EFCA

A United Middle-Class. Eeek!

Bill Scher — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:51:30 -0500

The SEIU has a brilliant new video skewering corporate executives and lobbyists pathetically trying to stoke panic around the Employee Free Choice Act, which will simply give employees the power to decide how to approach the question of unionization: be it ballot election or petition.

All the hysteria attempts to tar EFCA as deeply destructive to the American economy. But as the Workplace Prof Blog noted following a recent Wall Street Journal article: "What I find striking is that most of the economists quoted are pretty measured and speak only about some general effects[.]"

Further, Ezra Klein astutely observed that strengthening workers with the help of EFCA would not alter how much the American grows, but how we grow:

...the last great leap forward for unions was during World War II, and the last great expansion of the American middle class followed in its aftermath. In contrast, the most recent expansions -- which have largely occurred in the absence of unions -- have benefited America's rich.

Unions do not change economic growth, or at least there's little convincing evidence that they do. The countries with the world's highest growth rates -- the Nordic economies -- also have some of the world's highest rates of unionization. Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all approach 80 percent. Rather, unions change the distribution of economic growth. They direct more of it to the middle class and less of it to the executive class. The past few years have been an economy driven by the executive class. The question is whether that's what we want the next expansion to look like, also.

The 40 economists, including three Nobel Laureates, organized by the Economic Policy Institute to formally endorse EFCA explained in further detail:

...from 2000 to 2007, the income of the median working-age household fell by $2,000 – an unprecedented decline. In that time, virtually all of the nation’s economic growth went to a small number of wealthy Americans. An important reason for the shift from broadly-shared prosperity to growing inequality is the erosion of workers’ ability to form unions and bargain collectively...

...A rising tide lifts all boats only when labor and management bargain on relatively equal terms. In recent decades, most bargaining power has resided with management. The current recession will further weaken the ability of workers to bargain individually. More than ever, workers will need to act together.

The Employee Free Choice Act is not a panacea, but it would restore some balance to our labor markets.

Amidst the boardroom-fueled hysteria, where is the evidence that healthy unions actually harm national economies? As Matthew Yglesias pointed out, the "Index of Economic Freedom" published by the conservative institutions Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal, the nine other countries besides America in the top 10 (we're #6) all have higher rates of unionization than us.

When workers can bargain for fair wages in exchange for their labor and fortify their place in a robust middle-class, it does mean that the massive profits CEOs have been taking -- without strengthening the overall economy -- will be trimmed.

That may make corporate lobbyists suffer from hysteria, but not the rest of the nation.

Left Behind: Employees of Small Employers and the Right to Unionize

Dmitri Iglitzin — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:21:47 -0500

Non-unionized musicians at a small Seattle-area symphony orchestra, the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), have grown deeply dissatisfied with the way management treats them. Eighty percent signed a petition asserting their desire to join the Musicians' Association of Seattle, an affiliate of the American Federation of Musicians. As is typical of employers throughout the country, even when confronted with evidence of the overwhelming desire of their employees for union representation, the BPO has refused to agree to this request.

Under the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), employers covered by federal law would be forced to recognize their employees’ preference to be represented by union based upon this type of written showing. The business community is adamantly opposed to this measure, considering it, as President-elect Barack Obama stated on January 15 of this year, “the devil incarnate.”

Ironically, because the BPO musicians work for an orchestra too small to be covered by federal labor law, they will be left without any protections even if EFCA passes. This is because workers who work for companies that are too small to meet a certain monetary threshold typically have no rights at all when it comes to seeking the right to select or create a union to represent them in negotiations with their employer.

In 1999, example, the 50 or so musicians who made up the orchestra portion of Seattle's Civic Light Opera (CLO), a musical theater company, also decided that they wanted to join the Musicians' Association. More than 80 percent of those musicians also signed authorization cards stating that desire.

They never got their union, however. Nor did they get to vote in an election on the issue. Because the primary federal labor law, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) excludes theater orchestras that have an annual revenue of less than $500,000, as well as symphony orchestras with an annual revenue of less than one million dollars, these employees had no legal right to either form or join a union.

So when the musicians of the CLO did what workers have always done when they have no other recourse—strike—they did so without any of the protections they would have had were they deemed employees protected by the NLRA. Their employer responded to this job action by firing all of the striking musicians, which was completely legal under both state and federal law. Not only did the musicians end up with no union—they ended up with no jobs.

This story is repeated daily in this state and country. It is not merely relatively small orchestras which avoid the obligations of the NLRA, but all small employers. According to a 2002 report from the United States General Accounting Office (GAO), about 5.5 million employees nationwide are excluded from the protections of the NLRA as a result of the “small employer” exception.

It's too soon to tell whether the BPO musicians, despite their lack of legal protections, will succeed in their efforts to be represented by the Musicians' Association. A bill has been introduced into the Washington State Legislature that would grant employees of symphony orchestras, operas, and performing arts theaters the rights they currently lack. Among other things, this bill would (like EFCA) require employers to grant union recognition to their employees based on “majority sign-up.” Again like EFCA, this bill’s future is uncertain.

Among the most important features of EFCA are its provisions that impose financial penalties on employers for firing pro-union employees, penalties that currently do not exist. Unless the proposed Washington law passes, however, the BPO musicians would not benefit from these protections. Even if the musicians were fired en masse for their efforts to form a union, as happened to their colleagues at the CLO, there would be no federal remedy for them.

Should that occur, it would undoubtedly be a disaster for the musicians, the orchestra, and the community. Beyond that, it would be yet another illustration of the abysmal state of labor law in this country, one which needs to be rectified through legislative changes at not only the federal level, through EFCA, but often at the state level, as well.

Americans believe in the Employee Free Choice Act

Eran Lillestrand — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:52:29 -0400

In December 2006 Hart Research surveyed 808 members of the general public and 382 union members and the strongest argument for supporting the Employee Free Choice Act was the following economic argument: “The legislation is expected to result in more workers being able to bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.” 80% reason to support EFCA (7 % reason to oppose EFCA)

Americans support the Employee Free Choice Act

Eran Lillestrand — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:47:26 -0400

Over two-thirds (69 percent) of Americans support enactment of the provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).