "secret ballot" election process. FACT: The Employee Free Choice Act does not abolish the National Labor Relations Board election process. That process would still be available under the Employee Free Choice Act. The legislation simply enables workers to also form a union through majority sign-up if a majority prefers that method to the NLRB election process. Under current law, workers may only use the majority sign-up process if their employer agrees. The Employee Free Choice Act would make that choice - whether to use the NLRB election process or majority sign-up - a majority choice of the employees, not the employer. MYTH: The Employee Free Choice Act will increase intimidation and harassment by labor unions against workers. FACT: Research has found that coercion and pressure actually drop - from both sides - when workers form a union through a majority sign-up process. Beyond this, harassment by unions is not the problem. In a study of a more than 60-year period, the Human Resources Policy Association listed 113 NLRB cases which they claimed involved union deception and/or coercion in obtaining authorization card signatures. Careful examination of those cases, however, reveals that union misconduct was found in only 42 of those 113 claimed cases. By contrast, in 2005 alone, over 30,000 workers received back pay from employers that illegally fired or otherwise discriminated against them for their union activities. MYTH: The Employee Free Choice Act would require a secret ballot election in order for workers to get rid of a union. FACT: Under current law, if an employer has evidence, such as cards or a petition, that a majority of workers no longer supports the union, then the employer is required by law to withdraw recognition of the union and stop bargaining, without an election, unless an election is pending. Under current law, the employer can and must withdraw recognition unilaterally, without the consent of the NLRB. The Employee Free Choice Act would not change this. MYTH: The Employee Free Choice Act would require "public" union card signings. FACT: Under current law, employees must sign cards or petitions to show their support for a union in order to obtain an election. And, under current law, when an employer agrees to a majority sign-up process, employees must sign cards to show the union's majority status. Signing a card under the Employee Free Choice Act is no different from these card signings under current law. The union authorization card under the Employee Free Choice Act is treated no differently than a petition for election or a card under a majority sign-up agreement. As with petitions for an election, under the Employee Free Choice Act, the National Labor Relations Board would receive the cards and determine their validity. MYTH: The Employee Free Choice Act's sponsors support secret ballot elections for workers in Mexico, but not in the United States. FACT: Members of Congress wrote to Mexican authorities in 2001 arguing in favor of a secret ballot election in a case where workers were trying to replace a sham incumbent union with an independent union. The Employee Free Choice Act is consistent with this: it would require an NLRB election in cases where workers seek to replace one union with another union. Indeed, the original framers of the National Labor Relations Act intended elections for precisely those cases where multiple unions were competing - particularly where one was a sham company union and another was a real independent union. From U.S House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor |
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Why We Need the Employee Free Choice Act
Thanks in large part to the efforts of union volunteers around the country, working families won a strong victory on Nov. 4, sending Barack Obama to the White House and electing a stronger pro-worker majority of senators and representatives.
However, winning an election isn't the end of the fight. Now, our elected leaders need to tackle the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They have to keep their promises to the people who voted for them-and we have to give them the support they need to make the tough choices. We need an economic recovery package that will turn around this broken economy for working families with good jobs, green jobs, re-regulation of our financial system and health care that works for all of us. But no matter what else we do, it won't result in real shared prosperity unless we restore workers' freedom to form unions so they can bargain for a better life with better wages and benefits. That's what this proposed legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, will do. The Employee Free Choice Act will:
- Put real teeth in the laws that are supposed to bar companies from intimidating, harassing-even firing-workers who want to form unions.
- Allow workers to form their union when a majority signs cards indicating that's what they desire.
- Require arbitration to end corporate foot-dragging when workers try to get a first contract.
The Employee Free Choice Act will level the playing field that today leaves all the power in the hands of corporations, not workers.
And Big Business and the front groups set up by corporations are preparing an all-out, $200 million propaganda and lobbying war to block it.
Unions have made passage of the Employee Free Choice Act a top priority for this year because it is the key to good wages, benefits, a voice in the workplace and the amplified political voice unions bring workers. In 2007, the U.S. House passed the measure and it had majority support in the Senate, but a minority killed it with a filibuster, emboldened by President George W. Bush's promise to veto the legislation. Now we have elected a new Congress that has promised to be beside us in this fight and a president who has promised to sign the Employee Free Choice Act.
Here are the facts on why we need the Employee Free Choice Act:
Working families are struggling. For too long, workers haven't had the power to get their fair share of the value they create. Workers are finding it harder and harder to stay in our homes, pay for our health care and save for our retirement. And our economy is suffering as a result.
Unions make people's lives better. The freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life is a basic human right, and it makes a difference: Union members make 30 percent more than workers who don't have unions. They're 59 percent more likely to have health benefits and four times more likely to have pensions. That's real economic security. Communities with strong unions have higher standards of living for everyone.
But the system is broken. More than 60 million workers who don't have a union would join one if they could. But under existing law, corporations essentially have a veto over the process. In our company-dominated system, workers can be intimidated, coerced and even fired by their bosses for trying to form a union. A decision that should be in the hands of workers is instead in the hands of corporate executives.
Why union members should support the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act doesn't just matter for workers who are trying to form unions. When more workers are in unions, workers have greater strength in numbers to demand good wages and good benefits across communities and industries. That raises the living and working standards for all workers and helps us all bargain for better contracts and counterbalance corporate power.
The Employee Free Choice Act means long-term shared prosperity. The Employee Free Choice Act is essential to rebuilding the middle class and ensuring the survival of the American Dream. We can build an economy that works for everyone if workers can exercise the freedom to form unions.
