EFCA Vote Imminent
The Senate will vote this week on the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill which will reduce management's opportunities to intimidate workers who wish to unionize. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) recently provided data on the advantages of opening union membership to more workers:
* It’s little wonder that most Americans want a voice at work in these insecure times. In a recent survey, 58 percent of Americans indicated they would join a union if they could, a record number.
The freedom to choose a union is vital to restoring the American Dream, especially for the most vulnerable Americans.
* Unions help American workers get their fair share – union wages are almost 30% higher than non-union wages. Unions are also a cure for rising inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers.
• Union cashiers earn 46% more than non-union cashiers.
• Union food preparation workers earn nearly 50% more than non-union workers.
• Union maids and housekeepers earn 31% more than their non-union counterparts.* The freedom to join a union is a women’s issue and a civil rights issue. Union women earn 31 percent more than women workers who don’t have a union. African American union members earn 36 percent more, and Latino workers earn 46 percent more.
* Union workers are almost twice as likely to have employer-sponsored health benefits and a pension at work. They are more than four times more likely to have a secure, defined-benefit pension plan than non-union workers.
* Protecting the freedom to choose a union benefits all Americans, whether or not they have a union at work. In industries and occupations where many workplaces are unionized, non-union employers will frequently meet union standards or otherwise improve compensation. A high school graduate in a non-union workplace whose industry is 25 percent unionized gets paid 5 percent more than similar workers in less unionized industries.
In a recent ACS Issue Brief, Neutrality Agreements and Card Check Recognition: Prospects for Changing Labor Relations Paradigms, Professor James Brudney explains how current labor law hinders unionization:
The stark inequality between employer "incumbents" and union "challengers" regarding rights of access to, or speech aimed at, the voters would be unthinkable in a political election setting. Individual employees attending sophisticated captive audience speeches, or participating in one-on-one encounters with their immediate supervisors, understandably may feel intimidated if not coerced by repeated oral, written, and electronic communications linking "union presence" to layoffs, plant closings, and permanent replacement during a lawful economic strike. Even if an employer does not immediately follow through on such predictions, their repeated expression is likely to affect employees as they contemplate the range of subtler deprivations that union supporters may face in the future. . . .Opponents of neutrality often counter that if employees cannot hear from the employer, they will not be able to make a suitably informed and reasoned choice. That contention invites doubt on two grounds. One is that the employer already has the opportunity and motive to present arguments against unionization before a union appears, and is likely to have done so over months, if not years. A second is that the optimal time for informed choice about union representation will occur during contract negotiations, when employees can see how a collectively bargained workplace actually would look.
Supporters of elections also worry that individuals sign cards without giving the matter enough thought, or from fear of criticism by fellow employees. It is not at all clear that workers succumb so readily to indifference or peer pressure. Assuming they do, however, a union seems unlikely to retain employees' backing in negotiations unless it can persuade them that its bargaining proposals deserve majority support and even application of group pressure if warranted.