Labor Lawyer Provides True Picture Of Law Workers Face When Organizing

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/5297

Labor Lawyer Provides True Picture Of Law Workers Face When Organizing - 02/16/07

By Doug Cunningham

AFL-CIO Associate General Counsel Nancy Schiffer says current labor law with its NLRB elections puts workers through a gauntlet of intense anti-union harassment and intimidation by employers who are free to wage all-out war on the legal right of workers to form unions. For thirty years Schiffer has tried to use the law to protect workers, but she says what really happens is their rights are rendered meaningless under current law.

: ““But I knew full well that in practice it would not and could not protect them. I had seen it fail too many times. I knew the difference between what was supposed to happen and what really happened. And I knew that they would have to be heroes in order to survive their organizing effort. And that’s just wrong.”

Contrary to Bush administration claims , Schiffer says the Employee Free Choice Act - just passed by the U.S. House this week - will restore, not short-circuit, workers rights to form unions. Right now, she says, this is the reality workers face when trying to join unions.

: “Workers see that their rights are violated with impunity during the so-called NLRB supervised election process and they lose heart, because they feel betrayed by the law they thought protected them. And they feel afraid.”

AUDIO story here http://www.laborradio.org/files/lo/winsheadlines.ram

Please note, yesterday Cheney promise a veto if this gets to the President's desk.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. I would say...

It's time for Organized Labor to march on Washington.

[guitar man]

2. I agree

I come from a line of union workers myself, I was union when I was younger, been through a messy strike and an organizing drive or two. (I'm management now, but don't shoot!)

A march on DC is in order, a massive one. Not just unions, but working people in general too. Our interests are not being addresed in the slightest. We have little or no access and it's just getting worse every day.

As much as I hate to say it, it might be high time for the union folks to go back to cracking some heads when necessary. Playing nice hasn't gotten them very far.

Go union!!

[llmart]

6. There's nothing wrong with a prounion person.............

going management. I did. That way I'm able to surreptiously help the union out. It's the antiunion people you DON'T want in management.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. It never dawns on them....

It never dawns on them that unemployed folks have TIME OFF to go to marches, protests, etc. because they ain't got a life!!!

I'm still waiting for that bums' union, myself. Maybe I could be a Wobblie, anyway.

[rodeodance]

3. maybe cheney will walk into a bog!

[LiberalFighter]

4. How about him walking in the boots of ironworkers?

40 stories up

[Doondoo]

5. K&R

[unblock]

7. mergers are unions for owners

if they have something against unions, why aren't they opposed to mergers? a merger is just collective bargaining for employers.

ah, because they DON'T have something against unions, they have something against WORKERS.

[In Truth We Trust]

8. Kick for Labor!