We Need More than EFCA
The current labor-law legislation would make it easier to unionize, but it still might not be enough.
By Jake Blumgart
May 22, 2009
Supporters take there seats at rally in support of the Employees Free Choice Act on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Angel Warner, an employee at a Rite Aid distribution center, told a Capitol Hill audience Wednesday about her plant’s arduous path to unionization. She detailed the unscrupulous tactics her employer used against her and her colleagues: threats, bad faith bargaining, multiple firings. Reports show that managers would isolate employees to ask them how they intended to vote on the union, the underlying implication that a “yes” vote might amount to a pink slip. And for many of them it did. As of the beginning of this year, more than 100 union supporters have been laid off at the Rite Aid distribution plant. Complaints filed against the companies’ illegal firings were so great that they eventually agreed to hire many workers back after a settlement.
Halfway into her prepared notes, Warner faltered and then burst into tears of frustration. After three years of grueling organizing, a successful election despite unrelenting coercion, and ceaseless management violations of federal labor law, her union is still without a contract. “The labor laws just aren’t working. They aren’t protecting the working class,” Warner said at the event, co-sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute and American Rights at Work. “It puts such a psychological and emotional pressure on you. It’s hard to even function in the workplace because you are so scared of losing your job.” Warner is a living, breathing example of how difficult it is to unionize in America today.
The event was to promote a recently released report by labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner on employer behavior during union drives called “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing” [PDF]. Brofennbrenner’s report found that aggressive anti-union tactics have been on the rise. According to the report, 14 percent of employers use electronic surveillance of workers, 21 percent use police walkthroughs for intimidation, and 89 percent have employees attend mandatory anti-union meetings.
Warner’s experience shows that such tactics of intimidation are a reality for many workers trying to unionize. Warner’s wrenching account of her attempt to organize her fellow workers, paired with Bronfenbrenner’s findings, show not only that we need the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), but that the legislation may not go far enough.
EFCA is largely viewed by progressives as a relatively moderate labor reform bill. But opponents of the legislation often claim that it will cause “the demise of a civilization.” The bill seeks to bulk up existing labor laws through fines to employers, shortening the bargaining process, and giving employees the option to forego an election with something called “card check.” It is this last provision, which gives employees the option to form a union through a majority signup and avoid coercion practices that often emerge during an election, is the least understood and most contested part of the bill.
In a country where more than 50 percent of workers express an interest in joining a union but only 12 are actually a part of one, you might think such legislation would be common sense. But opposition has been fierce. Business groups have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a furious anti-EFCA campaign while conservative heavyweights have been denouncing the legislation with fervor. Now political debate has indicated that if the bill is to be saved, it must be watered down. The majority sign up provision, or card check, is the provision most likely to be scrapped, despite the fact that it makes good sense.
Brofennbrenner’s research and the testimony of workers like Warner, suggests that EFCA shouldn’t be weakened. If anything labor law reform needs to go further. As Brofennbrenner notes, EFCA merely beefs up existing labor laws, which still leave domestic workers, farm workers, graduate students, university faculty, workfare workers, and any employees considered supervisors outside what little protection the National Labor Relations Act offers. And the penalties that EFCA would incur against abusive employers, the provision most likely to be unmolested, aren’t even stiff enough to dissuade heavy-hitting, anti-union companies like Wal-Mart. Or Rite Aid.
“What do they care if they get hit with $30,000 per infraction? It doesn’t pass the ‘so what,’ test,” said Gregory J. Junemann, co-chair of AFL-CIO organizing department at the event. Junemann argued that such a fine is small compared to the millions companies spend on anti-EFCA campaigns. “They probably don’t even round down that far. It’s good to have [that EFCA provision] but I don’t think it is going to be the kind of magical deterrent that we hope it will. The penalties have to be strict enough to really scare the employers from doing it.”
There are alternatives to simply fining employers who can afford to be outside the authority of employment law. One proposal is a system of escalating penalties which start at $20,000 and increase as the violations continue, ending after, say, the third offense, at which the employees are awarded a union contract. Or there is an even fiercer option: Particularly egregious offenses would be penalized by forcing companies to fire managers responsible and reward workers a union contract.
Unfortunately, these solutions are, for the foreseeable future, politically untenable. As long as lawmakers allow big business employers to intimidate workers, then stories like Angel Warner’s will continue to be commonplace.
Jake Blumgart is an editorial intern for Campus Progress.
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Comments
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The hyperbole of progressive/socialists would be entertaining if it were not so sad to watch “useful idiots” willingly throw away their right to a secret ballot. In reality, labor unions WERE necessary 70-80 years ago. Labor law, OSHA etc. has made unions as relevant as VCR’s. These days, unions are jobs for people who can’t get (or keep!) the real jobs their members labor at. With current labor law, union representation is just a way to pick the pockets of members.
— mighty aphrodite - May 28, 05:47 PM - #mighty aphrodite: “These days, unions are jobs for people who can’t get (or keep!) the real jobs their members labor at.”
You, sir, are an idiot.
— redflagflies - May 31, 11:34 AM - #mighty aphrodite: Unfortunately, for you and for those who read your comment, you know very little on the subject. EFCA allows for the workers to decide if they want a secret ballot—right now the employer has the power to decide this and 99.9% of the time they force the workers to go through a lengthy election process. Supports of EFCA believe the workers should have the power to choose how they establish a union. If they want a secret ballot election they can have one—without the long drawn out process employers now take advantage of to intimidate and harass their employees into voting against their will. “With current labor law,” all the power lies with the employer—unions are an essential tool for workers to better their working conditions, and one of the few tools.
— american1 - Oct 5, 12:28 PM - #