With the Employee Free Choice Act heading toward a Senate vote, conservative columnist George F. Will has suddenly developed a tender concern for workers’ rights. The act “strips all workers of privacy,” he fumed in the Washington Post last week, and will repeal “a right –to secret ballots -- long considered fundamental to a democratic culture…” As Will sees it, the unions are backing the act out of sheer desperation: Since they can’t seem to win a fair fight for workers’ allegiance, they want government to take away the workers’ rights and help herd them into union membership.
OK, now let’s leave Will-land and enter an actual American workplace. Are you punched in? Good. The first thing to notice is that you’ve checked your basic civil rights at the door. Freedom of speech? Forget about it: Some employers bar speech of any kind with your fellow employees. I saw this firsthand at a chain restaurant and a Wal-Mart store. Wanna work? Zip your lips.
How about those privacy rights that Will so concerned about? Nada – they don’t exist outside of Will-land either. You probably had to pee in a cup to get your job in the first place, which constitutes a very intimate chemical invasion of privacy. In most states, your purse or backpack can be searched by the employer at any time; your emails and web activity can be monitored.
Right of assembly? Sorry, you don’t have that either. In my experience, most managers see a group of three or more employees talking together as an insurrection in the making. Shut up and get back to work!
The Employee Free Choice Act would require employers to recognize a union whenever a majority of workers sign union cards – thus bypassing the often prolonged and creaky process of an NLRB-supervised secret ballot election. The longer the delay before the election, the more time management has to intimidate, isolate, and harass the union’s supporters.
Here’s how they do it: Workers are called away from their jobs and required to attend management-run meetings where they are subjected to anti-union harangues and videos. Note: Not only do workers lack freedom of assembly, they lack the freedom to not assemble. If management announces a 2 PM meeting, you better be there. These are called “captive audience meetings” for a reason.
At the meetings, which may take place daily in the weeks leading up to an NLRB election, management lays out a dire picture of what will happen if the union comes in: Workers will lose the right to talk to managers individually (not true); they will see their wages and benefits decline (emphatically not true); they will be stuck paying exorbitant dues (hardly); the company may have to move to Mexico … Sorry, no questions or comments from the audience.
Most pro-union workers can withstand the company’s mass captive audiences. Harder to resist are the one-on-one and small group meetings, where individual workers are grilled about their union allegiance for as many hours as it takes. During one union drive among truck drivers, management confronted workers one by one about personal issues like their credit ratings and family responsibilities. A lot of them finally broke down, and the union drive was defeated.
There’s nothing wrong with management voicing its view on unions – say, in a flyer to workers – and certainly nothing wrong with secret ballots. The problem lies in the abuse of management power in the period between the initial union card signing and the NLRB-sponsored secret ballot election. If workers are willing to sign a union card-- which is a courageous step all by itself --that should be enough to signify their choice.
Will calls the Employee Free Choice Act “Orwellian.” But Orwell’s fascist “1984” is already here and it’s called the American workplace. What really scares employers about the Employee Free Choice Act is that it will begin to change that --and bring the first stirrings of democracy to work.
Wow! Thanks Barbara! Great post!
Posted by: Tina | March 08, 2007 at 12:05 PM
This is such an important topic. Employees already have lots of rights and lots of power and those rights trump the rights of customers, suppliers, and stockholders. The problem is, those employees are an elite subset of all employees - the senior execs.
Western Civilization makes great progress when it disperses power from the elites to the commoner, whether it is the power and rights of popes and kings or that of CEOs. The rise of the individual is the path of progress.
There. I'm off my soap box.
Posted by: Ron Davison | March 08, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Does anyone else feel a little sick when privileged, wealthy white men tell us we are all better off additional rights? Perhaps Will should repeat Barbara's experiment and see if he can make it flipping burgers, waiting tables, or cleaning toilets. I know he's fine without the Pampered Pundit local #126- but some of us actually work for a living.
Posted by: Chris | March 09, 2007 at 06:29 PM
Edit above- better off WITHOUT additional rights.
And does anyone else notice the backward logic in Will's column?
"Today's workforce is marvelously flexible. People entering the labor market at age 18 will have, on average, 10 employers by the time they are 38. Such mobile workers often do not see what value union membership would add to their lives."
Maybe if their job paid a decent wage and treated them with a little dignity, they wouldn't be changing jobs so much? I'm 24, I work two jobs (sometimes three) to pay the rent while in grad school. If I was paid well enough to make a living, and treated with dignity in the workplace, I'd be much more willing to work at one job for the rest of my life.
Posted by: Chris | March 09, 2007 at 08:12 PM
Thanks, Chris. I was upset about his comment on how "flexible" we all are too!
Posted by: Barbara E | March 10, 2007 at 05:02 AM
I think the worker bees would have a different outlook if they were making the payroll vs. letting someone else do it. No matter how people try to gloss over it there are some people who will always let others take the risks (physical, financial and social), let others do the 50 + hours, and pay the personal price of getting ahead. They always seem most comfortable grazing with the herd.
Posted by: Slapdash | March 10, 2007 at 09:03 AM
I worked as a security guard for NorthWest Security, out of Tacoma, WA. They touted themselves as a Union workplace, but nothing was farther from the truth. They wanted Union Contracts and that was they way they got it. Then they proceeded to pay shit wages. I left when the wages were 8.00/ hr. I understand a Shipping Employer wanted to give the guards a raise. No, said the NorthWest Protective. They KEPT the money for themselves. The Government sees nothing wrong with this type of Abuse? They still only pay 9.50 an hour. Give me a break. everardo.
Posted by: Everett J. Bonds | March 10, 2007 at 09:41 AM
A good friend and I were talking about this kind of lack of workplace freedom today, where people don't even dare say the "U" word.
She worked for a cardiac pacemaker manufacturer which has been sold off to bigger companies several times. They were called in to these brainwashing meetings regularly. At one, a new oriental worker (obviously new here) asked about the possibility of forming a union. Several hundred people in attendance and suddenly, you could hear a pin drop. The meeting leader faltered, said quickly that that wouldn't be good, then changed the subject. What struck my friend most was the audience's shock that an employee would even say that out loud.
Posted by: Linda | March 10, 2007 at 10:40 AM
What puzzles me is ordinary conservative folks seem to think Unions are so evil. I've never been able to understand this one. All these brain-washing anti-Union meetings have a very clear self-interest in mind for a very small minority group.
There are downsides to a Union to be sure, but the good outweighs the bad by a country mile. A union is definately better then what we have today, unless the conservatives provide/have an alternative I'm not aware of?
Posted by: Different | March 10, 2007 at 05:10 PM
For one thing, the Republican Party has infiltrated the churches so much that they're preaching against labor unions from the pulpit. Essentially, wherever the Bible preaches that servants are supposed to obediently serve their masters, people are supposed to apply this to their employee-employer relationships. Very convenient for the powers that be, eh?
I did a few google searches on this and yes, there is a definite concerted effort by the fundies against unions. Here are a few links ...
Bibleviews.com, see "The Bible teaches. against. membership in labor unions":
http://www.bibleviews.com/neglectedtruths.html
Crosswalk.com: Christians and labor unions:
http://www.crosswalk.com/509270/
Truechristianity.com--who is Richard Hole:
http://www.truechristianity.com/christian/unions.htm
"Many Bible verses indicate that people may be eternally separated from God if they are members of evil organizations like the Trade Unions. This is because they are deceived into wanting more for themselves and not caring about the vast less wealthy hard working majority."
There are some of the more progressive urban congregations that ally with labor, like (locally) the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network
http://www.tcrln.org/
They actually march alongside workers in labor rallies and help lobby on workers' behalf. I don't know why, but these progressive efforts tend to happen higher up in the church ranks and their message doesn't always get to the people who go to church on Sunday.
Since religion has gotten SO co-opted by the right-wing zealots during the last few decades, I've stopped going to church entirely. IF THERE IS a word of God, it really loses its meaning with all the bizarre interpretations that are read into it.
Posted by: Linda | March 11, 2007 at 08:57 AM
Wow! What kind of "True Christianity" is that: eternal damnation for joining a labor union!
Sinclair Lewis wrote about this kind of religion, in *Babbitt* and his other novels, about 80 years ago: conservative ministers in his midwestern city of Zenith preached that the bosses are the elder brothers and the workers must accept their lot as the younger brothers (to take whatever the elder brothers dished out) and then no collective bargaining would be needed. It was bunk then, and it's bunk now, but we need to be aware that anti-union propaganda is still reverberating in today's religious conservative echo chamber.
Posted by: MaryOGrady | March 11, 2007 at 11:43 AM
My ex-MIL (a raving liberal) used to attend a fundamentalist Christian church in her small town. I don't know why she punished herself like that; she'd get up and walk out when they started in with the crazy BS against gays, Democrats, labor unions, and more. She and her husband raised 9 kids thanks to his union wages, so she'd get especially perturbed when they started in on the unions. She finally stopped going in 2004, the Sunday the minister declared that church-goers should vote for George Bush because he's the "Peace President." (That, long after George himself declared he was the war president.)
These fundies are so delusional, I swear they must be on hallucinogenic drugs. That could explain why it's so easy for Bush's cabal to "create their own reality" and have ANYBODY believe them.
Posted by: Linda | March 11, 2007 at 03:58 PM
Barbara wrote:
"The first thing to notice is that you’ve checked your basic civil rights at the door."
What specific rights? And whatever they are, the employee checked them willingly and voluntarily in exchange for the promise of a paycheck.
She added:
"Freedom of speech? Forget about it: Some employers bar speech of any kind with your fellow employees."
Some employers might keep the noses of employees pressed to the grindstone. But isn't that what the employee agreed to when accepting the job?
Shed went on:
"I saw this firsthand at a chain restaurant and a Wal-Mart store. Wanna work? Zip your lips."
Having worked in a few restaurants I know how often staff members become distracted and overlook customers who want service. I've seen restaurants lose a lot of their business due to staff inattention.
Meanwhile, I once worked for Bradlees, a large discount retail store chain that went bankrupt about a decade ago and completely shuttered all its stores. What went wrong? Why did this once-thriving retail business lose its edge? Hard to say, but the site of the store at which I worked -- Norwalk, CT -- is now occupied by a Wal-Mart, and that store is booming.
She went on:
"How about those privacy rights that Will so concerned about?"
There's no reason employers should grant privacy to employees except on matters related to basic civil practices. Businesses do not exist for the pleasure of the employees. If that's a worker's goal, the worker should monetize his hobby, which is accomplished remarkably often and sometimes with stupendous success. Microsoft is a good example.
She gassed:
"Nada – they don’t exist outside of Will-land either. You probably had to pee in a cup to get your job in the first place, which constitutes a very intimate chemical invasion of privacy."
As a Wall Streeter, I've had to pee in several cups. Is there some reason the bad habits that some employees practice after hours should affect the workplace? For several years I ran two mutual funds containing $200 million of client money. Would investors benefit if I were consuming cocaine? Would the company have benefited if a coke-fueled employee were arrested, bringing bad publicity to the company? Public trust is important. Enron lost it. But how many of Enron's thousands of employees were actually criminals? A handful. But the company collapsed because the public lost faith in it, not because operations were fictitious or illegal.
She ranted:
"In most states, your purse or backpack can be searched by the employer at any time; your emails and web activity can be monitored."
Hence, leave the coke and handgun at home, and don't write and transmit anything provocative on the company's computer system. That sounds pretty easy.
More gassing:
"Right of assembly? Sorry, you don’t have that either."
Unless by assembly you mean assembling parts into a car. The workplace has many social aspects, but its chief reason for existence is to produce either goods and/or services at a profit; it is not in business to exist as a coffee shop for workers.
What experience?
"In my experience, most managers see a group of three or more employees talking together as an insurrection in the making. Shut up and get back to work!"
I've worked in gas stations, retail stores, as a carpenter, a laborer, in restaurants, in cable TV, as a public-school teacher in NYC, and on Wall Street.
On-the-job pressures have ranged from non-existent to extreme, with the most extreme occurring at one Wall Street shop at which I worked several years ago, though teaching in a NY City high school includes its own special brand of headaches.
That's life. That's work.
Posted by: chris2 | March 11, 2007 at 04:05 PM
The guts of the "biblical" argument, from the Crosswalk.com link above:
http://www.crosswalk.com/509270/
"Some Christians go further and find the whole concept of supporting a union contrary to their understanding of New Testament teachings. Unions typically use strong tactics, often including violent strikes, to force employers to concede to their demands. Three of the giants of the New Testament, John the Baptist, Paul and Peter, cast serious doubt on whether a Christian should be a part of this kind of organization. John the Baptist, in Luke 3:14, counseled believers to be content with their wages. Paul, in Colossians 3:22-24, told believers to work for their master as if they were working for the Lord. Peter, in 1 Peter 2:18-24, counseled Christians to suffer indignity at the hands of masters rather than retaliate. A Christian who understands that working for the employer is like working for the Lord will view most union tactics with grave concern. Since believers are warned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 against being "yoked together" with those who do not accept Biblical teaching, many find it impossible to join or financially support a labor union."
If I didn't know people who've had personal experiences with this brand of Christianity, I would have thought this was an Onion spoof.
Just! Plain! Nuts!
Posted by: Linda | March 11, 2007 at 04:07 PM
As a Christian, I would not have a problem joining a labor union, as long as it was honest. No Jimmy Hoffas, thank you! My experience has been that there are good companies, and bad ones. The worse the management, the worse the labor relations, the worse the local labor union. The 'fish stinks from the head'!
Posted by: barbsright | March 11, 2007 at 10:38 PM
In his editorial against the Employee Free Choice Act, George F. Will attempts to explain workers' disinterest in unionization in terms of the marvelous "flexibility" of today's U.S. workforce. What our erudite pundit should have written is an essay on the question raised by his own glib reference to the economy's deteriorating work environments. He might have considered how the person who has 10 employers between age 18 and 38 will ever be able to get a solid footing in their work and career, obtain the deep experience they need, or obtain the employer-supplied, on-the-job training that might allow them to move ahead. For the sake of all the 18- to 38-year-olds out there, we must hope that work life won't really become as transient as Mr. Will's numbers suggest. Such conditions don't sound marvelous at all, they sound more like a recipe for sideways and downward mobility for the young.
Posted by: Work Ethic Dropout | March 12, 2007 at 06:08 AM
Well, try the United Methodist Church if you want pro-union. My only problem with them, is that they have diluted the Message with support for a whole zoo of feel-good temporal causes. But they play classical music most of the time, and they wont give you an anti-union harangue like something out of Billy Sunday.
Posted by: The Eternal Squire | March 12, 2007 at 08:44 AM
Chris2--
Apparently you missed the fact that Ms. Ehrenreich is debunking a George Will column.
His argument depends on the notion that employees enjoy certain rights, which will be lost if the Employee Free Choice Act passes. You deny that employees have such rights.
I'm glad to see that you and Ms. Ehrenreich have found something you can agree on: George Will's argument collapses as soon as it's subjected to scrutiny.
Posted by: gordo | March 12, 2007 at 10:31 AM
gordo, you wrote:
"Apparently you missed the fact that Ms. Ehrenreich is debunking a George Will column."
Not at all.
You further crowed:
"His argument depends on the notion that employees enjoy certain rights, which will be lost if the Employee Free Choice Act passes. You deny that employees have such rights."
Again, not at all. Workers have many rights, and there's always room for a little improvement.
But workers have obligations -- like working -- which Barbara and a few others dispute.
In today's world of instant communications and intense interest in every move made by thousands of companies, it is inconceivable that employees should expect unfettered use of company e-mail.
It's way too easy for an employee to pass "inside information" -- intentionally or unintentionally -- to someone willing to capitalize on it.
Company secrets are of great value to outsiders.
Then there's the simple issue of a company's reputation. It's easily damaged by unfounded criticisms.
In short, if the requirements of the job are unacceptable, don't accept the job. Workplaces vary tremendously, and there's a pretty good fit for almost everyone.
Posted by: chris | March 12, 2007 at 11:30 AM
I think partly the attitude that workers shouldn't have any rights and should be grateful for what they get comes from the predominately Protestant attitudes this country was founded on where it was thought that if you're poor, it's punishment for some flaw.
There's a long post about it on my blog but that was the gist.
Posted by: Sonya | March 13, 2007 at 03:46 PM
Ah yes, the "Protestant Work Ethic" is often what I refer to it as.
Even some of the most Liberal-communist punks have this philosophy deep in them somewhere.
It's usually the ethos, "all work is good work. All work is valuable." It sets a dangerous life precedent I find.
Be careful about being around people who adopt this philosophy, no matter their background or politics. I often find they mean well, but are often ignorant, and they don't realize the harm they can cause.
I've seen such people shatter the confidence of good people they call friends, and literally turn them mentally unstable.
Not all help is good help. While I beleive people with such philosophies genuinely want to help/care, it just doesn't work for obvious scientific reasons.
Posted by: Different | March 13, 2007 at 05:35 PM
Asperius nihl est humil, cum surgit in altim
I think that it is regrettable that we must rely on unions to save us from corporate greed. It does, however, seem the only plausible way to effectively begin to bring integrity back to the workplace.
I have not personally belonged to a Union, thus don't have much to say. I have recently been exposed to unions from a distance and have concerns about how one actually comes to know whether a union is trustworthy.
The dumbing down of every profession makes this all the more tragic.
Posted by: Sharon | March 13, 2007 at 10:45 PM
chris--
Are you deliberately missing the point? Ehrenreich pointed out that the rights specifically mentioned by Will are not enjoyed by workers in the real world. At least, not in union shops.
Also, I think that if you're going to say that Ehrenreich denies the obligation of workers to perform labor, you should provide some evidence. Otherwise, you're either being lazy or dishonest. Or, as in this case, both.
Different--
Do you really think that liberals lack a work ethic? Do you have any evidence, or are you also lazy and/or dishonest?
Sharon--
You have more say in how your union is run than you do in how your company is run. So because they're more accountable to the workers, workers will usually find that their unions are more trustworthy than their employers.
Posted by: gordo | March 14, 2007 at 01:58 AM
Thank you Gordo, I know that in theory this is correct, but I worry about the abuse of power to which even unions are vulnerable.
Posted by: Sharon | March 14, 2007 at 10:31 AM
"What specific rights? And whatever they are, the employee checked them willingly and voluntarily in exchange for the promise of a paycheck," snarled
C. Montgomery Burns, as he dictated his email to Smithers.
Posted by: Joanna | March 15, 2007 at 10:04 AM
gordo,
perhaps you should read what Will actually said before commenting.
An Assault On Corporate Speech
By George F. Will
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; Page A15
Good for Adrienne Eaton of Rutgers University's Labor Studies & Employment Relations Department. Her forthright description of a central issue in the debate about the Employee Free Choice Act, which she supports, clarifies why that legislation is symptomatic of a disagreeable tendency in today's politics.
Labor unions hope this exquisitely mistitled act, which the House of Representatives probably will pass this week, will compensate for their dwindling persuasiveness as they try to persuade workers to join.
It would allow unions to organize workplaces without workers voting for unionization in elections with secret ballots. Instead, unions could use the "card check" system: Once a majority of a company's employees signs a card expressing consent, the union is automatically certified as the bargaining agent for all the workers.
Unions say the card-check system is needed to protect workers from anti-union pressure by employers before secret-ballot elections. Such supposed pressure is one of organized labor's alibis for declining membership.
There are, however, ample protections against employer pressures that really are abusive. Tellingly, the act would forbid employers from trying to influence -- pressure? -- employees by improving their lot: It would fine employers that, to reduce the incentive to unionize, give workers "unilateral" -- not negotiated -- improvements in compensation or working conditions during attempts at unionization.
Clearly, the act aims less to help workers than to herd them as dues-payers into unions.
Under the card-check system, unions are able to, in effect, select the voters they want. It strips all workers of privacy and exposes them, one at a time, to the face-to-face pressure of union organizers who distribute and collect the cards.
The Supreme Court has said that the card-check system is "admittedly inferior to the election process."
Repealing a right -- to secret ballots -- long considered fundamental to democratic culture would be a radical act. But labor is desperate. The card-check shortcut to unionization comes before Congress after last month's announcement that union membership declined, yet again, in 2006, by 326,000.
The percentage of employees in unions fell from 12.5 to 12, down from 20.1 percent in 1983 and 35 percent in the 1950s. The growth area of organized labor is among public-sector employees, 36.2 percent of whom are unionized, compared with just 7.4 percent of private-sector employees.
Today's workforce is marvelously flexible. People entering the labor market at age 18 will have, on average, 10 employers by the time they are 38. Such mobile workers often do not see what value union membership would add to their lives.
What unions are trying to sell is decreasingly attractive to potential members, so unions are doing what declining businesses often do: They are seeking government protection, in the form of a law to insulate them from the rigors of competition.
They want government to allow them to, in effect, silence the employers' side of debates about the merits of unionization.
This is where Professor Easton -- again, she favors the Employee Free Choice Act -- is pertinent. Avoiding the sort of circumlocutions that Washington policymakers often use to conceal their thoughts, she said this to the New York Sun: "Because employers wield so much power, it's hard to figure out what kinds of lines to draw about employer speech."
The Employee Free Choice Act would short-circuit the process of persuading workers through a public debate between unions and employers, the winner of which would be determined by workers casting secret ballots.
Welcome to the political culture that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law is shaping. That law, which regulates the quantity, timing and content of political speech, is making it increasingly acceptable for interest groups to attempt to advance their social agendas by limiting their adversaries' speech.
Senate Democrats might not find 60 votes to bring this Orwellian legislation -- "free choice," indeed -- to a vote. But if it does reach the president's desk, he will veto it.
He should have vetoed McCain-Feingold. Its speech restrictions -- applauded as virtuous by the (exempt) media -- have legitimized talk about "drawing lines" to circumscribe the speech rights of entire categories of Americans, in this case employers.
Much recent academic writing about the First Amendment, and much of the jurisprudence about it, has "balanced" speech rights against other social goods and has valued speech rights primarily as instrumental for other social goods. So there are, alas, ample precedents for this legislative attempt to truncate employers' speech rights.
Still, herewith a modest proposal: Any member of Congress who was elected by a secret ballot should oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.
Posted by: chris | March 15, 2007 at 11:51 AM
"You have more say in how your union is run than you do in how your company is run. So because they're more accountable to the workers, workers will usually find that their unions are more trustworthy than their employers."
Posted by: gordo | March 14, 2007 at 01:58 AM
Gordo, I personally squirm at the thought of joining a union for the purpose of ensuring my employer's accountability and finding that along with employer battles, I must also pursue battles with the union. How much time does anyone have for all this?
We have already become a country that "lives to work". It should quite honestly be set up to where the work we do eliminates the need to worry about work issues off the clock. Whatever happened to the notion that that work is a means toward which all are afforded the opportunity to a quality life?
I can honestly say that I have not at all quite sorted this out in my mind; but I can say that I am troubled by the appearing paternalistic control that unions may exert over employees. It is akin to substituting one daddy for another. I don't wish to sound right-wing; I am not of that mind-set, but I do seek to question, analyze, and to critically think about this before arriving at an intelligent response.
I agree with Barbara that Orwell's 1984 is here...I simply think that thre is not just one solution, but many.
Maybe, for starters, we could promote community reads of Orwell's 1984.
I was in a meeting recently (at a college) and found my self getting really pissed off at the way the meeting was being run. I absolutely felt like I was a character in 1984. Being who I am, I asked if anyone had read 1984? One person actually said: "yeah I read it in 1984"! I still do not know if this person was serious or not, but it was clear tht the other 5 in the meeting had not read the book!
George Orwell's 1984 is a must read!
Posted by: Sharon DiLeo | March 15, 2007 at 01:51 PM
There is not going to be any democracy or other liberal rights at work unless and until the workers undertake the burdens, as well as the rewards, of ownership. And at the moment they don't seem to desire it, with the exception of a relatively small minority. Unions have lost popularity because it is widely perceived among working-class people that they simply form another layer of control and bureaucracy. (At least this is what I have gotten when I raised the subject in various places where it seemed appropriate.) What people generally don't seem to see is that these bureaucracies, corporate and union (and governmental), grow out of their own desire to let someone else take control of their labor power and time.
Posted by: Anarcissie | March 16, 2007 at 11:10 AM
chris: '... As a Wall Streeter, I've had to pee in several cups. Is there some reason the bad habits that some employees practice after hours should affect the workplace? ....'
It seems to me that, while employers have a right to require their employees to shut up and pay attention to the job on their premises during paid working hours, they have no right to bother employees about what they do when they're not at work. I am surprised you signed on to this outstanding example of rights violation. Especially since most of it came about, not because of the desire of capitalists to check up on their employees, but from politicans and bureaucrats pandering to public superstition, racism and sadism.
Posted by: Anarcissie | March 16, 2007 at 11:19 AM
Anarcissie, you wrote:
"It seems to me that, while employers have a right to require their employees to shut up and pay attention to the job on their premises during paid working hours, they have no right to bother employees about what they do when they're not at work."
Yeah. Sure. I just love it when pilots walk from the airport bar to the cockpit when they're scheduled to fly. Same for surgeons.
Does coke consumption improve a portfolio manager's ability to buy and sell the right securities?
What about cops? Is it a good idea for them to warm up for the late shift with a bunch of beers at precinct's favorite watering hole?
Machine operators. What about them. Alert and ready to go, or chemically impaired and ready to lose body parts?
Truck drivers?
Baseball players? Steroids have become quite popular among pro athletes. Is this good?
Lots, truly lots of "pro" wrestlers have dropped dead well before age 50 due to steroid consumption. Those guys don't get those bodies from eating right and brief workouts at the gym.
Sometimes fans enjoy seeing their favorite rockers on stage and drug-fuelled. Some of them had talent. I had hoped for a few more years from Jim Morrison. Janis and Hendrix too.
Posted by: chris | March 16, 2007 at 12:28 PM
chris: '... Yeah. Sure. I just love it when pilots walk from the airport bar to the cockpit when they're scheduled to fly. Same for surgeons. ...'
I thought you would be smart enough not to confuse on-the-job intoxication with the excretion of trace chemicals due to off-the-job behavior. Want to try again? Recall from your extensive Wall Street experience that pissing in a bottle has nothing to do with your present state; it's evidence of what you've been doing for the previous two weeks or so. Recall also that they're not looking for alcohol.
Maybe any kind of limit to official authority just sticks in your craw? God knows you've got a lot of company if so. I went to see _The Lives of Others_ last week and thought, "Their past -- our future." Except all the Stasi did was listen and look. I don't recall they made people piss in bottles. The old guys must be kicking themselves around the block for overlooking that one.
Posted by: Anarcissie | March 16, 2007 at 02:39 PM
Sharon,
I think "Animal Farm" would be a better read for these meetings. Same message, not as mind-numbing to listen to.
"Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others."
Posted by: The Eternal Squire | March 16, 2007 at 04:49 PM
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Posted by: Vietnam holiday | March 17, 2007 at 05:27 AM
I am a full time union organizer for a smaller union.
This article is so true. It is hard to convince workers that they will have protection and make gains if they will join a union. Workers fear for their jobs.
The right slanted media have done a bang up job creating a myth of how bad unions are.
The liberals have done a poor job of getting the truth out.
Labor laws are so weak that there are few real protections for workers seeking a union.
Many things need to change.
www.lydiacornell.com
Posted by: Larry | March 17, 2007 at 05:13 PM
The reason labor unions lost power is that the US government took over a lot of what they do (OSHA, Workmans Comp, etc.). They are victims of their own success. Even so, I would like to see this bill passed and signed into law. It would be a very interesting experiment.
Posted by: barbsright | March 17, 2007 at 08:09 PM
barbsright: 'The reason labor unions lost power is that the US government took over a lot of what they do (OSHA, Workmans Comp, etc.). They are victims of their own success. ...'
I agree with this. It is curious that labor unions have historically struggled to get the government to take over these functions, because they were what unions were in business to provide. The unions asked for a powerful, tax-funded competitor -- and they got one.
However, there is more to the story. When I raised the subject of organizing a union in various workplaces over the last twenty or thirty years, most of the people involved were against it and had many complaints about unions. Typically, the most vehement opponents of unionization were people who had either been in unions or had had relatives who were. This suggests to me that at least after the 1950s, American unions did not deliver. As I said, they seemed to have declined into just another level of bureaucracy along with the corporate structure and the government. At least, that's how those people felt about it.
This kind of attitude needs to be looked into if unionism is going to make a recovery from its present sad situation. Blaming the media doesn't get it -- the media, being capitalist institutions, have always militated against unions. They didn't stop unions in the old days.
One thing that is missing today, ironically as a product of the rightist stances taken by mainstream unions in the past, is a vigorous, critical Left that is involved with labor issues. If all people hear are right-wingers and opportunistic "moderates" they're bound to get disheartened. It's as if Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman were the leaders of the anti-war movement.
Posted by: Anarcissie | March 17, 2007 at 09:08 PM
Anarcissie, I agree.
Posted by: barbsright | March 18, 2007 at 08:25 PM
No one has talked about the role of the National Labor Relations Board in all of this. A friend and union leader is in contract negotiations with a utility on behalf of the workers in her union. The company has not been bringing anything to the negotiating table in the year since negotiations supposedly began. It is hard to tell if their method has been due to incompetence (the company was sold to new owners and their team is unbelievably ignorant of basic aspects of union/employer contracts) or is a deliberate attempt to provoke union member dissatisfaction with the progress of their contract, hoping that members will vote to de-certify the union. There are many such tactics out there being used to undermine the power and protections of workers in unions.
My friend brought an unfair labor practices charge against the company to the NLRB and they took no action for over a year despite repeated emails and calls. The NLRB is supposed to oversee and enforce laws related to labor and has been the workers’ last resort when companies do not adhere to labor laws. It appears that the current administration in Washington has drastically changed the functioning of the NLRB in line with its own bias. An acquaintance is a labor lawyer who has worked for the NLRB for over a decade and says that it has been virtually impossible for her to do her job what with the changes at the top and backlogs are growing. She is thinking of leaving the NLRB because she basically is prevented from doing her job by the current administration.
Finally, this month, the validity of my friend’s petition to the NLRB was recognized and the company has been notified that they are facing legal action. The tenor of negotiations has dramatically changed and the company is eager to work with proposals that the union has brought to the table and to bring some of their own.
Why would I, a non-unionized worker, like a union? Recently my company reconfigured its workplace so that people can no longer work using chairs. I have managed a back injury for fifteen years by alternating sitting and standing at work. A year ago the company announced that the chairs “would go away”. I have been in discussions with them about this for a year. There is no small risk in my speaking up. People have been laid off from work for not being “an agent of change” which is now an important criteria of our performance evaluations. Layoffs used to happen by seniority, now it is by such performance criteria. Without a union there is a substantial risk of advocating for oneself in the workplace.
Over a dozen seasonal workers who had sit/stand issues have been laid off and told that they would not be hired back next season. I have been offered the alternatives of taking a job for $2.00 an hour less, to be put on transitional work which could lead to my termination or to take a part-time job with reduced hours. I took the reduced hours. It remains to be seen if this will work for my back.
The Communication Workers union fought Comcast on this issue and won their right to alternate sitting and standing.
The idea to have chairs “go away” is coming from insurers. The speculation is that they want to reduce their risk pool by driving disabled people and older workers from the workplace. What they say is that sitting causes injury by increased reaching. This is based on ergonomic measurements and not actual workplace data on past injuries and does not consider injuries of types prevented by the sit/stand option. The major insurer in our state just announced twelve million dollars in rebates to their clients due to reduced costs due to injury. Let’s hope these savings did not come at the cost of jobs for disabled and older workers.
What I can see that the company cannot is that there are lots of workers out there that are struggling with sit/stand issues in the new configuration and that they will not report these injuries until they absolutely have to because of the bad things they see happen to those workers that do. When these injuries can no longer be endured the costs of medical treatment and lost time will be much higher. I have also made the case that people desperate for work and interviewing for these new jobs, when asked if they have any issues that would prevent them from standing from 8-10 hours at the job, will say “no” and later when their disabilities are revealed the company will “own” these injuries that could have been avoided through accommodation.
Well-organized union workers need not be seen as an adversary by the company. Especially in this age when companies are being run increasingly by “numbers crunchers” and not by people who are not experienced with the product or service that the company sells, the knowledge base of a well-organized workforce becomes more and more valuable in order for a company to avoid costly mistakes and maintain the integrity of their product or service. A topic that would start a completely different thread here is the question of whether a business or a society can maintain integrity in an increasingly competitive and profit-driven economic system. It is said that if we take care of business, business will take care of society but is that what we are really seeing out there?
Posted by: Wage Worker | March 23, 2007 at 03:11 AM
The chair issue is also about enforcing hierarchy. Unless managers don't have chairs either, they have set themselves up in the privileged position of people who are allowed to have chairs and control access to chairs. After all, this arrangement exists in many businesses. Employees who get to sit down may feel that they are now important and almost equal to their "betters", and perhaps even entrusted with some degree of responsibility and freedom well above their station, since a mere peon would not have a chair, would he? Also, this provides a reason for petty discipline and eventual termination perhaps due to other reasons, and sitting down becomes one of the small favours to be earned through hard work, office politics, a manager's "niceness", and so on. A normal right and choice becomes an opportunity the same way just being salaried may seem like an opportunity to hourly employees, an opportunity often paid for by working long hours without a high salary. And if employees are still allowed to sit down in meetings, they become happy when there is a meeting instead of feeling that they are wasting time. This also creates busywork for managers who have to address this issue and enforce compliance.
Posted by: Monica | March 23, 2007 at 03:19 PM
What's especially silly about Will's column is that years ago, he wrote one arguing against the secret ballot for governmental elections. I guess it all depends on who's "intimidating" whom.
Posted by: Bitter Scribe | March 27, 2007 at 07:07 PM
What's especially silly about Will's column is that years ago, he wrote one arguing against the secret ballot for governmental elections. I guess it all depends on who's "intimidating" whom.
Posted by: Bitter Scribe | March 27, 2007 at 07:07 PM
I read at http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n1e.html an article that is pretty good at rationalizing the lack of job security, including the possibility of arbitrary firing. It goes as far as pretending that it is in the employee's advantage. It's nice to know that, only because employment can be terminated at any moment, that does not mean that some employers are not somewhat reasonable, or at least the system assumes that they should.
Posted by: Monica | April 03, 2007 at 06:48 PM
There's a story about an attempt to unionize at the Santa Barbara News-Press that everyone should read. Go here: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/02/250/
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