Employee Free Choice Act Would Strengthen Workers Right to UnionizeThe AFL-CIO is waging a campaign to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would bolster the right of American workers to join unions. The proposed law, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised lawmakers would move to pass after the first 100 hours of legislation, was introduced in the House of Representatives Feb. 6. The AFL-CIO has criticized the current elections system under the National Labor Relations Board, saying that too often the solidly Republican institution does not offer a fair process for members of the American workforce. Instead, the NLRB, the country’s chief arbiter on labor disputes, has consistently made rulings that undermine the right to choose a union. Recently, the NLRB ruled, by a 3-2 Republican majority, that a group of Michigan nurses are not included in labor law protections offered to most employees because they are “supervisors.” That one decision has potentially endangered the rights of tens of thousands of American workers. If passed, the Employee Free Choice Act would:
Currently, if employees present an employer with union authorization cards signed by a majority, the employer can demand an election process through the NLRB. But the NLRB election process is broken because it enables employers to intimidate, coerce and harass workers and drag out the process indefinitely. The bill is working its way through Congress just as support for unions is growing. Some 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in December 2006. But that same poll, taken for us at the AFL-CIO, also showed that nearly one-third of the public does not realize how hard management fights workers who seek to form unions. In fact:
02-09 |