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Four More Years?
Good for Employers; Bad for Organizing

October 8, 2004

Employers fire and harass workers during organizing campaigns. They drag them into captive audience meetings and dangle incentives before employees to convince them not to support a union. And workers need protections from unions?

Far from punishing employers who routinely abuse their authority, the both the courts and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are contemplating actions that would further restrict the abilities of unions to organize. Labor rights advocates fear a second Bush term would deal death blows to the organizing process and workers rights as determined by the NLRB.

The five-member NLRB, charged with protecting the rights of union members, is already controlled by Bush appointees. But the winner of the November 2 election will be responsible for appointing all five seats, plus a general counsel.

The Labor Research Association says the composition of the NLRB over the next few years will set the direction for the board at a crucial moment in its history. During that time, a full third of the NLRB staff will be eligible for retirement. Hiring and training replacements will heavily influence the fairness and quality of the agencys work for decades.

Also alarming is the possibility that card-check recognition, one of the most successful routes to a voice on the job for workers, could be outlawed. In card-check or majority verification, an employer agrees to recognize a union if a majority of workers sign authorization cards. Unlike NLRB-certified secret ballot elections, majority verification efforts are less costly, faster and not usually accompanied by drawn-out antiunion campaigns by employers.

Legislation in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives could end voluntary recognition. The Secret Ballot Protection Act, introduced by Georgia Rep. Charlie Norwood (R), would require employees seeking union representation to hold NLRB-supervised secret ballot elections.

Norwood told the Bureau of National Affairs Daily Labor Report that the card-check process is abusive to employees because it allows unions to subject workers to "intimidation, threats, misinformation, or coercion" when seeking authorization signatures.

The AFL-CIO estimates that more than 80 percent of newly organized employees in 2002 had their unions certified through the card-check process.

Card check is also under attack by the NLRB itself. Last June, the NLRB decided to review voluntary recognition as a result of two petitions brought by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is seeking to decertify card check recognition of the United Auto Workers at auto parts factories in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The majority opinion was decided by the three members who were appointed by George W. Bush. The two dissenting members called their colleagues decision to review card-check "a radical change in the law" that "has stood the test of time."

"The right of Americas workers to organize has already been drastically eroded," said IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill. "The fact that this administration is trying to shut down the one successful route to joining a union speaks volumes about its low regard for workers."

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