Tuesday 03 March 2009
by: Seth Sandronsky, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Workers rally in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. (Photo: Getty Images)
What does fairness and freedom mean on the job in the US? Expect varied answers to that question when the Senate begins to deliberate the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act. If the EFCA gets enough votes to pass the Senate and House and President Obama signs it into law, as he promised to, US workers would have a new way to enter labor unions. For a view of the current secret-ballot process, we turn to Frank Garcia, a father of one and warehouse worker for 12 years with Blue Diamond Growers, an almond processing plant in Sacramento.
"Company consultants arrived before voting began," Garcia said recently. "They threatened us that a vote for the union (AFL-CIO/ International Longshore and Warehouse Union) would mean that our jobs would be replaced if we went on strike. The consultants met first with groups of 50 workers, followed by smaller groups of five to ten people."
These company actions took place when the AFL-CIO/ILWU launched an organizing drive at Garcia's workplace in 2004. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) directed the drive and the secret elections for 600-plus workers there. They process Blue Diamond almonds for export to nations such as South Korea to make biscuits, candies and cereals.
Ultimately, the company defeated the campaign to unionize the plant. Susan Brauner, public affairs director for Blue Diamond, declined a request for comment on the consultants' names and their message(s).
During the four-year campaign in Sacramento, Blue Diamond management harassed and fired some of Garcia's co-workers. An NLRB judge ruled that management was guilty of over 20 violations of US labor law. "That would not have happened with the Employee Free Choice Act," he said.
With the EFCA, a majority of employees could check a card showing union support at a workplace such as Blue Diamond. That process would replace the NLRB secret elections. Additionally, the EFCA penalizes employers for up to three times the back pay of an employee "illegally discharged or discriminated against during an organizing campaign or first contract drive" with the additional penalty of civil fines no more than $20,000 per violation of employees' rights.
Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson (D) and Garcia were two speakers calling for the passage of the EFCA at a recent protest of 50 people outside the entrance of a Rite Aid Corp. drugstore in West Sacramento. Under a light drizzle, the protesters marched and chanted, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Rite Aid is moving mighty slow."
The slowness in question is Rite Aid's approach to contract talks with more than 500 workers at its distribution center in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles. In NLRB-supervised elections, the employees voted to join the AFL-CIO/ILWU Local 26 to represent them in March 2008.
This was the proverbial end of the beginning, however. Rite Aid is dragging its feet in contract talks, "surface bargaining," according to Agustin Ramirez, lead organizer for the AFL-CIO/ILWU. In his view, the company is trying to "run out the clock," much as a basketball or football team in the lead stalls to keep possession of the ball near the end of a game to bar an opponent from scoring.
Under NLRB law, new unions and employers have a year to reach an agreement. As the second year with no agreement begins, the NLRB permits workers to file to petition to decertify their new labor union representation.
Cheryl Slavinsky of Rite Aid disagrees with Ramirez's assessment of progress in the contract talks. "We have been bargaining in good faith with the ILWU local representing our distribution center in Lancaster, California, and have offered to stay at the table all night to work out our differences, but the union so far has not accepted that offer."
Under the EFCA, new unions such as AFL-CIO/ILWU Local 26 in Lancaster would have ten days in which to notify an employer to begin collective bargaining. In turn, EFCA provides an initial 90-period for both sides to negotiate a contract. If unable to reach an agreement, either side can contact the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to help achieve a resolution. If this mediation fails to result in an agreement during a 30-day period, the mediator would refer the dispute to an arbitration panel empowered to reach a settlement and impose a binding two-year agreement on both parties. In short, the EFCA imposes binding arbitration on employers and new unions versus no such provisions for deadlines with the NLRB now.
Back at the Rite Aid protest in West Sacramento, Ramirez, Dean Murakami, president of the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers, Local 2279, AFT/CFT; Karl Neubuerger, executive vice president with Unite Here Local 49; and Gary Passmore, spokesman for the Congress of California Seniors, went inside to see the drugstore manager, Keith. They gave him a petition in the form of a valentine signed by the protesters, that read: "We hope you'll find it in your heart to stop union-busting, start negotiating, and respect the right of workers to join a union. It's time to stop attacking employees and start solving problems together."
On Capitol Hill, California's two Democratic senators have different stances on the EFCA. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) backs the bill, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) is against it, according to Ramirez. Boxer and Feinstein declined repeated requests for comments.
"The California Labor Federation spoke with Senator Feinstein a month ago," said Ramirez. "She said the current (NLRB) system is adequate and to give her counter-examples. The state labor movement is doing that. We are gathering letters from workers with the Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO and other such councils statewide to tell Senator Feinstein about the need to pass the EFCA."
Organized labor needs to convince Feinstein and 14 other Democratic senators to support the EFCA to avoid a filibuster, Ramirez added.
Rep. George Miller (D-California) introduced H.R 800, the EFCA, in January 2007. The EFCA passed the House with a vote of 241 to 185 four months later. One of the House members supporting the EFCA was Hilda Solis (D-California), President Obama's labor secretary designee, just confirmed for that post by the Senate in an 80 to 17 vote. The Senate of the 110th Congress voted 51-48 for EFCA, but the bill failed to get a filibuster-proof 60 votes and died.
As a senator, President Obama co-sponsored the EFCA. The 111th Congress will take it up again as the US economy slows due to a deflating multi-trillion dollar bubble in home prices. Against this backdrop, the current free fall in employment ups the political stakes for the EFCA.
Its leading opponent is the US Chamber of Commerce. "The debate over EFCA should not be about whether unions are good or bad, but what the fairest process is for employees to decide whether they want a union," according to a 2007 report the US Chamber of Commerce issued.
All sides involved agree on one thing. The political battle over the EFCA is about competing definitions of workplace fairness and freedom. The side that has the most money and power to prevail will leave its mark on the nation's work force. According to the US Labor Department, 12.4 percent of the nation's workers were union members in 2008, an increase of 0.3 percent from the previous year. Such growth would surely speed up with the enactment of the EFCA. Expect an epic conflict.
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Seth Sandronsky lives and writes in Sacramento ssandronsky@yahoo.com.
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