U.S. BARRIERS TO UNIONIZATION
GREATER THAN IN OTHER NATIONS

U.S. barriers to unionization, both in the law and in the practice of firms and their allies in the federal government, are greater than in any other industrialized nation and greater than in several notable developing--and newly democratic--countries, a labor studies expert says.

In a report prepared for the AFL-CIO-sponsored international organizing conference Dec. 10-11 and in conference sessions, John Logan of the prestigious London School of Economics said that not only do U.S. workers have less legal protection than their counterparts in other developed nations, but in no other nation is management as implacably “hostile” to unionization.

“There’s no other developed country where you see such no-holds-barred campaigns” against unionization, complete with rampant law-breaking “as you see at Verizon Wireless and Resurrection Health Care,” he said, citing two of the nastiest campaigns that conference delegates discussed.

Despite a card-check-and-neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers for its main Verizon business, Verizon has repeatedly broken labor law against CWA’s efforts to organize its VZW subsidiary.

Resurrection, the second-largest hospital chain in Chicago and one of the leading Catholic health care chains in the U.S., has been found guilty by the National Labor Relations Board in 14 instances of labor law-breaking--formally called unfair labor practices--in its drive to prevent unionization by its thousands of nurses and workers.

“The problem is very, very clear: The law forms very weak protections” for U.S. workers “and employer opposition has been much more massive and hostile,” Logan said. That produces a huge “representation gap” in the U.S.--the difference between the 12.5% of U.S. workers who are unionized and the 58% Logan calculated would be unionized without the obstacles. U.S. unionization is even less than in Indonesia (20%).

While passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed bill to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining, would help U.S. unions and workers, “It would not solve all these problems,” Logan warned.

“It wouldn’t, overnight, make employers accepting of unions and collective bargaining or get rid of this industry of union-avoidance consultants and lawyers--the U.S. is the only country with it--but it would make the process of trying to get a union and a collective bargaining agreement much less fearful for workers,” Logan added.

EFCA is “the normal standard for the rest of the world,” CWA President Larry Cohen testified. Sweeney said later that “60% of U.S. workers would join unions today if it weren’t for the fact they’re scared to death” to do so. Cohen said U.S. labor law is so bad that there’s “the equivalent of military rule in the workplace.”

Other speakers noted U.S. firms, besides exporting jobs, are now exporting union-busting. “In other countries, when you get 50% plus one signing cards, you get a union and you get a contract. It’s that straightforward,” Logan said.

Besides a weak law and hostile employers, other problems U.S. workers face include lack of enforcement, minimal penalties and a federal government--especially under the GOP Bush regime--that aids anti-union corporations, Logan reported.

The lack of unionization in the U.S. affects the rest of the world, delegates told lawmakers. “The U.S. bears more than a little responsibility for the miserable state of workers’ rights worldwide,” AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney testified.

“Our corporations are free to pit U.S. workers against workers in other countries, and export” U.S. labor problems and anti-union practices overseas. Such exports also have a negative impact on workers abroad, Sweeney added.

“There’s no question we see some plants moving where they can get the cheapest possible deal. It’s a matter of avoiding all the benefits--health benefits, wages, working standards” and unions, he told Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.).

Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights added “anti-union policymakers” to “hostile companies” in explaining the decline of U.S. unionization. The Bush regime, he said, appointed officials “who are openly hostile to the purposes of the laws,” including labor laws, he added.

One GOP National Labor Relations Board member, Peter Kirsanow, “has even said all human rights should be suspended if there’s another terrorist attack,” Henderson added. That statement came in a prior position, not at NLRB, he conceded.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who pushed the Employee Free Choice Act through the Democratic-run chamber--only to see it fall victim to a GOP Senate filibuster--linked the decline of unionization in the U.S. to the decline of the middle class.

“Without unions’ work we would not be able to sustain a middle class, and without a middle class there’s no democracy. So legislation that goes forth from this Congress will strengthen the middle class and strengthen democracy,” she declared.