For years now the only commodity where the buyer sets the price of the commodity instead of the seller is work. This would be like going into Wal-Mart and picking up an item priced at $4.00 and telling the cashier I'm only going to pay $3.00.
The Republicans would like you to believe that any increase in the wages of Middle Class America would make American business non competitive in the Global economy.Forget for a moment that the slave wage model is not the only model of globalization, there are two ways you can talk about this. The first way is to point out with weak unions and declining wages for thirty years since Ronald Reagan broke PATCO the air traffic controllers union, we have been losing jobs like a cut artery loses blood with some estimates of 9 million jobs lost by the end of this year Maybe what we need is another model of competition not more wage cuts.
The second way to look at it is that while CEO's deny the right to a contract to employee's not a one of them would work without a contract specifying terms and conditions of employment. So why is it tantamount to Socialist evil when workers want an employment contract but the only way to do business when it is the rich. In short it is not about anything but control.
And if you want to talk about rights you do not have a number of rights in the workplace that you have as a citizen. One is free speech, and if you think you do tell your employer you would like to utilize your right to organize. In the case of some people I have worked with it all boiled down to they held political views that their bosses didn't like. In a right to work state you can be fired at the will of your employer for any reason.
You also do not have the right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures because they can check your e-mails. You will also find you do not have the right of free association in some work places.
Republicans will also argue that The Employee Free Choice Act will deny workers the right to a secret ballot. In fact employee's are free to choose the secret ballot so the issue with Republicans is really that management is not the sole controller of the work place.
.Let me share my experience of the laughable secret ballot. We chose to organize with the Steel Workers at one place I worked because they are one of the most democratic unions. This place was so dangerous that staff had been injured to the tune of 150 injuries serious enough to require missed time in a three month period.
This happened because they hired young staff with little experience and were given little training. In addition to save money we worked understaffed. I was injured during this year six times including broken fingers, broken ribs, and being bitten 8 times by patients at this psych hospital. They also felt they had no obligation to tell us if patients had been tested for HIV and in one occasion we were bitten by a patient they had not felt obligated to tell us had been diagnosed with hepatitis B.
Management laughed at us as we passed around the cards for signatures. They weren't laughing when the union told them that 95% of their staff signed cards.
Then they hired union busting attorney's to help them deny their employee's their rights. Out of this they held captive audience meetings where they threatened us that if we voted the union in they would fire us and hire new staff and reopen. Then they threatened that they would just refuse to negotiate. Then just to make sure they completely perverted the electoral process they bribed some of the card signers with higher pay and promises of better jobs if they voted no.
On the day of the secret ballot election all of management was right there watching and standing around the ballot box along with the scabs they bribed to attempt to intimidate anyone who might still be thinking they might like a union, Need I say we lost. Oh by the way, all those people they bribed never got their bribes once the union election was over and they still had control.
Believe me, after 35 years in the banana republic dictatorship called work, we need The Employee Free Choice Act because it is time we genuinely valued work.
Comments
"At-will" employment states have had expanding employment bases (notwithstanding the recent crash). Your experience may have been different because of the industry you're in. Employers who feel bullied by a union are loathe to expand their workforces. If unionization was such a positive, why has Pennsylvania's job creation steadily declined?
Banana republic dictatorship, that’s a good one! Because loosing the right to vote in a secret ballot election actually turns this country into being no better than a banana republic dictatorship!
Rejoice Tim! Obama is President! You no longer need work, the Federal government will provide all you need. Lo, none of us need work. We will tax the evil rich and make them pay. Evil employers will soon feel the wrath of the unrepresented employee. Years of suffering, waking up early, forced scheduling, low pay replaced with whatever we the oppressed masses democratically choose. Workers Unite!!!
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