New Study Will Undercut Key Business-Group Claim About EFCA
A new study to be released later today by the AFL-CIO undercuts a key claim being made by pro-business groups about the Employee Free Choice Act: That it would enable labor officials to “intimidate” workers into joining unions.
The study, by University of Illinois professor Robert Bruno, analyzed what has happened in the past six years in Illinois, where state law has created a system similar to that which would be created nationally by EFCA.
It concludes that even though over 20,000 Illinois public sector workers joined unions during that time period, not a single case of union intimidation has been proven.
Tom Donohue’s Chamber of Commerce and other business groups battling the majority signup provision of EFCA, which would make it easier for workers to join unions, have frequently raised the specter of union intimidation as a major argument against the measure.
“After all the mud-throwing coming from the other side, saying that majority signup would create union intimidation for workers, this report shows unequivocally that this is simply not true,” Alison Omens, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, tells me. “This shows that the system under majority sign up works.”
It should be noted that the study was commissioned by labor, and partly funded by the AFL-CIO via the United Association for Labor Education. Professor Bruno has spoken out favorably about EFCA in the past. Check out his report right here.
Update: Barbara Comstock, a spokesperson for the anti-EFCA Workforce Fairness Institute, heaped contempt on the report.
“Imagine that, a labor-commissioned and funded report written by ‘Forced’ Choice advocates finds a premise favorable to the union bosses,” she says. “This report and its content are completely inconsistent with reality and history, and no results could justify an undemocratic process that eliminates the secret ballot and results in a government bureaucrat unilaterally dictating workplace terms without a vote.”
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Nobody is going to take it seriously because the unions paid for it. Besides that the operative word is “proven” which means there were probably at least allegations of union intimidation. The union problem is “The Sopranos” much like people who want torture prosecuted have “24″ as a problem. Dispelling the notion of intimidation is going to be close to impossible because the meme is now a part of pop culture. I still say they should be fighting tooth and nail the notion that EFCA takes away the secret ballot. Thats the fight they have to win to turn this thing around. Hell get an impartial lawyer to look through the legislation and make a ruling as to whether it takes away the secret ballot and split the costs with the Chamber of Commerce. At least make the offer and then point it out when the Chamber declines to agree to such an impartial ruling.
Even assuming this study is completely on the up-and-up (and given the funding, among other things, I have my doubts), I still don’t think it undercuts the specific claims on union coercion or the larger claim that a secret ballot election is the best method to determine employee free choice on the question of unionization. Here’s why: (1) the government of Illinois does not have to compete in either the national or international marketplace — in the private sector, the main opposition to unions is that they hinder the ability to compete, particularly in those industries where jobs can be outsourced or competitive products imported. Contrast that with the public sector which has neither competitors nor any profit motive whatsoever. Employees generally resist unionization when their employers credibly make the case that they will be better off without a union — when that doesn’t happen, the conditions that lead to union coercision are not present, so the lack of it is unsurprising; (2) Relatedly, unions are not stupid — if you can make a case to an employee that you have nothing to lose by joining the union (i.e., job security is a non-issue) there is no need to be coercive. It’s only a test if unions acted this way when pitted against and employer who was interested in remaining non-union. Heck, I bet most Illinois government employees (correctly) assumed their bosses were happy to have them be unionized.
All that said, I don’t think hard ball tactics are nearly as likely as a more banal peer pressure to sign the card. The point is that the employee has to make his or her decision in public, and may simply get tired of saying no or just not want to be hassled any more. It doesn’t have to be 2:00 a.m. visits in order to subvert the free choice aspects of having a secret ballot election on a date certain, and then having the question be settled.
That would be this Barbara Comstock:
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006/02/its-evil-harpie-time-with-barbara.html
Instead of bad mouthing the author of the report, maybe Ms. Constock should have gone through the report and countered its statements. A report is not an editorial. It is a study of the situation and its validity rests on the facts that it uncovers and the analysis of those facts. If Ms. Comstock really thinks that there are problems with the report, she needs to go through and show how it is wrong either in its facts or its analysis. Otherwise we have to conclude that she doesn’t like the conclusion, but can’t argue with it in a reality based world, and accepts that it is accurate.
I would love to see the actual evidence in the study discussed. I imagine it would come out much better for the study than this kind of “he said, she said” journalism. Based on NLRB information, it is extremely unlikely that Ms. Comstock has a leg to stand on. The well-documented reality is that employers routinely harass and intimidate workers and hold Russian-style elections, while unions almost never intimidate workers. Check the NLRB numbers: in 2007 alone, 29,559 workers received back pay from employers in cases alleging illegal firings and other violations
of their federally protected rights, according to the National Labor Relations Board’s annual
reports. And those are just the cases that could be proved, and could get past powerful corporate lawyers!
Show me any similar evidence of union harassment on any meaningful scale and I’ll listen. You’ll notice, though, that the corporate line here is backed up by innuendo and stereotype, not research. These are the same kind of folks who argued that child labor laws would destroy the economy, and they’re using arguments of similar caliber now.
If unions were currently or in recent history engaged in widespread, systematic intimidation, why are they losing elections? Wouldn’t they be able to intimidate voters into voting for the union and wouldn’t they also be able to intimidate local management so it didn’t fight the union. That’s what Tony Soprano would do.
The fact is intimidation by unions in organizing just does not happen (as documented by Bruno) but MANAGEMENT systematically and widely intimidates and interrogates workers (as documented by the National Labor Relations Board) so that they pretty well know how people intend to vote and often fire or retaliate against workers who support the union.
Don’t believe it? Check the stats for the number of workers reinstated by the NLRB after being illegally fired, or watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xiLsDLXvwY