EFCA

Q&A with Veteran Labor Organizer Stewart J. Acuff

Leo Gerard — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:15:39 -0400

Leo W. Gerard: Stewart, you talk about power in a book you’ve written with economist Dr. Richard A. Levins. You called the manual, “Getting America Back to Work.” What’s the relationship between power and getting people back to work?

Stewart J. Acuff: A big part of the problem we have with this economy or the biggest problem is that most of the money has gone to the Financial Elite -- and the power as well. To get America back to work we have to reinvest in our country and our workers. That necessarily means that the Financial Elite get less of the wealth generated by the economy and workers will get more. If you intend to take wealth from the richest people in the history of the world, you have to have enough power to do so.

Gerard: You say in the introduction that there are two kinds of power: “The first is lots of organized money. That is the kind of power the Financial Elite have used to bring the rest of us to our knees. The other source and form of power is lots of people: organized, mobilized, united, and taking action.” Do you really think that organized people can succeed in a wrangle with the financial elites?

Acuff: Absolutely! The economic history of the twentieth century is crystal clear. When unions were strong, working people had the lion's share of income and the economy worked well. When unions were weakened, we have seen the Financial Elite take over and run the economy into the ground.

That’s why passing the Employees Free Choice Act is more important than ever. When we strengthen unions, we strengthen the economy.

Gerard: Now, Stewart, you sound like some kind of Socialist talking about the fact that at times in the nation’s history the financial elite received collectively as little as 9 percent of the total income earned by Americans but at other times – like right now and right before the Great Depression – the financial elite grabbed more than 23 percent of all income. I mean, aren’t you afraid the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck will accuse you of opposing just rewards earned by the barons of capitalism?

Acuff: Well, my friend, those aren’t just rewards. As my friend Jim Hightower said, members of the Financial Elite were born on third base and say they hit a triple. It’s beyond comprehension that the trading of phony financial instruments like derivatives produces rewards. What produces just rewards is manufacturing and producing goods and services that people need and want. The person who needs just rewards today is the hotel maid who cleans rooms for a living or the overstressed nurse who can’t get to all her patients or the skilled but out-of-work construction worker waiting for the chance to earn an honest day’s pay.

Gerard: Okay, but then you start talking about income tax rates. Are you really suggesting that the current maximum of 35 percent be raised to the 90 percent that it was during the 1950s? Would that not just enrage the financial elite?

Acuff: Yes, it would enrage the Financial Elite and Dr. Levins and I haven’t made that case in this book. Certainly the income tax rate for the richest among us is far too low. When Warren Buffet himself says he pays a lower percentage of his income in taxes than does his secretary, that’s a problem.

We wouldn't need to rely on taxes to redistribute income if we had the right mix of union power and corporate power. Instead of a few massive fortunes, we would have millions of working people being productive and using fair wages to stimulate economic growth.

Gerard: Since the days of Reagan, Republicans have told us that taxes on the financial elite should be cut because they need all that money to “re-invest” in the system. That way, the GOP line goes, wealth will trickle down on the “little people.” This hasn’t really worked, has it?

Acuff: No! Not at all! Since the days of Reagan workers wages have stagnated and declined while our productivity has increased. Wealth does not trickle down. Have you seen any of the TARP billions trickling into your pocket lately? I sure haven't. All I saw was obscene bonus payments to those who caused the mess in the first place.

Gerard: Halfway through the book, you suggest working people can have it all – family-supporting jobs, health insurance, even Social Security. Those on the radical right tell us daily that’s impossible because of the national debt. How can you justify such a vision?

Acuff: More income means more tax revenue, more economic growth and economic activity. We lift the economy from the bottom, not from the top.

Gerard: Then you have the audacity to quote some old economists claiming, “An efficient and humane society requires both halves of the mixed system – market and government.” We know, because the right-wing has told us repeatedly, that government is bad, that it should be shrunk and drowned in a bathtub. Where did you and Professor Levins come up with this new-fangled idea that government could help?

Acuff: It’s not a new idea. It says right in the ECON 101 text that Dr. Levins used in his classes that "markets without government is just one hand clapping." From the destruction of 2 trillion dollars of America’s wealth by Wall Street to the incessant pouring of oil from BP’s hole in the bottom of the Gulf, we know that capitalism must be regulated and constrained for the sake of everyone.

Gerard: Which brings us to organized labor. You quote President Kennedy saying, “Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor – those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization – do a disservice to the cause of democracy.” Isn’t that exactly what has happened since the days of Kennedy, a slow destruction of the labor movement with corporations, union-busters and sometimes government regulators all working together to rob labor unions of the power they built between the 1930s and 1950s?

Acuff: Yes, you’re absolutely right. The results are the mal-distribution of wealth and power and massive recession, a shrinking middle class, a starved consumer demand, and a weaker America.

Gerard: The book was written and published before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that was drilling for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it somewhat prophetic, then, that you discuss the need to move from a fossil fuel-based economy to one that creates jobs with renewable energy sources?

Acuff: I can’t speak to prophecy though I am a huge fan or both Isaiah and Jeremiah. We’ve long known that America needs to generate its own free energy from free resources like the wind that never stops blowing on Great Plains, the sun that never stops shining in the deserts of Arizona, and incessant pull of the ocean’s tide.

Gerard: I was glad to see the chapter discussing the importance of maintaining and supporting manufacturing in America. For those still unconvinced, why is that so important?

Acuff: Well, we don’t need to maintain just current manufacturing capacity. We need to increase manufacturing capacity. That is how to generate wealth. We create wealth by making things that other people want to buy and that is the best way to build a sound economy.

Gerard: You sound a little bit like a preacher at the end where you state the four values that Americans can believe in. Do you think America can organize around those values and take on the financial elite?

Acuff: Yes, I do! I think what we need is a reinforcement of fundamental human values. We’re all in this together; there is a common good; we are our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers, and workers win and have always won by exercising collective power against the individual power of the Financial Elite.

***

Stewart Acuff is chief of staff for the Utility Workers Union of America. He has organized for 30 years, beginning in 1982 with the SEIU. In 1990, he became president of the Atlanta AFL-CIO. There he led the campaign to organize the 1996 Olympics. A decade later, he went to work for the national AFL-CIO, serving as organizing director from 2001 to 2008. He led the AFL-CIO campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

***

Dr. Richard Levins is professor emeritus of applied economics at the University of Minnesota. He is an award-winning author of books about policy and market power.

Hey, Union-Busters: We’ll Give You Supermajority

Leo Gerard — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:43:53 -0400

Corporate CEOs, union-busting lawyers, and conservative politicians who pander to the rich condemned a National Mediation Board (NMB) Ruling this week.

They complained that the NMB gave railway and airline workers the ability to obtain collective bargaining rights through majority-rule elections. That’s the type of balloting that occurs under universal democratic rules. Everyone qualified to vote is invited to participate, and the outcome is determined by the majority of those who cast ballots.

The anti-worker-rights groups wanted the NMB to retain a different kind of election – one that requires the winner to receive votes from the majority of all of those qualified to participate -- essentially, a supermajority.

This is an exciting new development. Up until now CEOs, union-busters, and particularly conservative Republicans, have actively opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, mainly because of a provision they call “card check.” But card check provides exactly what they now say that they want – a determination made by the majority of all of those qualified to participate. So, clearly, since they’re so upset by the end of supermajority rule for airline and railroad workers, they’d be happy if Congress intervened and instituted it for all workers by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

For a little over 70 years, the NMB, which governs collective bargaining by airline and railroad workers, mandated supermajorities. When a group of workers, let’s say Delta Airline Flight Attendants, sought the right to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions, the NMB conducted an election in which it counted those who voted yes as supporting the proposal; those who voted no as opposing, and all those who didn’t vote as opposing.

The NMB arbitrarily placed the non-voters in the “no” ballot box. To win an election, the NMB required collective bargaining supporters to receive votes from a majority of all those eligible – those who voted combined with those whose ballots the NMB inexplicably stuffed in the “no” box after they did not vote.

Compounding that supermajority obstacle was the NMB practice of permitting employers to determine who was eligible to vote, then excusing them from providing that list to workers seeking collective bargaining. This created an incentive for employers to “accidently” include the names of workers who’d quit or retired -- ineligible voters whose inability to cast ballots created automatic “no” votes. Writing about losing an election in 2008, Delta flight attendant Linda Sorenson said airline officials released its list after the balloting. Among other problems, it included the name of a deceased worker. Sorenson wrote:

“The company acknowledged her death, but the NMB – whose . . . chair had been a Northwest (airline) lobbyist – refused to remove her. She became a vote against representation.”

Airline and railroad workers found the supermajority rule confounding in what is supposed to be a democratic system. Writing the NMB to request the rule change, Jamin B. Raskin, a law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1937 that a supermajority is not required, partly because established democratic practice is:

“Those who do not participate ‘are presumed to assent to the expressed will of the majority of those voting.’”

The NMB ignored the Supreme Court and continued requiring a supermajority – until Monday. Then it joined the National Labor Relations Board, which complied with the Supreme Court decision and allowed majority-rule elections for the vast majority of U.S. workers whose collective bargaining rights it governs.

The minute the NMB proposed the change to majority-rule elections last fall, anti-worker-rights groups started pitching a fit. Union-busting law firm Winston & Strawn wrote, for example, that the NMB should not change a rule that had been in effect for nearly 75 years. It contended that elections for workers should be different from elections for political candidates and referendums:

“The change would enable unions to obtain representation simply by winning a majority of votes cast, as opposed to a majority of all employees eligible to vote on the issue . . . Under the proposed new rule, a minority of workers could effectively select a union representative on behalf of a much larger potential bargaining unit.”

Conservative Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia agreed, protesting in a news release that Monday’s decision gave workers the same rights as all others in a democratic system:

“The final rule change, which was issued today, would affect companies under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act by allowing union elections to be decided by only a majority of workers who cast ballots, reducing the number of votes it takes for a union to win.”

The solution to Isakson’s complaint is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. That legislation would require consent of a majority of eligible workers for the awarding of collective bargaining rights.

Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers seeking collective bargaining rights would collect signatures among their co-workers. If more than half of all eligible workers signed cards in support, the NLRB or NMB would recognize the workers as having the right to collectively bargain with the employer for the benefit of all of the workers.

This process would guarantee that a majority of all eligible workers supported collective bargaining before it could occur. It is a process that was routinely used to secure collective bargaining rights in the early days of union organizing in this country. It gives anti-worker-rights groups such as Winston & Strawn exactly what they’re demanding – a supermajority.

The process is not an election. But with secret balloting, requiring a supermajority is undemocratic. No one can be compelled to vote in a democratic system. And counting those who don’t vote as supporters of collective bargaining is just as logical as tallying them as unanimously opposed.

The solution provided in the Employee Free Choice Act is elegant and historically valid. It’s great that Isakson and his fellow conservative Republicans in the U.S. Senate now back the supermajority concept that the Employee Free Choice Act achieves through “card check.”

Busting the power of conservatives in both parties

Dennis Baer — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:51:32 -0500

From: http://www.democratz.org

Hello

I HAVE YOUR NON VIOLENT PROTEST HERE: Busting the power of the corporations and the conservatives in the Republiklan and Democratic Parties and My letter to President Obama. We do not need to go out in the streets. We merely decide to stop buying products from companies that give money to conservatives. We will not get arrested nor get ignored.

At the end of this message I have a plan to destroy the power of the conservative coalition of Democrats and Republican members in congress. Conservative Democrats and Republicans have thwarted an increase in the minimum wage to $10 an hour, EFCA, Health care and more. I urge people to boycott consumer products from some major companies that contribute money to conservatives in both parties and pressure these CEOs with the potential huge loss of income and force them to go to conservatives in congress and get us progressives the legislation we demand. If you like this then please consider spreading the word. Yes, we need elections and getting progressives elected BUT look what has happened even with Democratic majorities in both house and senate and a Democratic President. We have gotten thwarted and we need a strategy that will get us progressive legislation between elections and this strategy needs to get considered. What has worked to get us needed legislation that hasn't gotten watered down or stopped? Do you have a better way? If not then consider this.

Thank you.

I sent this letter to President Obama by fax the other day.

Dear President Obama

I come to you today to praise you and to criticize you and to petition you.

I want to tell you a true story which just happened a few days ago. I came into this world 4 years after World War II. When I grew up partly in New York City and Partly in Nassau Country New York, as a young boy I would watch Meet the Press. I watched this show as a boy of 6 or 7. I watched the people of the era talk about the issues. I also watched Mike Wallace's You are there as well. I recall seeing other programs about famous people. I saw newsreels of a man who wore a white sheet. NO! not that kind of white sheet! Mohandas Gandhi, wore a white sheet of cotton. Why did Gandhi wear white sheets? He wanted to set an example for his people to make their own cloth and not buy goods from his oppressors who occupied his country.

He appeared a modern day Moses, but of another religion. I have a number of heroes like Gandhi. Most of them died, except for Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Considering myself a Jewish person, I find that good that people from other religions and other people's can serve as examples for heroes as it tends to unite people of different backgrounds. Each of these heroes, Moses, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu eventually brought their oppressors down by not cooperating with their oppressors.

The other day, I spoke to the great grandson of Mohandas Gandhi. I had sought to speak to his father, the grandson of Mohandas Gandhi. I never expected to ever speak to anyone in this family of Gandhi. I told him that I thanked his great grandfather for his work and that he inspired me as I used to see newsreels of his great grandfather during the 1950's and 1960's and especially using boycotts to eventually uniting his people of India to eject their oppressors out of their country. I told Gandhi's great grandson of my electronic PAMPHLET on the web and again thanked him and said good day.

Now, I say to you Mr. President, that I want a real populist President similar to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and I and other people will make you do it, just like FDR told his supporters to make him do what they wanted him to do.

So in the tradition and inspiration of Moses and Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu and their people I say to you again we will make you do it.

How? By boycotting the products of those of your friends in corporations who donated money to you, and donated money to Republicans and to conservatives in the Democratic party who have led this country down a path to the second great depression. The only reason that we have not descended further appears that we had citizens back about 77 years ago who made FDR do it and had good regulations in place today that the conservatives in both parties want to repeal. So from now on I will no longer donate money to the Democratic party although I remain a member. Again I will not buy products from major companies that donate money to conservatives in both parties and I will demand progressive legislation that really helps the poor and middle class people instead of the undeserving wealthy at this point of crisis in our country, of the CEOs that run those companies and until that happens they will lose business from me and many other people such that we will put pressure on those CEOs to help get us the legislation that we want.

I agreed with the bailout of the banks and the partial nationalization of GM and Chrysler but now it appears OUR turn such that we get a $10 an hour minimum wage, a passage of the employee free choice act, a passage of the women's freedom of choice act, a passage of a compromise SINGLE PAYER PUBLIC OPTION paid for by general taxes which will allow private health insurance but in which those who choose this new single payer public option will have no premiums, no copayments, no yearly deductibles, no recisions, no rejection for preexisting conditions and cover everything: doctors visits, surgery, hospital stays, abortion, dentistry, eye care, nursing home and hospice care and home care and it will serve as a health insurance EXODUS so that the private health insurance companies will let our people go. We also need to end the war in Iraq and a way to end the war in Afghanistan but we need to help build Afghanistan up so the Taliban and Al Qaeda will no longer get the favor of some people in Afghanistan. We need other legislation that helps those less fortunate in our country.

Republicans only talk about freedom but they offer us no real solutions. These Republican corporate masters only offer us FIEFDOM and wage slavery and a kind of slavery to insurers where they exploit the economic conditions of those who don't have enough money to pay for their insurance and not freedom. These Republican corporate masters offer their middle class and even poor supporters FREEDUMB organizing them in a rabble of misnamed fake populist Tea partiers for which those Boston patriots of a few centuries ago would probably say, hey these Republican FREEDUMB lovers HAVE REPRESENTATION, so what excuse do they have for disrupting government town halls that we helped to establish?

Really Mr. President, those present day so called tea partiers appear a perversion of those real patriots that helped liberate our country a few centuries ago. Do these false tea partiers stand for a living wage? No. Do these false tea partiers stand for unions? No. Do these false tea partiers stand for helping those less fortunate in our country? No.

These Recruited Republican FREEDUMB lovers claim that they appear PATRIOTs.

I say NAY, those Recruited Republican rabble appear as

stand PAT RIOTers

disrupting government who attempt to help the less fortunate in our country. How many times have I seen or heard this Republican rabble express their contempt for the poor and less fortunate in the middle class? I have seen and heard such contempt by these conservatives for decades blaming most of the poor and less fortunate middle class for their own problems as an excuse to shift blame away from many corporations who disadvantage such people and also as an excuse to have government dissolve in the area of social justice.

These Republican rabble stand PAT RIOTers want us to stand pat for their corporate masters to continue to profit on the suffering of people in many areas and not just health care. They want us to stand pat and yell no more higher taxes deliberately wanting the American people to not see the way corporate governors want to PRIVATELY TAX people with low pay aka Cheap labor aka wage theft not giving workers in many cases the worth of their work that they do and suppressing the organization of people in unions. These corporate governors also tax people privately with high prices in a cartel working with other corporate governors in fixing prices so even though you have a few companies in a sector of products you really have a polyopoly keeping PRIVATE TAXES high in a lot of product sectors. Yes high prices and low wages function as a PRIVATE TAXATION system run by private government which the Republicans support and come from and they have their stooges in the stand PAT RIOT movement to pose as as populists. NAY!

So next time Republicans criticize our party for taxation in their miscommunications at election time we Democrats will remind the people that the Republicans continue to tax us PRIVATELY and raise these PRIVATE TAXES through POLYOPOLY, DUOPOLY, MONOPOLY, cheap labor and high prices and that Republicans need to get relieved of their power in government which they deliberately sabotage social programs through deliberate deficit creation through oil wars, unjust tax breaks for the wealthy and cutting of social programs. This deliberate deficit creation has gone on for 30 years now started by Ronald Reagan the miscommunicator and it has to stop. The Republicans create a huge deficit so when they get relieved of power then the Democrat has to clean up the mess and cannot or will not continue on the path of social justice or water it down such that supporters of Democrats get angry as they did in Bill Clinton's time and now yours!

So Mr. President, we will make you promote real social justice and not catering to corporations in the quest for social justice and eliminate these so called public private partnerships that these corporations take too much money from the poor and less fortunate that the Republicans have done in the past years and until this day and create regular government programs that do not allow these corporations to leech upon the public and profit to the detriment of middle class and poor people.

I have seen this in Medicare Part D and Medicare Disadvantage and now thanks to conservative Democrats we face this in the new health insurance and Pharmaceutical company enrichment act of 2010.

No more Mr. President. No More.

Help the middle class and the poor and until then, the Democratic party gets no money from me and in 2010 and 2012 I will go to the polls and only vote on referenda, meaning I will not vote for anyone for representative, senator and President. I will stay in the Democratic party and do what I can to rid us these conservatives in OUR party from power by peaceful means through boycotts of consumers products of their contributors that give them money and convince other Democrats to also boycott these contributors to conservatives in both parties and force these CEOs to go to congressional leaders and tell the leaders that hundreds of thousands of people will no longer buy from the CEOs companies until congress passes real progressive legislation that citizens want and have petitioned the CEOs for.

In the end, Mr. President we will get this done peacefully and we will do everything peaceful to make you help us.

In the tradition of Moses, Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, we will get this done for social Justice for the less fortunate in our country. I encourage other people reading this open letter to the President to organize and petition the government and the CEOs of corporations that aid meanspirited conservatives in both parties to go to my electric pamphlet at http://www.democratz.org and sign those petitions that you see best to accomplish social justice for the less fortunate in our country. Once you sign them, electronic letters will go out right away to congressional leaders and the Corporations that aid meanspirited conservatives. Do this for the less fortunate! Let our people grow and to meanspirited conservatives, let our people GO from your greed, high prices and wage slavery and private taxes and your religious oppression.

So let it get written so let it get done.

Sincerely,

http://www.democratz.org

I created these petitions for social justice. These petitions appear different from regular petitions. These petitions allow people to boycott conservative contributors that give money to conservatives in both parties.

I enthusiastically voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Now I appear disappointed that President Obama made deals with Big Pharma and the health insurance industry. This administration looks like Clinton II.

Please sign these NEW petitions for single payer health care HR676 as primary legislation or for HR676 as the public option.

http://bit.ly/public_option

http://bit.ly/traitorjoe

http://bit.ly/HR676

http://bit.ly/single_payer_snowe

http://bit.ly/single_payer_ross

http://bit.ly/single_payer_exxon

http://bit.ly/single_payer_california

http://bit.ly/drug_benefit

Also sign these petitions.

http://bit.ly/EFCA

http://bit.ly/10_an_hour_min_wage

http://bit.ly/women_freedom_of_choice_act

http://endthewars.democratz.org

We can stop the filibuster done by the Republiklan party and also get a bonus of the employee free choice act too enacted into law. You can help.

It appears very simple. Since Senator Mitch McConnell has nothing much to lose directly by pressuring him, we go after Brown Forman corporation of Kentucky who distributes Jack Daniels Whiskey and Southern Comfort Liquor, who by the way gives money to Mitch McConnell, the senate minority leader for his campaigns.

Go to http://bit.ly/STOPFILIBUSTERS which link will take you to a petition demanding the passage of the Employee Free Choice act and also for Mitch McConnell to halt any filibusters. Oh and when you sign the petition, emails go out right away to Mitch McConnell and Brown Forman Corporation from Kentucky. If you can’t pressure McConnell directly pressure his friends at Brown Forman by telling them you will boycott their products until they get McConnell to comply with our demands.

Also call Brown-Forman at 502-585-1100 and tell the person who answers to get the CEO to GET Mitch McConnell to execute no Republican filibusters for the duration of the Obama Administration and enact the Employee free choice act into law or you don't buy Jack Daniel's whiskey and Southern Comfort anymore!

So if you want to end the filibuster by Republicans, sign the petition now.

YOU HAVE THE POWER !!

Rumpelstiltskin and the Democratic Leadership

Jonathan Walker — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:20:43 -0400

The leadership of the Democratic party reminds me of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin.

In 2002 and 2004, the party's leadership was like the miller's daughter. Trapped in the castle tower with the seemingly impossible task of trying to spin straw into election gold. In desperation, they turned for help to an ugly dwarf (the young, ideological, progressive grassroots). While the miller's daughter only promised Rumpelstiltskin her first born in exchange for his aid, the party leadership promised much more. They promised the progressives almost anything and everything: Ending torture, closing Guantanamo, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, universal health care with a strong public plan, the Employee Free Choice Act, troops out of Iraq, etc.

To the surprise of almost everyone, the progressive grassroots succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. They turned the pile of useless straw into political dominance gold. The netroots raised on unprecedented level of political donations with small online contributions. In four years, the Democrats went from 45 Senators to 60, won a huge majority in the House, and elected the first black president with a large mandate.

Now that the Democrats are at their most powerful in a generation, their Rumpelstiltskin has come to claim his prize. Like the miller's daughter, the elected Democrats are doing everything they can not to pay the price they promised. They are struggling futilely to guess the dwarf's true name (or find the proper PR spin to justify their broken promises and complete sell-out compromises). They hope some magic phrase will make their commitment go away.

The Democratic senators say:
“We can't pass the EFCA we all co-sponsored, how about a compromise that makes big business happy?”
“We can't give you the public plan we promised, how about useless co-ops instead?”
“We can't provide full federal benefits to same sex couples, how about help covering your partner's moving expenses?”
“We don't feel like dealing with Don't Ask Don't Tell right now, how about maybe in five years?”

The biggest difference between our current political reality and the classic fairly tale is that there is no magical out. The party leadership can't just say “Rumpelstiltskin” and have all debts canceled. The progressive grassroots expected to claim their prize, and party leadership has decided not to pay. In real life, debts unpaid are rarely forgotten or forgiven.

Crossposted on The Walker Report

Kate Thomas

Kate Thomas2 — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:45:05 -0400

Solis Confirmed Big, Anti-Worker Lobby Humiliated

Bill Scher — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:56:29 -0500

After a protracted attempt at conservative obstruction, Hilda Solis was finally confirmed as the new Secretary of Labor by a huge Senate margin of 80 to 17.

That's a big blow to the conservative movement and corporate lobbies that fought her nomination as a proxy fight over the Employee Free Choice Act, which would strengthen the right for workers to join unions and fortify the middle-class.

She was attacked because of her long-standing support for the legislation, and conservatives hoped that either blocking the nomination, or getting it through on a close vote, would make Congress and the White House think twice about pushing EFCA.

But they were unable to rouse much ire from the public. Attacking workers, and those who support workers, doesn't have all that much juice these days.

While conservatives managed to slow things down, they only delayed the inevitable: a massive bipartisan vote in support of Solis' nomination.

If this was a proxy fight, then conservatives and the corporate backers just got whooped.

Congratulations to Secretary Solis. Her dedication and tenacity are sorely needed in our government.

Humpty Dumpty is in Pieces: The Truth About EFCA & Secret Ballot Elections

Dmitri Iglitzin — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:46:43 -0500

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has promised to spend $10 million opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the proposed federal law that would allow workers to form unions based on a showing of majority support, sometimes referred to as a “card check” election.

Other big bucks are being spent by faux-grassroots organizations with misleading names such as the “Coalition for a Democratic Workplace” and the “Center for Union Facts.” President Barack Obama was not exaggerating when he said, recently, that the business community considers EFCA “the devil incarnate.”

The focal point of opposition to EFCA is the provisions that make it easier for workers to form unions without going through a secret ballot election. Opponents contend that without secret ballot elections, workers will be coerced by union organizers into signing cards or petitions.

As one opponent, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), put it, "It is beyond me how one can possibly claim that a system whereby everyone – your employer, your union organizer, and your co-workers – knows exactly how you vote on the issue of unionization gives an employee ‘free choice.’”

But fatally undermining this argument is a dirty little secret known as “Wurtland Nursing.”

Wurtland Nursing provides rehabilitative, hospice, and long-term care to residents in Wurtland, KY. A local affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing unions, has represented the maintenance and service employees at this facility since 1997.

In 2003 a Wurtland Nursing employee presented the company a petition signed by over 50 percent of the workers asking for a vote to remove the union. Wurtland Nursing immediately repudiated its relationship with SEIU and declared itself a non-union company.

The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the nation’s chief arbiter of labor disputes, contending that Wurtland Nursing had no right to reject the union without a secret ballot election having occurred. Four years later, the NLRB decided in favor of the company, saying that it didn’t matter that there had not been an actual vote. The petition was all the proof the company needed to conclude that the workers no longer wanted to be represented by the union.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did not denounce this decision. Neither the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace nor the Center for Union Facts raised a stink. Despite the fact that Wurtland Nursing had stripped its employees of their union on the basis of signatures on a petition, rather than after a secret ballot election, no prominent critic of EFCA has ever criticized the outcome of that case.

Yet the principle supposedly being violated by EFCA, the need for a secret ballot, is violated as much by the Wurtland Nursing rule, which allows employers to repudiate unions based on petition signatures, as it would be by EFCA, which would allow workers to obtain union representation in the same manner.

The truth is that neither business nor labor genuinely doubts that signatures on a petition or on cards are a legitimate and appropriate basis for determining what the majority of workers want. It is high time for employers to acknowledge that truth, along with the fact there is nothing wrong with permitting workers to ask openly to be represented by a union, and for their employers to thereby become obligated to honor that request.

A December 2006 Peter D. Hart Research Associates survey found that 60 million Americans would like to join a union, but are discouraged from doing so by employer intimidation. An April, 2007 Institute for America's Future study estimates that passage of the EFCA would increase union membership by 10 percent, providing an additional 3,537,625 people with health insurance and 2,773,045 more people with pensions.

In this time of economic crisis those numbers are a compelling argument for EFCA. In contrast, the argument that EFCA will undermine secret ballot elections falls apart in light of the Wurtland Nursing rule. And no amount of employer rhetoric can put that argument back together again.

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.