The right choice for workers

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill intended to makeit easier for unions to succeed in organizing drives. But critics say the billis the opposite of what it claims to be–the Employee Free Choice Act. Itfaces greater opposition in the Senate, plus a threatened veto by PresidentBush. So this measure is not going to become law anytime soon. But it couldserve the purpose of starting a debate on how to advance the ideals itpurports to uphold.
Under current law, when 30 percent of employees at a workplace sign cardsendorsing a union, the National Labor Relations Board will call asecret-ballot election, where the majority rules. Under this bill, a unionwould be certified as soon as it signs up more than 50 percent of the workers.Organized labor says the change is needed because employers often blockunionization by firing union activists, intimidating other workers andlitigating over election results for so long that they become virtuallymeaningless.
There is some truth to those claims. Stanford law professor William Gould,a former head of the Labor Relations Board, cites data indicating that ittakes an average of 802 days for the agency to resolve a disputed election.Some companies illegally retaliate against pro-union workers, and thepenalties for such abuses are ineffectual.
But you don’t remedy intimidation of one kind by replacing it withintimidation of a different sort. Under the card-check system, workers ineffect are forced to state their positions publicly, inviting ostracism (orworse) if they refuse to go along with the union. A secret-ballot electionallows the employee to make an uncoerced choice, and it should be preserved.Otherwise, unions may gain the right to represent workers who mostly wouldrather not join.
There are reasons why only 7 percent of private-sector workers now belongto unions, down from 35 percent half a century ago. Union wages and work rulescan make a company uncompetitive, as big automakers and big steelmakers haveshown. Many workers realize that the embrace of the AFL-CIO is cold comfort ifyour employer moves production overseas, which a union’s arrival may make morelikely.
The status quo doesn’t necessarily assure that worker preferences willprevail in the end. But neither does throwing out secret-ballot elections. Thereal goal of any legislation should be to establish a process that gives eachside the chance to make its case to employees–and then assures that theirchoice is implemented.
One way to do that is stiffen penalties for abuses. One useful section ofthis bill would mandate treble damages when a company retaliates againstworkers. Another improvement would be to require companies to let organizerspresent their case at the workplace before the election.
Changes of this sort may or may not boost the membership of organizedlabor. But, unlike the Employee Free Choice Act, they would promote genuinefree choice.