PA Labor Movement

Richard Trumka Speaks at Worker's Voice Conference in Philly

OPEIU Keeps the Pressure on Specter

Tom's Story

In 1989, Tom Gallagher and his co-workers attempted to build a better life for themselves by forming a union, it was not until 2006 that he finally got his union contract. Tom was an employee at PECO here in the Keystone state.

In the video above, Tom speaks of the frustration caused by this long drawn out process. With all the delays and stall techniques that used on the part of his employer, Tom often doubted if he would ever get a first contract.

Tom’s story is not uncommon, in more than 52% of all organizing campaigns the employees will still be working without a contract after a year.

Companies are able to employ stall tactics because they don’t have a real incentive to come to the bargaining table to negotiate in good faith.  Companies routinely bargain in bad faith precisely to prolong negotiations and push for union decertification.

The first contract arbitration provision of the Employee Free Choice Act is so important because it sets a timeline so that companies can’t delay the process for years like what happened with PECO. Under the current system, even after workers succeed in forming a union, big business is allowed to stonewall them on negotiating a contract.

The Employee Free Choice Act puts a stop to these delays by empowering workers to request mediation after 90 days and, ultimately, binding arbitration after another month.
This approach is not new or untested public employees in many states have used this method successfully for over 30 years.

“This provision would create an incentive for workers and their employers to come to the table and bargain productively in good faith” Said Tom Gallagher. “It would level the playing field and help us to rebuild an economy that works for everyone again.”

Wonderful Letter to the Editor in the Deleware County Times

 

Looking out for the future

Published: Monday, July 6, 2009

By Robert Swavely
Holmes

To the Times:

As a retiree who has benefited greatly from union membership, it scares me to think that my children and grandchildren won’t have access to the same type of benefits and pension I have enjoyed.

A new report by the Economic Policy Institute confirms my worst fears. Companies are engaging in increasingly immoral and even illegal activity to prevent working people from bargaining for a better future.

The report, by Kate Bronfenbrenner the director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University, finds that companies illegally fire workers in 34 percent of union elections, (while) 47 percent of the time corporations threaten to cut wages and benefits if workers choose to form a union.

In 63 percent of elections employers used supervisor one-on-ones to interrogate workers about who they or other workers supported, and 54 percent used such sessions to threaten workers.

Even for workers who are able to form a union under such unfair election conditions, 52 percent are still without a contract a year later, and 37 percent are without a contract two years after an election.

That is why we must urge Senator Specter to support the Employee Free Choice Act. It is the exact same legislation he once cosponsored.

It will allow workers to choose if and how to form their union, create a process by which workers can gain a first contract, and strengthen penalties for anyone who tries to influence union elections through coercion.

Column By Rabbi George Stern in the Chestnut Hill Local

Independence Day Thoughts:
Support the workers who make this nation great
by George Stern

They have signed on in record numbers. From the Alliance of Baptists and American Baptist Churches USA to the American Friends Service Committee and American Islamic Conference, from the National Baptist Convention to the National Council of Churches, from the Sikh Council on Religion and Education to the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, from the Jewish Labor Committee to the Catholic Labor Network — religious groups one after another have indicated support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Add to that Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of the Brethren, and United Church of Christ bodies, Episcopalian, Evangelical, and other religious leaders, and you see the kind of broad-based support for labor that decades ago characterized many elements of the faith community, which during the Progressive Era took a leading role in supporting worker rights.  Locally, Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity and the Jewish Labor Committee co-sponsored a meeting of religious leaders to affirm support and urge them to follow up with Senator Specter, an original supporter of the legislation who has recently expressed concern over some of its provisions. To his great credit, he sent representatives to the meeting who spoke of compromises needed to assure passage through a Senate paralyzed by the threat of the filibuster (ah, for the days when the filibuster was used only occasionally and then required speaker after speaker to actually speak, not just threaten to!). Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM) signed on to the Act, and as I sat at the local clergy meeting, I recalled two prayers used in Reform synagogues when I was a child — words that inspired me to pursue social justice in all my professional work:

May we never be tempted to profit by impoverishing and degrading the lives of others. Make us realize the wrong of letting others hunger while we are surfeited with the bounties of nature.How much we owe to the labors of our brothers! Day by day they dig far away from the sun that we may be warm …

The middle class in America today is under siege, not least because of the diminishing number of unionized workers and workplaces. Labor’s weaker condition has made possible the enormous gap in pay between top management and line workers. That gap is symptomatic of the excesses that led to the current economic crisis, especially hard on workers. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would allow workers to decide if they want to form a union, free from fear of reprisal. It would require employers to bargain after the workers obtain a simple majority on duly signed and authenticated union authorization cards and provide real penalties for violations of the law.

Some have expressed concern that the EFCA eliminates a “democratic” aspect of the current law, namely, a “secret ballot.” Current law requires both the signing of union authorization cards and a “secret ballot,” between which some employers intimidate workers, a tactic about which many workers have testified under oath.

The current process is reminiscent of the conditions that have given rise to anti-harassment laws, aimed at redressing the unequal power between those with authority and those without. I am well aware that some reading this column may believe that religious leaders have no right speaking out in favor of (or against) legislation. I also know that opponents of unions have some legitimate concerns about tactics and perspectives.

But this past year certainly reminds us that human nature is such that we must safeguard against abuse of power by those with the means to wield it detrimentally. Millions have been hurt by the excess greed of a few, and while those harmed include upstanding citizens of wealth who gave of themselves and their bounty to others, the vast majority experiencing terrible loss are from the middle and lower economic strata, many with nowhere to turn for help but to underfunded agencies hard put to keep up with increased demand.

Even unionized workers, active and retired, are feeling the crunch, but those without a voice are especially vulnerable. An America celebrating the birth of freedom should be ashamed of the growing number of citizens who are unemployed, uninsured and even unhoused. History proves that organized workers fight to overcome such disabilities.Those with an ear to Scripture will surely recognize these Divine expectations:   

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave …… or the stranger in your settlements …… Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt …… therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:13-15)”You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, but you must pay him his wages on the same day, for he is needy and urgently depends on it.” (Deuteronomy 24:14-15)

To Contact Senator Arlen Specter and indicate your position on the Employee Free Choice Act, use the form at  or send a letter to 600 Arch Street, Suite 9400, Philadelphia, PA 19106. To reach Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr., use the form at  or write to him at 2000 Market Street, Suite 1870, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

Rabbi George Stern is executive director of Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM), a coalition of 60 Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Unitarian congregations and faith institutions dedicated to building a more just and sensitive community through learning, service, and advocacy.

Great Op Ed in the Patriot News

Employee Free Choice Act would restore fairness to labor laws

by Paul Clark

Saturday July 11, 2009, 8:52 AM

The debate about the Employee Free Choice Act has generated more discussion on American labor unions and their role in our economy and our society than at any time in recent memory.

This kind of reflection about an institution that touches many peoples' lives is a useful exercise. Unfortunately, the discussion has been sidetracked by hyperbole and an incomplete understanding of labor's historic impact on the quality of life and work in this country.

At its heart, the Employee Free Choice Act is designed to reform labor law and re-establish the system of checks and balances between unions and management that has historically proved so beneficial to our nation.

For the first 150 years of this country's history, employers held virtually all of the power in the workplace. The result was sweatshops, 12-hour days, cruel working conditions and a nation where some were wealthy, the vast majority were poor and the middle class was only a fraction of what it would become. When workers tried to organize unions to improve their situation, employers used their considerable economic and political resources to oppose them. The result was often chaos and bloodshed that undermined a growing economy.

In the reconstruction of the American economic system that occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress took steps to more equally balance the power of employers and employees. The most significant initiative in this regard was the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, a law that gave most American workers the rights to organize a union, bargain collectively and strike.

The growth of unions in the decades following World War II played a critical role in the creation of the modern middle class in this country. To meet the rapidly growing consumer demand of the 1950s and 1960s, American workers generated significant productivity gains. As a result, businesses generated significant profits.

With union membership at its peak, employees received a larger and larger share of those profits, which they spent on homes and cars and appliances. This, in turn, fed demand, creating more jobs and additional profits. Business owners, shareholders, workers and their families and the nation benefitted.

The last 50 years, however, have seen the percentage of the work force that belongs to unions decline steadily from a high of 35 percent in the mid-1950s to 12 percent today.

One of the results of a greatly weakened labor movement has been growing income inequality and the decline of the middle class that emerged earlier in the century. As working families received a smaller and smaller share of the nation's wealth, they either consumed less or bought on credit, both of which have contributed in significant ways to the current economic crisis.

Perhaps most telling is the fact that during the last decade, worker productivity rose significantly in the United States, while real income fell for middle-class families. If the workers who helped produce the wealth were not receiving the fruit of their labors, where did it go? Much of it went to the very top income group in the form of excessive compensation for CEOs, investment bankers and other Wall Street executives. In fact, income for Americans already at the top income levels has grown much faster than for people in the middle class.

Part of the genius of America's Founding Fathers was the recognition that unchecked power corrupts. To address this issue, they established an exquisitely designed series of checks and balances among the branches of government. The passage of the NLRA and other laws extended this principle to our economic institutions. For roughly 40 years the law had the intended effect of balancing power between labor and management.

Beginning in the 1970s, however, employers began to probe for loopholes in the NLRA and discovered that the law lacked teeth. Slowly, the protections it provided employees were eroded and the playing field became tilted heavily in management's favor. This imbalance has been one of the primary reasons for the decline of the American labor movement.

The Employee Free Choice Act is an effort to restore the kind of balance in labor-management relations fostered by the NLRA in 1935.

This balance was consistent with this country's basic values and contributed to decades of shared prosperity that created the American middle class and raised living standards across the board.

The Act is now before Congress. Its passage would move us closer to economic recovery and toward a more equitable society.

PAUL F. CLARK is a professor and head of the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Penn State University

Faith Leaders Gather in Beaver County

Faith Leaders gathered together this past week in Beaver County to call on Senator Specter to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Speakers urged Senator Specter to put an end to the needless harassment and intimidation. They also outlined the case for why we drastically need a change in current labor law.

“When workers have the freedom to join unions, the whole community benefits.  Working people have the right to seek a living wage that meets their basic needs and health care and other benefits to take care of themselves and their families.  Unions are a crucial part of a broad movement to put the pursuit of justice – both economic and social justice – ahead of the pursuit of profit and power.  The least that we can ask is to let working people stand up for their own basic rights and to be rewarded for their hard work” said Reverend Lynwood Alfred.

Below are video highlights of the event:

Union Spotlight: AFGE

Roundtable in State College

Last Wednesday a diverse coalition gathered in State College to discuss the Employee Free Choice Act. Speakers included Paul Clark Professor and Head of the Labor Studies and Employment Relations Department, Mark Anner Professor of Political Science at Penn State University, Mickey Sgro of AFSCME Council 13, Elizabeth Gorman President of the State College Borough Council, Diane Gregg of the Centre County Democrats, and Chris Stevens of Penn State Sweatshops/Student Labor Action Project.

“Working families everywhere have been hit hard by the economic crisis,” said Paul Clark Professor and Head of the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Penn State University. “Workers who have the freedom to form unions and bargain for job security and decent benefits can stand up to corporations more interested in lining their pockets on Wall Street than giving families a fair shake on Main Street.”

Unions in attendance included AFSCME, IBEW, and NALC. Media in attendance included Centre Daily Times and WJAC.

Below are some video highlights of the event.