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WASHINGTON
--In all the talk of bailouts and bubbles, our nation's pundits are missing the fundamental point that working Americans have been suffering for much longer than AIG or Citibank.For years communities have had to watch their good manufacturing jobs disappear. The new high-tech jobs that were supposed to replace the old ones never materialized. Instead, working families have seen our friends and neighbors scramble for part-time, underpaid McJobs that don't pay the rent or bills.
Our economy is in meltdown in large part because for the last 25 years, working people's productivity has soared, but real wages have dropped. People have made up the difference through credit cards, loans, and by decreasing their savings. But you can't rebuild or maintain a middle class on credit. You have to do it the old-fashioned way. Workers need to be able to bargain for decent wages and benefits in order for our nation to have a true, sustainable recovery.
New labor-law reform legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, will restore workers' freedom to improve their lives--and our economy--through forming unions, free from employer interference and intimidation. It will add balance back into our economy, and give working people the tools they need to win fair wages and treatment in corporate America. There won't be a sustainable recovery unless we address workers' ability to bargain for a better deal.
People who have a union, after all, have better benefits and pensions than those without unions, and bring home a bigger paycheck. In Virginia, the union difference is $9,883 a year.
So it's no wonder that, according to independent polling, when American workers are asked if they would like to join a union, more than half (around 60 million) answer yes. Unfortunately, most of them will never get the chance.
Every day corporations deny American workers the right to form a union by forcing them to go through company-controlled elections, in which companies routinely coerce, harass, and fire workers for supporting a union.
A quarter of companies fire union supporters in union-organizing campaigns, often in the days leading up to the election. Three-quarters of companies force workers into one-on-one meetings against the union with their direct supervisors, and employees often aren't allowed to speak, according to a study from Cornell University. Union representatives aren't allowed on the premises to talk to employees.
Does this seem like a free and fair election?
The dirty little secret harbored by the Big Business opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act is that they're not worried about whether or not their workers have the "right" to the secret ballot. They're worried that, if the Employee Free Choice Act passes, it will give workers enough power to demand the fair wages and benefits that corporations just don't feel like paying.
The Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate the problem of rigged, company-dominated elections by giving workers the option to form a union when a majority sign cards saying that they want one. Thousands of workers already win a union this way each year at companies like AT&T and Kaiser Permanente.
The legislation wouldn't even take away the secret-ballot system. If workers decide they'd prefer a secret ballot election, they can still choose to have one. This legislation would simply put the choice of how to form a union back into workers' hands, not their companies'.
One of the smear tactics that the Big Business lobbies have used in their fight to prevent workers from having the freedom to form unions has been to drum up fear that union organizers are thugs who will threaten and intimidate workers into joining unions. This just doesn't stand up to the facts.
In 2005 alone, more than 31,358 cases filed under the National Labor Relations Act found evidence of employers harassing, intimidating, and firing workers for supporting a union. Since 1935, the government found only 42 cases with evidence of such harassment on the part of workers and their unions. Who is really bullying whom?
All employees should have the right to form a union to bargain for better wages and working conditions, and they should be allowed to decide for themselves how to do it. Our labor laws do not work for working people, and we need to fix them. In today's economy it is more important than ever that we do. Let's level the playing field and give working people a chance.
John Sweeney is president of the AFL-CIO and Jim Leaman is president of the Virginia AFL-CIO.
