Stephen, J. Cabot blog

The 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a recent NLRB decision thus helping unions intent on organizing hospital workers.

The Healthcare Employees Union had argued to the NLRB that the St. Vincent Medical Center in New York City had prevented workers from unionizing by subcontracting out respiratory jobs just before workers were to vote on unionization. The NLRB rejected that argument, which the 9th Circuit has now overturned in a 2-1 decision.

“We would have to ignore a powerful string of coincidences to conclude that St. Vincent would have implemented subcontracting, when and as it did, in the absence of union activity,” Judge Harry Pregerson wrote in the majority’s decision. Senior Judge William Canby wrote that the NLRB had not taken into account evidence of “anti-union animus

If a healthcare facility wants to defeat a union organizing effort, it cannot wait until that union comes knocking on its front door. It must put in place union-proofing strategies well in advance of organizing efforts. No company knows when an Appeals court will reverse a once-favorable NLRB decision. Those who are not prepared have invited unto themselves labor relations problems that could have easily been avoided.

Unionization by card check is a dangerous process in which companies are forced to grant union recognition after a majority of its workers sign cards indicating they favor a union. Unions are lobbying Congress to pass a bill, The Employee Free Choice Act, introduced by Senator Kennedy (D) MA, so that it can use this procedure to replace the traditional secret-ballot elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

Corporate America opposes card checks because the procedure makes it much easier for unions to secure majority support, giving management little, if any, chance to present its case against unionization.

Last year, 70% of private sector workers who joined unions did so as a result of Card checks. That translates to 150,000 workers. That number includes 4,600 workers at Wynn Las Vegas, 5,000 janitors in Houston, and 16,500 workers at Cingular. Two decades ago, the percentage of workers who joined unions following card checks was a mere 5%.
.
.
Responsibly, Representative Charlie Norwood, (R) GA, who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, has sponsored legislation that will outlaw card checks. His bill has 81 co-sponsors.

“Union thugs are allowed to confront individual workers on the job and at their homes, and demand the worker sign a card giving the union exclusive rights to representation,” Rep.. Norwood wrote in The Washington Times.

The US Chamber of Commerce has established a Web site, www. secretballotprotection.com, that criticizes the card check legislation, and I advise my readers to read the information on the Chamber’s website.

Corporate America, if it is to maintain its independence and its competitive edge, must fight against this dangerous threat to its very viability.

The bus drivers of Chicago, under the guidance of their union, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Division 241, have called for a walkout.

The ATU is trying to show that it’s more militant than the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is trying to take over the representation of the city’s bus drivers. In recent months, Teamster locals have displaced ATU locals with promises of aggressive representation, especially when it comes to bargaining for wages and benefits.

In an earlier blog, I had warned that as a result of the rupture in the AFL-CIO, militant break-away unions would raid other union’s members as well as attempt to organize union-free companies. It’s happening, and it will continue to happen.

The Chicago bus drivers have not walked out since 1979; but in this changing climate of heated militancy, more walkouts, slow downs, and strikes will become ever more commonplace.

And with the attempt by Democratic senators to pass The Employee Free Choice Act even more companies are going to find that they are in the sights of unions’ hired guns, the organizers, who have put targets on the backs of many companies.

They have courage. They are not chicken. They are Tyson employees, and they want to decertify their union.

Members of the Untied Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 1546 want to get their union out. They have filed a petition with the NLRB.

This is a further sign that unions are not delivering for their members, and that workers often feel they can get a better deal if they are free to negotiate on their own with management

Union leaders of the AFL-CIO have agreed to spend $40-million for the mid-term elections. That is the most money that the union has ever spend to influence the outcome of an election. The union would like to wrest control from the pro-management Republican legislators who currently control both houses of the legislature. They hope to elect Democrats to fifteen Senate seats, forty house seats, and governorships in California, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

In the 2002 midterm elections, the AFL-CIO spent $35-million. This is an extraordinary increase when one considers that the union has cut its budget by 25% as a result of four militant unions breaking away from the AFL-CIO last year.

John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, has called President Bush the most anti-worker president in our history.

It is essential that management groups organize to meet this challenge and communicate to voters the benefits that Corporate America provides for the vast majority of citizens.