By Dave Lindorff

A new study of 1004 union organizing drives conducted by the
director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of
Industrial and Labor Relations has found that two-third of the
companies involved were violating US labor law by holding one-on-one
interrogations of workers, by threatening workers about their union
support, by firing union organizers or using half a dozen other illegal
tactics to defeat unionization campaigns.

Prof. Kate Bronfenbrenner, author of No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition ot Organizing,
says that these illegal tactics by employers have been used to drive
union representation at American companies down to only 12.4 percent
from a level of 22 percent just 30 years ago.

If a similar level of illegal behavior by companies was reported
dealing with, say, false billing of customers, deceptive reports to
shareholders or violation of environmental laws, there would be a
clamor for action in Congress, and among the public, but so far, there
is no outcry over this wholesale violation of the nation’s labor laws.

One reason may be because nobody except the unions themselves and
the companies breaking the law would know about this particular
corporate crime wave.

The only article I’ve seen on this study was published by the New
York Times, but it was run in an inside page of the Times business
section, which is largely ignored by most readers.

Why would an article about workers be consigned to the business
pages? Is it only of interest to businesses and investors? Surely not.
The author of the piece, Steven Greenhouse, one of the nation’s last
journalists to actually have a labor beat, is a fine reporter, and
writes his articles not in business jargon but in a style that would be
easily understood by anyone who could read. His article, headlined
“Study Says Antiunion Tactics Are Becoming More Common,” surely belongs
in the front section of the newspaper, and in fact, given its shocking
evidence of rampant criminality on the part of employers on a national
scale, should be on the front page of the paper if editors were
applying honest news judgement (How many people are impacted? How new
is the information? How dramatic is the new information?).

But a second reason may be that unions themselves are doing a poor job of getting the story out.

Right now the US labor movement is desperately trying to win
passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill which, if passed as
currently written—a long shot at this point—would address some of the
issues raised in Prof. Bronfenbrenner’s study by eliminating the need
for secret ballot unionization votes. Those elections, companies and
their labor-busting lawyers have long ago learned, can be delayed for
years while they illegally whittle away at union support. But because
the unions are trying to keep the support of a wavering President
Barack Obama and of Democrats in Congress for passage of EFCA, in the
face of massive lobbying by big business interests, they are avoiding
the kind of street politics that would make this corporate crime wave a
big story.

What should be happening is mass marches in the nation’s cities,
and especially in Washington, demanding action on EFCA. President Obama
and most Democrats in both Houses of Congress, all campaigned saying
they backed EFCA, but now many are backing away from that promise.

A million angry workers massed and shouting on the Washington Mall
would stiffen their spines, as would big demonstrations in the major
cities of the country.

Mass action would also force the media to look at the way companies
are simply thumbing their noses at the nation’s labor laws, which
outlaw intimidation of workers, outlaw firing of union activists, and
guarantee free elections on the issue of whether to have a union at a
workplace.

Of course, a third problem is that American workers have long been
quiescent on the issue of labor unions. Polls show that a majority of
Americans would like to have a union where they work, but very few of
us seem willing to fight for that right. Maybe with polls showing that
over 50 percent of Americans now worry that they may be laid off, and
with companies clearly using the economic crisis as an excuse for
bashing employees, that quiescence is ending. The only way to find out
is for the labor movement to call for street action.

This is no time to be polite with politicians, and no time to limit
political action to writing email letters, signing petitions and making
phone calls.

This is a time to call out the corporate managers who are treating
the labor laws like so much toilet paper—a time for boycotts, for
marches, and for sit-ins.

End the American corporate crime wave of labor law violations!

Demand stiff penalties for breaking labor laws!

Support unionized companies and boycott anti-union companies!

Pass the ECFA, as written, with no compromises!

________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and long time labor
activist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s
Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net