Unions Under Assault By DAVID MACARAY

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray02232008.html

There are two "wars" going on in this country, each of which has the power to dramatically affect the future of working people. One is the war being waged by organized labor, seeking (through membership drives, lobbying and political contributions) to expand its base, gain new members, and galvanize its existing membership against assaults from anti-union forces.

This war to "recruit and maintain" is an uphill battle. The AFL-CIO's recent failure to organize even one of Wal-Mart's then 3,600 stores in the U.S. (today there are 4,000), despite allocating enormous resources to the effort, is an indication of just how daunting a mission this is.

The other war is a political one. It is a war being waged by the Bush administration's Department of Labor, Department of Justice and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a war committed to reducing even further labor's diminishing influence.

The corporation-owned Bushies have a clear mandate: To cripple organized labor. And they've been busy at it, being creative. For example, the administration has attempted to strip the collective bargaining privileges from the 160,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security, and has argued that graduate assistants and temp workers cannot, by law, seek union representation. They've been busy.

But one of the most significant recent battles in this war was the October, 2006, ruling by the Bush-appointed NLRB, involving three separate groups of health care employees. It has come to be known collectively as the "Kentucky River" decision.

A bit of history: While the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (the "Wagner Act") gave unions the statutory right to organize workers and to act as their sole representative in the collective bargaining process, the anti-union 1947 Taft-Hartley Act added a key restriction. Taft-Hartley stipulated that "supervisory personnel" were exempt from the statute. In short, managers, supervisors and other "bosses" were not allowed to be represented by a union. No supervisors allowed. Fair enough.

FULL story at link.

[liberalnurse]

1. Unions have been loosing oxygen for years.

I believe Steve, that if all nurses were required to join a union and or actually had a union to join; we would be the most powerful collective bargaining group in the United States.

Too bad they won't all buck-up. Soon, maybe.O8)

[classykaren]

2. I agree n/t