Over the years, we have often reported on the absurdity of many union complaints, but when a union of teachers objects to a ruling that would protect their health, one knows that the union movement has invaded and occupied the surrealistic world of Alice in Wonderland.
The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties has stated that it will file an unfair labor practices complaint because there is a ban on smoking at state colleges and universities.
Smoking!
Cancer!
Who could possibly be in favor of the right to contract a deadly disease?
The union represents 6,000 faculty members at 14 state universities in Pennsylvania. Of those 6,000 faculty members, there are numerous athletic coaches. Could they possibly be in favor of young athletes darkening their lungs with tar and nicotine, diminishing their endurance by curtailing the capacity of young lungs to inhale sufficient quantities of oxygen?
One can only imagine a judge’s reaction to the filing of the union’s complaint.
And the labor movement, having grown increasingly superfluous, has simply confirmed its lack of purpose amongst working-class Americans.
Some union leaders are saying that they like secret ballot elections and that it’s only anti-union elements who claim that they don’t.
To prove that unions love secret ballot elections, for example, a union leader in Maine claims that unions have regular secret ballot elections to elect union leaders. The Employee Free Choice Act, however, is not about electing union leaders; it is about unionizing workers after they have signed card checks.
Union leaders and their supporters in Congress want to do away with secret ballot elections as part of organizing campaigns, so that unions can be more successful in organizing workers than they have been in the past decade.
Some union leaders are simply using a clever rhetorical tactic designed to dispel concerns about doing away with a democratic tradition, namely secret ballot elections. It’s as if those union leaders are saying “don’t worry; we like elections. Just look at how we choose our own leaders.”
Any sensible person, however, knows that there is a vast difference between union leadership elections and organizing elections. And there is a vast difference between democratically held secret ballot elections and card checks which may subject workers to coercive tactics.
Corporate America and those who uphold our democratic traditions will not be fooled by such rhetorical bait and switch tactics.
We had previously written about the RICO suits filed by Wackenhut Corporation and Smithfield Foods against unions that resorted to tactics that hurt those companies’ bottom lines and injured the interests of their investors and employees.
It’s no wonder that UNITE HERE was ordered to pay $17-million by a court after it was found guilty of “fraud, malice, and oppression.” The award came as a result of a UNITE HERE noxious campaign against those in the medical field. Similarly, the Service Employees International Union got its comrades in arms to flood hospital emergency rooms in order to get hospitals to capitulate to union demands.
Such tactics are entirely egregious and dangerously damaging to the fabric of American society. It’s time for Corporate America to learn a lesson from Wackenhut and Smithfield Foods and fight back. If not, organized labor will be on a relentless march to achieving a string of destructive victories. And with a Democratic administration promising to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, Corporate America will be the big bull’s-eye in organized labor’s crosshairs. The time to act is now!
For years, union membership has been on the decline, which is why organized labor has lobbied so vigorously for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. If the act becomes law, which it will in a Democratic administration, all each worker needs to do is sign a card expressing one’s wish to join a union. And with union organizers passing around those cards and pressuring workers to sign, union membership is expected to skyrocket.
Now comes news that union membership is, in fact, increasing in certain areas and it is happening without the help of card checks.
In Boston, for example, 6,359 people have joined unions in the past year. That’s the highest number in 20 years! Many of those who have joined unions are truck and taxi drivers, private security guards, and home-healthcare aids.
Boston is like many other large cities across the nation; therefore, one can expect to see a rise in union membership in such places as New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Detroit, etc.
Since this is occurring without the aid of the Employee Free Choice Act, one can only imagine the extraordinarily large number of new union members there will be when the EFCA passes Congress and is signed into law. It is time for Corporate America to create effective strategic action plans to deal with the coming union onslaught. Time is of the essence.