| WASHINGTON
- September 3 - The following is a
statement by Ralph Nader on Labor Day, and American workers' rights:
As Americans celebrate Labor Day and honor the nation's working
people, we should all be ashamed that American labor law and
American labor law enforcement makes a mockery of workers' basic
rights to organize, join unions and exercise collective bargaining.
Workers face enormous obstacles to form a union and exercise
fundamental rights once unionized. One in ten union supporters
campaigning to form a union is fired illegally, and employers are
effectively free to fire ("permanently replace") workers on strike.
Much of the flawed framework of American labor law is traceable
to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. More than 50 years after its
passage, it is time for Congress to repeal this denial of workers'
civil rights.
Employers and forces opposed to unions' right to exist passed
Taft-Hartley in a climate of fear and anti-union zealotry. The
result remains a heavily imbalanced labor law, which includes
Taft-Hartley provisions that:
- Ban secondary boycotts, severely diminishing the organizing
and bargaining power of labor unions.
- Define "employee" to exclude supervisors and independent
contractors. This diminishes the pool of workers eligible to be
unionized. The exclusion of supervisors from union organizing
activity has meant they are used as management's "front line" in
anti-organizing efforts.
- Require the National Labor Relations Board to hold an
election to determine representation; prior to Taft Hartley, the
Board at its discretion could certify unions through other means,
potentially including card-checks.
- Authorize states to adopt misnamed "right-to-work" laws,
barring union security clauses. Union security clauses mean all
workers in a unionized shop who receive the economic benefits of
union representation pay dues to share the cost of maintaining the
union (though they do not have to be members and cannot be
compelled to support political positions they oppose). As Professor
Stephen Abraham has noted, "Many ... studies find that
right-to-work laws have a negative effect on the unionization in
the states possessing them; the studies also suggest that
right-to-work laws negatively impact on state wage levels. These
studies generally conclude that the statistics cited demonstrate
that right-to-work laws reduce unionizations by increasing union
organizing and maintenance costs given the existence of 'free
riders' in the bargaining unit, and/or decrease the bargaining
power of unions" (Steven Abraham, "How the Taft-Hartley Act
Hindered Unions," Hofstra Labor Law Journal, Fall 1994 (Vol. 12,
No. 1, pp. 1-37)).
- Permit decertification elections -- enabling employers to
maintain ongoing campaigns against unions' very existence.
Strong, vibrant and democratic unions are essential to advance
workplace safety, to ensure decent conditions of work, to restrain
corporate employers' exploitative instincts and more broadly to
ensure a functioning and flourishing democracy. Unfortunately,
union representation and labor power have steadily declined over
the last four decades -- with unions now representing only
approximately 10 percent of the private workforce, the lowest
percentage in 60 years.
More or more workers are toiling in jobs near the minimum wage,
in non-unionized operations like Wal-Mart, K-Mart and McDonald's.
These service sector jobs are not inherently low-wage. They are low
wage because they are non-union.
Exacerbating the situation of low-wage workers, the minimum wage
has failed to keep pace with inflation. The present $5.15 minimum
wage represents more than $2.00 less in real, inflation-adjusted
purchasing power than the minimum wage of 1968. (According to the
Institute for Policy Studies, if the minimum wage, which stood
at $3.80 an hour in 1990, had grown at the same rate as CEO
pay over the decade, it would now be $25.50 an hour, rather
than the current $5.15 an hour.)
The decline in union representation is due to many factors --
including unencumbered corporate globalization -- but high among
them is Taft-Hartley and our system of inadequate legal protections
for workers. Other industrialized countries with more substantial
legal protections for workers -- such as Canada and countries
throughout Western Europe -- evidence much higher rates of union
membership.
Before its 55th anniversary next year, the Taft-Hartley blemish
should be removed from our laws. Doing so would truly honor
American workers.
The large unions in this country need to start a major campaign
to repeal Taft-Hartley and get their friends in the Democratic
Party in Congress on board.
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