Management Mag Shows How Employers Fear Employee Free Choice Act

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/01/15/management-mag-shows-how-employers-fear-employee-free-choice-act/

by James Parks, Jan 15, 2008

With the 2008 elections looming, employers are desperately trying to stop what could be a political tsunami that will finally restore the freedom of workers to join a union. If voters choose a Democratic president and keep a Democratic majority in Congress, observers expect the Employee Free Choice Act to become law. And employers are in a panic.

In the January edition of HR Magazine, which caters to management types, Stephen Cabot, chairman of the anti-union Cabot Institute for Labor Relations, admits in an article that some employers cross the line when they resist unions. Cabot is quoted saying:

Currently, many employers engage in initiatives to counter union campaigns they wouldn’t dare do under . Now, there’s a minor fine; under EFCA, every unfair labor practice will be potentially a $20,000 fine. Now, even if management is not overtly instigating it, the feeling is ‘if one of my supervisors is talking to people, it’s not so bad.’ With EFCA, it will be very costly.

Robert J. Grossman, author of the article, writes that the 2006 elections set off a huge political wave, and observers believe a Democratic president and Congress will “open the floodgates for union organizing” by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. (Click here to read the article.)

Why such a panic? Because unlike current labor laws, the Employee Free Choice Act has some real teeth. At the same time, unions have gotten smarter and more strategic in their organizing.

Consider this praise from HR for unions assisting workers seeking to join unions. These days, union organizers “are smarter, better prepared and more numerous,” the article says, and the campaigns are more sophisticated. Grossman singles out the “strategists in the AFL-CIO’s Center for Strategic Research and Change to Win’s Strategic Organizing Center use ‘competitor analysis’ and other tools to target workforces.”

FULL story at link.

[classykaren]

1. I pray this comes to pass

I tried to start a Union in Florida for over 2 years I was the last one left they fired hundreds of people they even suspected signed cards They hired a private firm to monitor me even at home management followed me in the bathroom at work They had 45 complaints filed to our Tampa National Labor board all agents there kept saying this lookd good memos et. always dismissed by a judge My Union partner Jim who was a ex priest appealed hired a attorney ourselves our Lawyer told us this was very political our only chance was if the judge read all complaints and charges and considered a pattern he didnt and they fired Jim I eventually left oh and we had enough cards ther just was a constant turn over due to firing