No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing

[Omaha Steve]

http://broadcastunionnews.blogspot.com/2009/09/no-holds-barred-intensification-of.html

Monday, September 21, 2009
No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing
In case you are wondering why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, a 2009 study by Cornell University researcher, Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner, explains why.

New findings from Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner provide a comprehensive, independent analysis of employer behavior in union representation elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Her research identifies the range and incidence of legal and illegal coercive tactics used by employers NLRB elections and the ineffectiveness of current labor law to protect and enforce workers’ rights during the process.

Dr. Bronfenbrenner’s report also compares employer behavior in this study’s period to previous studies that she and her research teams have conducted over the last 20 years.

By Kate Bronfenbrenner, Ph.D.American Rights at Work Education Fund and Economic Policy Institute May 2009

» Full Report (PDF: 33 pages, 366kb)» Read the related press release »

SUMMARY

Overall, 12.4% of U.S. workers are represented by unions, a density far below what would be the case if all workers who wanted to belong to a union could freely do so. In fact, studies have shown that if workers’ preferences were realized, as much as 58% of the workforce would have union representation. Yet, this low overall unionization rate obscures a striking imbalance – while almost 37% of public-sector workers belong to unions, less than 8% of private-sector workers do.

Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner's study, offers a detailed look at why.

Employers continue to punish workers for supporting a union.

In the last two decades, private-sector employer opposition to workers seeking their legal right to union representation has intensified. Compared to the 1990s, employers are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics in their anti-union campaigns, with a greater focus on more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity.

It has become standard practice for workers to be subjected by corporations to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for supporting a union.

An analysis of the 1999-2003 data on NLRB election campaigns finds that:

63%of employers interrogate workers in mandatory one-on-one meetings with their supervisors about support for the union;
54% of employers threaten workers in such meetings;
57% of employers threaten to close the worksite;
47% of employers threaten to cut wages and benefits; and
34% of employers fire workers.

Employers have increased their use of more punitive tactics (“sticks”) such as plant closing threats and actual plant closings, discharges, harassment, disciplinary actions, surveillance, and alteration of benefits and conditions. While at the same time, employers are less likely to offer “carrots,” such as granting of unscheduled raises, positive personnel changes, bribes, special favors, social events, promises of improvement, and employee involvement programs.

These private-sector campaigns differ markedly from public-sector campaigns. Survey data from the public sector describe an atmosphere in which workers organize relatively free from the kind of coercion, intimidation, and retaliation that so dominates in the private sector. Most of the states in the public-sector sample have laws allowing workers to choose a union through the majority sign-up process.

FULL story at link.