Below is the first article published after President Ken Zeller's media tour on Tuesday.
Union
head backs ‘card check’
BY DARRELL SMITH
dsmith@newsexaminer.com
Legislation is moving through the U.S. Congress that would make
several changes to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 — a needed change,
according to Ken Zeller, president of the Indiana AFL-CIO. Zeller and Kaitlin DeCero, Indiana
communications director for the Employee Free Choice Act, stopped in
Connersville Tuesday on a statewide tour to explain and tout the bill, which is
commonly known as “card check.”
“What it is going to do is to allow the employee to have a choice
whether or not they can have an election for a union or they want to do it with
card signing,” he explained. “In the current law, both of those are available
to employees, except the employer makes the decision whether it will be an
election or card check. Under the new law, the employee would make the
determination.”
If the 50 percent plus one employee sign cards calling for a
union, then no secret ballot would occur, he said. The cards would go to the
National Labor Relations Board to check the cards for eligible voters and if
certified, the union would have to be recognized by the company. He said that after certification, employers
fight the negotiations for that first contract.
In 54 percent of the first contract negotiation, after one year there
was no contract and after two years there was no contract in 37 percent of the
cases.
Zeller said workers at Georgia-Pacific in Wheatfield, Ind., just
settled a contract two years after voting for a union. A study by Cornell University indicated that
34 percent of employers fire employees during the organizing drive, DeCero
said. “They know it’s scary and sends a
message to the rest of workers in the work place,” she explained. “The NRLA doesn’t
have any teeth or any true recourse for workers. It’s a lengthy process that
could take years and if they do get a judgment in their favor, all they are entitled
to is back pay minus whatever they made in the meantime. From an employer standpoint,
that’s not a deterrent.”
She said a problem with the current law is the time between
workers choosing to have an election to form a union and the actual election. “The time to have that election is when workers get fired,” she
explained. “When you have someone holding your livelihood over your head, ‘We’re
going to close the doors if you join a union,’ which is illegal, that’s the
issue. It’s the time span when companies have the opportunity to mistreat employees
and break the law.”
Zeller said 74 percent of the people in recent Gallup polling were
in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act.
A March 17 Gallup poll showed that 53 percent of the people were in
favor of the act while 39 percent were opposed.
Looking deeper into the results, only 12 percent of the people said they
were following the legislation closely, 22 percent somewhat closely, 26 percent
not too closely and 39 percent not at all.
Of those who were watching the legislation very closely, 58
percent were opposed and 40 percent in favor with 2 percent having no opinion. Of
those who were not watching at all, 58 percent were in favor, 31 percent
opposed and 11 percent with no opinion.
According to Gallup, “The current findings could bode well for
the pro-union side of the issue as it ramps up the public information component
of its lobbying efforts, particularly at a time when corporate America has
serious image problems. Americans appear to be a sympathetic audience for a
basic argument behind the law if it is described simply as making it easier for
unions to organize.
“At the same time, Americans have barely begun to pay attention
to the issue. The 12 percent who are following it “very closely’ is
exceptionally low relative to public attention to other news issues Gallup has
measured over the last two decades. And, while Americans are broadly supportive
of labor unions, Gallup’s August 2008 Workplace survey found only 35 percent in
favor of unions having greater influence. In this context, with the arguments against
card check yet to be fully aired and debated, it could be a troubling sign for unions
that no more than 53percent of Americans immediately support this fundamental aspect
of the card-check bill.”
A Rasmussen Reports poll also released on March 17, 61percent of
the respondents said it was fair to require a vote by secret ballot if workers
want to form a union. In the same poll, 57 percent of Americans believe it is
at least somewhat difficult for workers to form a union.
Patrick Semmens, with the National Right to Work Committee, said
the committee believes card check is a massive expansion of the power that
organized labor already has to force workers into union ranks and force them to
pay dues.
“It is not what America is about and not what labor union
movement was founded on,” he said. “If you look at Samuel Gompers, founder of the
American Federation of Labor that later became the AFL-CIO, he was strong
proponent of voluntary unionism and this is the exact opposite where not only
joining the union is not voluntary, they’re doing it through a very coercive method.”
He said the unions collect cards one on one, oftentimes lying,
misleading and not telling workers what the card is really about. He cited a
Dana plant in Albion, Ind., where workers were misled by union organizers who
told the workers they only wanted employee information on the cards.
“Turns out the card they signed was used as a socalled vote for
the union,” he explained. “They didn’t intend it that way. They weren’t told it
would be used that way and eventually the workers, through National Labor
Relations Board, won the case. They were able to force a secret-ballot vote and
the vote went against having a union.” Semmens
said in most cases, the time span between receiving enough support to force a vote
and the vote is less than 30 days. The unions claim there is pressure from the
employer but it doesn’t make sense that the solution is to allow the unions to
be the ones to pressure workers.
“You can sign your name to join a political party or go to Iraq
or Afghanistan, why can’t you sign your name to join a union?” DeCero asked.
