Give Me a Union, Not a Wheelchair: The Case for EFCA

"If the penalty for robbing a bank was you had to post a piece of paper saying you robbed a bank, we’d all be bank robbers!” a long-time union organizer once said to me.

Currently under U.S. labor law, the penalty for an employer that robs someone of their job for expressing their right to join a union is just that. They have to post a piece of paper saying they illegally fired an employee from their job. As a result, nearly, one in five workers are fired from their jobs during the lead up to an NLRB union certification election.

If you ever wondered why union members refer to themselves as "brothers and sisters" during union rallies, it’s because of the bond of solidarity that is formed during the intense harassment and firing of workers leading up to union certification elections. Companies hire union busting or "union relations consultants" 82 percent of the time  to run expensive, aggressive anti-union campaigns, costing typically in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. These union-busting firms are so effective that the biggest one, Labor Relations Institute, guarantees a defeat of a union-organizing drive or your money back.

Workers are forced to watch anti-union videos that imply starting a union will ruin their jobs, lower their wages, and erase their benefits. Employers threaten to close a factory 49 percent of the time  if a union wins an election (a violation of federal law)—despite the fact that only 2 percent of the time does this actually occur if a union wins an election. Workers are called in for a one-on-one meeting with their direct supervisor 90 percent of the time, where they make it known that they will be denied a promotion, stripped of their health benefits or perhaps even fired if they are suspected of supporting a union. Then to make sure there aren't enough votes for the union, employers will just fire a large number of union organizers right before the election

As a result of such Gestapo-style, union-busting tactics, only about half the time that workers petition for a union certification election are they actually successful. I have seen cases where we have nearly two-thirds of workers sign union cards when they petition for an NLRB union certification only to lose the election in a landslide after a long intimidation campaign. Studies have shown that 60 percent of workers want to join a union if they were able to but only 8 percent of private sector employees are members of unions.

Today, Sen.Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., will introduce the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers an opportunity to form unions freely. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow a union to be certified once a majority of the members of a plant signed a petition or card saying they wanted to be recognized as a union. No several-month period would exist between the initial certification petition and the NLRB certification election as it currently exists, limiting the ability of employers to pick off union organizers. In addition, the Employee Free Choice Act puts serious teeth into U.S. labor law, fining employers $20,000 for each employee fired—a lot more than the cost of the piece of paper employers are currently required to post.

A study done by Susan Johnson comparing places with such certification process known as "card check" and those without, shows that the Employee Free Choice would result in at least 10 percent increase in unionization. Many labor leaders claim it could be as high as 20-30 percent with new online organizing techniques and a popular President who is a supportive of organized labor.

Unions, as the president has stated, are at the heart of solving our economic crisis. As President Obama has stated, "When workers are prospering, they buy products that makes businesses prosper." Union members earn 30 percent more than non-union members, increasing the likelihood they can buy a house, a car, or afford to send a kid to college

Indeed, allowing workers to freely join a union will help to solve two of our biggest crises—our health care and retirement crises. According to Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, “unionized workers are 28.2 percent more likely to be covered by employer-provided health insurance." and "22.5 percent more likely to have pension coverage" than non-union workers. As a result 3,537,625 more people will have health insurance and 2,773,045 more people will have pensions according to a study done by the Campaign for America's Future.

More than just wages and benefits, unions are about something much deeper. A 62-year-old nurse I met while organizing a hospital in Martinsburg, W. Va., summed it up: "I see all these people everyday here that have had strokes that sit in wheelchairs that are completely unfunctional. Well I'm not going to let them put me in a wheelchair. I'm not going to let them put so much stress on me until I have stroke, am rolling in a wheelchair unable to even talk. I'm gonna fight, I'll do whatever it takes to a get a union in here"

What unions really do is giving people a sense of respect that is often stripped of them by all too often demeaning bosses and working conditions. Unions are about giving people a voice that is the core of our democracy and “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future