There is only one way to get a true sense of how devastating the workplace voting system is for workers is in the United States today. And that is by applying it within the context of a local, state or national election.
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If local, state and national elections utilized the election rules provided through the National Labor Relations Board, there would quite likely be rioting in the streets. The 2000 Florida recount would look like a textbook example of Jeffersonian Democracy, and not the disaster it's looked back at as today.
There is only one way to get a true sense of how devastating the workplace voting system is for workers is in the United States today. And that is by applying it within the context of a local, state or national election.
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Imagine a local election where the idea of non-partisan voting information distributed by non-partisan volunteers doesn't exist. Instead, voters are required to take Republican Party literature before entering the booth, with any and all Democratic material banned from the premises.Imagine the penalty for anyone caught handing out Democratic literature being the loss of their job and their livelihood with little to no legal recourse.
Besides that, televised campaign ads leading up to election day are limited to those promoting the Republican candidate while Democratic candidates are left with fewer options - perhaps they may visit some voters during the limited time Democratic supporters actually find voters home from work and not busy with their families.
Voters who choose to tune out the flow of pro-Republican ads on television still are not immune. This is where mandatory "captive audience" meetings are held where voters are fed an aggressive array of party propaganda and even measured by their reaction to it.
On top of that, Republican Party supporters and activists are give free rein to threaten fence-sitting voters with retaliation while every single one of your Republican neighbors can be required to report back information about you, your family and your political leanings.
And, imagine having to travel to the legally required location of the Republican Party headquarters to vote - with no access given to Democratic party staff, candidates or supporters.
If that is not enough, even if the Republican candidate were to lose, he or she would have the legally sanctioned option of filing a limitless number of objections to the election results.
And if by a chance a court threw out those objections, there is nothing in place to stop the Republican candidate from simply deciding to ignore the elections results. Instead, he or she can simply go about as if the election never happened.
That is how the system of so-called "secret ballot elections" conducted by the National Labor Relations Board currently work.
By the time employees get to vote, the environment has been so poisoned that free and fair choice isn't an option. People call the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election system a secret ballot election-but in fact it's not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. No employee has a free choice
after being browbeaten by a supervisor to oppose the union or being told they may lose their job and livelihood if workers vote for the union.
Every year, an average of 22,600 workers lose their jobs as a result of employer-dominated elections that follow the same guidelines as those described above. Thousands more are harassed and threatened.
Every day, this happens in a nation that ended slavery and brought voting rights to millions of minority voters. The President claims we are fighting overseas for freedom, but how can you stand for freedom when it's not even allowed to be put into practice at home?
The Wagner Act, which created the board, states: "Employees shall have to the right to self organization to form,
join, or assist labor organizations..."
The NLRB was designed to protect employee choice on whether to form unions, but since its' inception it has been turned upside down and now places employer interests above its original mission.
Under the current system of management controlled balloting, the employer has all the power, controls the information workers can receive and routinely poisons the process by intimidating, harassing, coercing and even firing people who try to organize unions.
On top of that, the law's penalties are so insignificant that many companies treat them as just another cost of doing business. By the time employees vote in an NLRB election, if they ever can get to that point, a free and fair choice isn't an option. It's a pipe dream.
Thankfully, hope has arrived in the form of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Under the Employee Free Choice Act, when a majority of employees votes to form a union by signing authorization cards, and those authorization cards are validated by an impartial third party, the employer will be required to recognize and bargain with the union the workers choose.
Additionally, penalties for employer violations during election campaigns have teeth put into them. Unlike the current system of minimal to no penalties where any employer wrongdoing short of something results in a loss of income or employment is penalized by a requirement that the employer post a notice "swearing" they will not commit the offense again.
Under the Employee Free Choice Act, that notice would be replaced by real penalties such as monetary damages equal to three times the employees' loss in pay and injunctive relief for workers who are fired - something employees do not have under the current "secret ballot" rules, but employers do.
Of course, you can imagine some anti-worker groups and employers would be against anything that would draw its inspiration from the Democratic process. In a classic example of a freudian slip found in the Bureau of National Affair's Daily Labor Report, one employer summed up reaction from his corner succinctly:
According to that audience member, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sought to organize 30 of his company's drivers in 2003, but obtained only 11 signed union authorization cards. Unless an employer learns of the organizing drive, "You have no chance to retaliate - I shouldn't say retaliate," he said to peals of nervous laughter from the audience. Rather, he corrected himself, "You have no chance to say [as an employer] what's going on."Thanks go to Jordan Barab for finding this comment.
Some 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in December 2006. Unfortunately, the only thing stopping them are the current employer dominated rules that they have to endure in order to get a voice at work and advance their own economic well-being.
Bill Lawhorn, who worked at the Consolidated Biscuit Company in McComb, Ohio, told reporters at today's news conference that he was fired for trying to form a union through the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International union. Lawhorn said, he's struggled to find a decent-paying job and provide for his family since he was fired in 2002 . Even though he believes his firing was illegal - a belief that's been supported by several National Labor Relations Board rulings - he hasn't received a cent of back pay or has he been offered his job back. "A supervisor told me that if the union won the election, I would be fired. And sure enough, the day after the election, I was out of there," Lawhorn said. "The laws are set up for the employer to win. Even win they lose, they win."
There is no reason that a worker must engage in the modern day equivalent of a biblical struggle to form a union. Attaining a negotiated contract should not constitute a Herculean challenge nor a sysphusian struggle.
Below, is a list of the 15 House Democrats Who Have Not signed on to the Employee Free Choice Act. If you live in one of their districts, please take the time to call them about this bill and the struggles workers have to endure every day.
You may want to remind them that until working people can exercise a free choice, they will continue to lose power in our country, living standards will continue to suffer and our middle class will continue to decline. Workers need a real choice. They don't have it now.
Bud Cramer (AL - 5)
2184 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4801
Marion Berry (AR - 1)
2305 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-4076
Vic Snyder (AR - 2)
1330 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: 202-225-2506
Henry Mitchell(AZ - 5)
2434 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-2190
Allen Boyd(FL - 2)
1227 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5235
Tim Mahoney (FL - 16)
1541 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5792
Nancy Boyda (KS - 2)
1711 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone:(202) 225-6601
Gene Taylor (MS - 4)
2269 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
Phone: 202 225-5772
Mike McIntyre (NC - 7)
2437 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2731
John Spratt (SC - 5)
John Tanner (TN - 8)
1226 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4714
Lloyd Doggett (TX - 25)
201 Cannon House Office Bldg
Washington, DC
202-225-4865
Henry Cueller (TX - 28)
336 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC
Phone: 202-225-1640
Bobby Scott (VA - 3)
1201 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-8351
And finally, below is contact information for the one Democratic Senator who has so far not pledged to support this bill along with the four Republican Senators who might all be politely persuaded to support it (Arlen Specter is a co-sponsor):
Patrick Leahy (D - VT)
433 Russell Senate Office Bldg
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4242
Gordon Smith (R - OR)
404 Russell Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202.224.3753
Ted Stevens (R - AK)
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-3004
Susan Collins (R - ME)
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2523
Olympia Snowe (R - ME)
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-5344