TALKING POINTS FOR ALLIES Working people want to form unions More than half of The whole community benefits when working people form unions. It’s not a coincidence that as union membership has declined, we’ve seen a shrinking middle class, more low-paying jobs, and a huge increase in the number of people without health insurance. The gap between rich and poor has grown wider in the Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries. Higher levels of union membership help raise living standards for all workers. Democratic rights respected in the workplace leads to civic participation at home and thus better public policies that serve the needs of the entire community. States where many workers are union members have lower poverty rates, better schools, more people with health insurance, and less crime than states where few people are union members. Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act - unions united workers to win each of these important landmarks in American policy. Unions are an organized voice for poor and middle-class families that advocate for laws and policies that benefit us all. Working People Need Stronger Laws But the current system for forming unions and bargaining is broken. Every day, corporations deny employees the freedom to decide for themselves whether to form unions to bargain for a better life. They routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire people who try to organize unions, and the current penalties for breaking labor laws are so insignificant that many companies treat them as just another cost of doing business. Employers illegally fire workers in 25% of private-sector organizing campaigns; 78% require supervisors to deliver anti-union messages to the workers whose jobs and pay they control; and even after workers successfully form a union, they can’t get a contract one third of the time. In 91% of the union recognition petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) according to a survey conducted by American Rights at Work in 2006, a majority of workers indicated they wanted a union before the process began. In several cases, workers demonstrated more than 80% support. In stark contrast, unions were victorious in only 31% of the campaigns in which they filed a petition. Corporations give CEOs contracts that protect their pay and benefits—but they deny employees the same opportunity. How the Employee Free Choice Act Would Help The system has to be changed to give all working people the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union and bargain for better wages and benefits. The Employee Free Choice Act, which has bipartisan support in Congress, would level the playing field for employees and employers. The Employee Free Choice Act Would:
Why Do We Need Majority Sign-Up? Under current law, employers can recognize a union if a majority of employees demonstrates that they wish to be represented by a union, usually by signing authorization forms designating the union as their bargaining representative. However, employers are under no obligation to recognize and bargain with the union, even if 100% of workers have signed authorization cards. People call the current NLRB election system a secret ballot election—but in fact it's not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. Management controls when the election happens. While management is allowed to bombard employees with anti-union messages anywhere, anytime in the workplace, workers can only talk about the union while they’re on breaks in the break room or before or after work. Management can force workers to attend as many anti-union group and one-on-one meetings as it wants. Union organizers have no right to set foot in the workplace. No employee has free choice after being browbeaten by a supervisor to oppose the union or being told they may lose their job and livelihood if workers vote for the union. We would never allow our politicians to continue to draw out their campaigns until they got to the point where they thought they would win, but that is exactly what we allow companies to do under the NLRB election system. That is not a fair election. That is not democracy. Once a majority of workers indicates they want a union by signing cards, the company should not be able to drag the process out for months as they can under a management-controlled election process. The will of the majority should be recognized. Because of the difficulty in conducting a fair election, majority sign up campaigns — instead of secret ballot elections — have become labor’s main tool for organizing the unorganized. Majority sign-up was used to sign up roughly 70 percent of the private-sector workers who joined unions in 2006 according to the A.F.L.-C.I.O, compared with less than 5 percent two decades ago. Workers in The Employee Free Choice Act would not prevent workers from choosing to have an election supervised by the NLRB. Workers can have an election with the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Or, if they prefer demonstrating their preference for union representation by a show of authorization cards, "majority sign-up" becomes the basis for NLRB certification. Majority Sign-Up is Already Working The provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act mirror successful strategies already in use by industry-leading employers such as Cingular Wireless and Kaiser Permanente. These companies have replaced adversarial relationships pitting employers against workers’ unions with cooperative labor relations models that include voluntary recognition of unions through majority sign-up and fair contracts. At Cingular, for example, over 17,000 employees chose to join the Communications Workers of America in less than a year when the company and union agreed to remain neutral during the organizing drive. The nation’s top wireless carrier and Wall Street darling continues to boost profits and advance a positive labor relations model enabling its union employees to grow. While many companies would lead us to believe that cutting jobs, slashing wages and benefits, employing temporary and cheap labor, and busting unions are necessary to remain profitable in the global economy, Cingular and others have found another way that works for their bottom lines, their employees, and their valued customers. |
