Free choice for workers

Frank Askew offers a powerful rejoinder to the corporate folks who are opposing the Employee Free Choice Act:

But as the renowned Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once reminded us, the life of the law is not logic, but experience. And experience has demonstrated over the past many years, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which allegedly guarantees workers the right to organize unions, is irretrievably broken.

I speak with some personal experience in such matters. I spent the 95th Congress (1977-78) as special counsel first to the House labor-management committee and then the Senate labor committee.

What was even then apparent to any open-minded observer was that national labor law was nothing but a hunting license for employers to prevent union organizing. All they had to do was harass union organizers, fire union supporters and drag out elections forever, all with the help of highly paid and skillful anti-labor consultants.

Of course, those tactics were all illegal, and eventually the employers would pay fines, sometimes even large fines, but that was small change compared with having to sign a union contract. They might even have to rehire some of their fired employees years down the road, but by then the wind had been removed from the sails of the organizing drive.

The result, he says, has been the steady decline of unions and the wages of all workers.

Hence the need for EFCA:

The National Labor Relations Act, a major component of FDR’s New Deal, by permitting union organization of major U.S. industries, provided an important stimulus to the economy in the late 1930s and post World War II era. That was before employers discovered the many tactics to avoid the law. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act could again provide a stimulus to the economy as the nation struggles to emerge from its current financial crisis.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet