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Labor Law Reform is Essential to Reviving America's Beleaguered Middle-Class
Pooling resources and banding together with those who share similar beliefs and goals is a basic right that all of use every day. We might join our neighbors to pressure our local government to save a park or to fix roads. Maybe, we join a parents' group to help out at our children's school or take part in organizing a neighborhood watch program. These are all basic ways in which we organize to improve the vitality of our communities.
The right to organize has been crucial for most of our great movements. Colonists banded together to defeat oppressive English rule; suffragists organized so women could vote; nations collaborated to fight totalitarianism in World War II; and civil rights activists joined together to secure a more equal opportunity for minorities. Think of any great change that we have undertaken and the basic human right to associate has been a centerpiece of the success.
The right to organize in the workplace is an essential component for a vibrant democracy. Yet for many American workers, this essential human right is commonly suppressed in a way that rarely makes news. The untold story is that of dedicated workers who struggle against tremendous odds fashion better lives for themselves and their families. They are harassed, coerced, even fired for their efforts to band together and organize their workplace. While these tactics are often illegal, the current system as governed by current labor law and through the lax enforcement by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is so flawed and weak that many workers who try to organize wait years only to see their lawless former employers slapped with meaningless fines and half-hearted admonitions. Most employers are willing to write these off as simply one of the costs of doing business in an age when employees are, all too often, viewed as an expendable commodity not an essential partner in the success of business.
Imagine if these same kinds of barriers were in place for other organizing activities. How would we feel if the city evicted us from our homes because we organized a group to pressure the city to fix bad roads? Or maybe your child was expelled from school because you joined a parents' group concerned with education? Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But that's the current state of our labor laws. People who are simply trying to join with their peers in an effort to improve their wages, healthcare, and workplace safety are brutally harassed by employers and often fired for exercising this most basic of freedoms.
Congress is debating legislation that would remedy many of these shortcomings. The Employee Free Choice Act seeks to give workers a simple process for choosing to organize, a streamlined system for getting labor contracts enacted, and to strengthen the punishment and enforcement of employer labor law violations. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Employee Free Choice Act but the debate in the U.S. Senate is yet to come. The legislation allows workers to choose their own course free from the illegal campaign tactics that employers have come to rely on. The reality is that corporate bullies don't want their bats taken away. According the NLRB's own records, a worker is fired for trying to organize his/her workplace every 23 minutes. That epidemic ended immediately.
It's no coincidence that the shrinking of America's middle-class has run parallel to the dwindling of America's vibrant labor movement. When workers have a greater say in the day-to-day environment in which they work, everyone wins. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate and the President's signature would be extremely helpful to ensuring worker rights and bolstering the prosperity of the American middle-class.
Amy F. Isaacs is National Director of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a leading liberal lobbying organization since 1947.
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23 Comments so far
Show All"The free market in labor" = slavery. Unregulated Reagan capitalism has killed this country.
Congress as well as the state legislatures have abondoned the american worker. Workers effictively have no right to organize or publicly comment on workplace safety or environmental hazards. Workers have no right to health care. Workers have no right to a reasonable retirement and pension funds are regularly looted for the benefit of management.
Finally Congress has greased the tracks that allow companies to ship jobs overseas and use phony H1-B visas to import workers at substantial discounts over US workers.
The political catch-all solution is to tell workers that they must "re-educate themselves" for a changing workplace. Never mind that there's no money available to pay your mortgage while you desperately try to shift job tracks. There's also no grants for tuition; you are expected to borrow the money for that too.
Go to the grocery store or the gas station and you will see that food prices and energy prices are WAY up. Turn on the TV and the talking heads there will tell you that there's no inflation because cell phones are cheaper.
Anybody who's holding their breath waiting for Congress to act on their behalf aka labor laws should take a good look at the current state of the Iraq war debate. You'll get the right to organize about the same time the last US soldier leaves the Middle East.
It was Clinton-Gore who finished the Reagan agenda (the war on all non-rich on the planet ) and gave us NAFTA....the lowering of standards worldwide...save for the very top who benefited from our stagnated wages here and slavery there.
I specifically remember Al Gore tell about 1,000 lies in support of NAFTA on Larry King Live, in Ross Perot's face.
Too bad Gore wasn't concerned about the inconvenient truth of the real economic and ENVIRONMENTAL impact of NAFTA then..... he seems so concerned after-the-fact.
There is only 1 democrat who truly stands with the people/with labor....and Dennis Kucinich is written off by corporate propaganda (elect-ability) long before the race even starts.
For those looking for the Democrats to champion the cause of labor and economic justice.... I understand the pathological hatred of Ralph Nader........too many trees...blocking the vision of the forest
"Anybody who's holding their breath waiting for Congress to act on their behalf aka labor laws should take a good look at the current state of the Iraq war debate."
Well, as teh article stated, the house DID pass the Employee Free Choice Act. This act among other things, mandates that employers recognize unions based on a simple card-check election, bypassing the deliberately obstructive NLRB bureaucrats. Even my Republican rep. voted for it - one of the few, to be sure.
The senate verson faces a tougher fight, and Bush will veto it...
Labor law reform will help, but the recognition of workers that labor has nothing in common with capital will do more for labor's ability to organize.
Organizing brings growth and growth brings power,
Peace Warrior: Can you clarify for us exactly what you mean by
"I understand the pathological hatred of Ralph Nader"? What is the nature of your "understanding" of the (good choice of words here) pathological hatred (and perennial scapegoating and slander) directed at Nader by the Democrats? Just curious, since he and Kucinich agree on almost everything, except presumably the latter's inexplicable (and neurotically co-dependent, given the abuse and ridicule thrown at him by the vast majority of his fellow Democrats) attachment to the Donkey Party?
There is a fundamental problem with A.D.A. liberalism, with all "progressives" and middle-class "do-gooders" trying to trying to reform or "do something" about the multiple crisis we are all facing. These specific reforms all focus on one tiny aspect, one symptom, of an un-reformable problem. It is like trying to patch up the Titanic. Too little, too late.
The fact of life that the "neo-cons" and the super-rich top 5 percent (who own 80% of the wealth) have known about for 30 years. The U.S. capitalist economy, on the decline for the last 30 years, is about to collapse. Any talk about going back to the good old days of post WWII capitalism, (ADA was established in 1947), when things like the G.I. Bill, housing was affordable,good paying jobs available (for at least white workers), health care was available through work, etc. these days are done forever.
Working people know too well that this is happening, even though middle-class pundits, well-paid labor bureaucrats, are
always clue-less. Entire sections of the economy have collapsed. Manufacturing has moved to China, steel production moved to Korea, auto manufacturing has gone bankrupt, etc.
The massive problems working people face today are the result of a U.S. ruling elite that has "run-amok" without any restraint. The Democratic Party, almost without exception, has voted for everything that increases the profit of the corpoations, increased the military budgets, cut back on "welfare" and social services essential for working people to survive. Real wages have actually declined as workers, trying to keep up with "profit inflation" of everything needed to live, are now massively in credit card debt.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. found itself to be the global military super power. The Project for the New American Century Statement of Principles
(signed by Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and about 20 other ne-cons in the Bush administration)and related documents, declares that this is a unique historical moment. The U.S. can now enforce it's economic and political hegemony upon the entire planet.
The ruling elite is not even willing to pay for it's own wars for profit, cutting their own taxes massively. The U.S. government has borrowed billions of dollars from China and Japan to build up and deploy the military in IRAQ and around the world in over 700 military bases. To secure more money they have ruthlessly cut back on essential social spending needed by the rest of us to survive. China and other countries, including the oil producing countries, want to stop using the dollar as the trading currency.
There is no simple reform possible of U.S. (and global) capitalism today to change the course of economic and ecological collapse.
If there is to be any serious attempt to end Global Warming, create a national health system, convert from oil and nuclear power to sustainable energy, the capitalism economic system of greed over people (GOP)must end.
Pollution will never end as long as it is more profitable to maintain polluting businesses. War will never end until the profit is taken out of war. (Cheney has Privatized the U.S. military!)
The economic system must be converted from private profit and wealth accumulation for the few, to supplying the universal needs of humanity. Historically, such a system has been called "socialism". But every other dictatorship has latched onto the name. NAZI (National Socialist) USSR (Stalinism).
There are various "socialist" groups out there on line with different views on how and what this "socialism" is all about. My favorite is the World Socialist Web Site located
at http://www.wsws.org. Read their free email newsletter for excellent critical analysis from journalists around the world for insights about really what is happening.
Thanks for reading.
Treaties such as NAFTA are rammed down the throats of countries around the world, to insure US economic monopoly.
The wars in IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, and perhaps IRAN (
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessings of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill.
The only thing worse than being witty is not being witty.
Ask the Irish about Sir Winton and misery.
"Pangolin, workers have a right to pay for their own health care and retirement. It's called personal responsibility."
Are you having a laugh?
"Pangolin, workers have a right to pay for their own health care and retirement. It's called personal responsibility."
I guess then we should all pay for "police insurance" or "fire dept. insurance" then? I guess you don't have a right to call a cop when your house is being broken into unless you can afford it right? If your home is on fire, then don't call the fire dept. unless you can may them for coming out right? I gues no one has a right to be treated if they're bleeding to death and can't afford it.
What about the president's personal responsibility? After all, he got us mired in an illegal, disastrous war among other misdeeds.
I usually don't get excited when I hear something obvious.
For example, I wasn't excited when I saw The Times Magazine cover story about a great and brilliant discovery that stress is harmful. Last week, I didn't get excited when someone mention a new great and brilliant discovery, namely, that depression after a personal loss can be … well … normal.
This topic is different for variety of reasons, including the following
- the topic is extremely important
- I am aware that what is obvious to me is unknown to American born (I refuse to be PC here – no "most" Americans)
It's pretty late, so I'll just limit myself to some chaotic remarks.
I didn't vote for Gore, and I agree with what was said above. I'd like to remind also that it was Gore who was shrinking the government – not much different form Bush's killing of the government.
The hatred of Nader is understandable – he challenges the overfed liberals with their 2-3 pet issues (genitals, treehugging) their hypocritical/idiotic talk about respect for everyone (such BS), and more often then not absolutely repulsive behavior in the workplace (no hugging of the undesirable here, au contraire, mass participation in mobbing).
If you look at the topics of liberal forums, you'll see how little interest is in labor issue.
OK, this is my pet issue, I'll be back.
I made a mistake and glanced at Bonaventure, now I'll spend
the rest of the night vomiting.
Please, don't prompt me to have a "civil" discussion - the post is below any acceptable level
Bonaventure
You are for freedom - fine.
- why didn't you leave you unionized job? Only some 8% of employees in private institutions belong to unions. The choice is yours.
I assume you are also against a universal care. I suggest you join 47 million of uninsured.
Maybe then we'll resume the conversation about good, wonderful employers, and bad, horrible unions ...
Sorry, I am back to vomiting.
What happened to my post?
Mmm, and once again my posts are NOT showing?
Did I use some word that has to be reviewed first or something?
S.
Dr Zimmerman
Thank you for the Churchill comments.
Besides, didn't capitalistic England have its own share of misery.
It amazing me, how many people had to be exploited (workers in colonies around the world, England's own orphans in sweatshops etc.) so a lady could drink tea at 5.
I apologize for the sloppiness
The last sentence should start: It's amazing ...
It's a pity that one can't go back and edit one's text.
Smurfy: I've noticed the same problem. Some sort of filter mechanism?
In any case, I think the labor laws need to change -- no doubt -- but we really need to get lenders and investment groups under control. There's two ways of rebuilding the middle-class. One is by tweaking laws that may result in a higher income for them. The other is by lowering their cost of living.
Housing costs are ridiculous. I don't think government should be in the business of subsidizing (another reason to toss more tax money at the already-wealthy) so much as fierce laws against real estate speculation, price inflation, investment groups that form shell companies, fail to pay taxes until the property sells, etc. I can point toward a few examples of exactly this, a 10 minute walk down the street.
One way, then, to rebuild the middle-class is to shrink the zone that the exploitive class may operate in, which causes real estate to way, way increase over salary increases.
Whatever it is it is annoying - one makes the effort to put together a well-worded post and nothing happens. But a one paragraph throwaway comment posts fine?
I don't know anything about your posts, but I would like to
add something general.
Well-worded posts are fine, and I know there is an entire generation trained on well-worded manipulative memos.
But in my humble opinion, also knowledge and wisdom, sense of humor and sophistication, originality and general brilliance count, in spite of what most Americans are told.
Not so long ago, I found myself in a group of college students (Columbia) who would start every presentation with a promising: "I think ...," 'I disagree" only to continue with something very trivial, simplistic, obvious or purely Orwellian. But the frame was soooo proper.
Jeremy Wells,
excellent, excellent, excellent
thanks
Yes.
I was planning to say something brilliant on the topic,
but obviously there are some Americans who know that Bush isn't the only problem we have.
yeah