Human Rights at the Workplace (Truthout)

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Human Rights at the Workplace
By Dean Baker and Mary Beth Maxwell
t r u t h o u t | Columnists

Tuesday 29 May 2007

Americans shouldn't have to check their rights at the door when they enter the workplace, but, unfortunately, this is often the case due to the state of our labor laws. One of the basic rights that workers are supposed to enjoy, under both US law and international treaties to which we are a signatory, is the right of free association at the workplace, including the right to form a union. While workers do, in principle, have a right to form a union, this right has been largely undermined by management practices over the last quarter-century.

Company managers have discovered a very simple, but effective, way to prevent workers from organizing unions: they fire the organizers. A recent study by Dr. John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer at the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that one in five union organizers can expect to be fired during an organizing drive. This study analyzed data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that ran through 2005 to update a University of Chicago Law School study from 1991.

It is illegal to fire a worker for organizing a union. However, under current law, the penalties are minimal, even when an employer is found guilty. The average payment for a worker who loses her job for organizing is just over $3,000. Since the process can often be delayed through appeals and other tactics, workers may have to wait several years even to receive this amount.

And, of course, there is no guarantee that a worker will be able to prove that the firing was for union activities, even if this was, in fact, the case. Union organizers, like everyone else, occasionally come late to work. Employers can always find some excuse for firing a worker. Sometimes the NLRB accepts the employer's pretext, even when the worker was actually fired for organizing.

For a determined anti-union employer, the risk of a modest payment to a few fired organizers is well worth the cost. Workers are unlikely to carry forward with an organizing drive after they have seen the most visible leaders get fired. As a result, firing union organizers is now a standard response to organizing drives. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052907L.shtml