New data on the rise of anti-union tactics shows the need for EFCA

Today some 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, studies have shown. In fact, research suggests that if workers' preferences were realized, as much as 58% of the workforce would have union representation.

A new study by Cornell University researcher Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner offers an explanation to this phenomenon. The study, released Wednesday, found that employer opposition to workers' efforts to form unions has intensified and become more punitive than it has been in the past. In fact, management's anti-union tactics have helped to contribute to pushing down the country's unionization rate to 12.4 percent, from 22 percent three decades ago.

In "No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing," Bronfenbrenner documents the increased use by employers of more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity, such as plant closing threats and actual plant closings, discharges, harassment, disciplinary actions, surveillance, and alteration of benefits and working conditions.

According to Bronfenbrenner, in many National Labor Rights Board election campaigns it is standard practice for workers to be subjected by corporations to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for union activity.

The report found:

63% of employers interrogate workers in 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
34% of employers fire workers

Bronfenbrenner's study also found that employers used 10 or more types of anti-union tactics in 49 percent of unionization drives, up from the 26 percent she found in a similar study 12 years ago.

The report goes a long way in showing why Congress should enact legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize, labor advocates say. As the study says, workers' "aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime."

What about the EFCA?

As Facing South has reported, the battle over the Employee Free Choice Act continues in Congress and in PR campaigns across the county. EFCA has been labor's number one priority this year, and labor rights advocates say that the act's passage could help to restore balance between workers in their negotiations with employers. Moreover, it could help to address the very type of intense intimidation that Bronfenbrenner found in her study.

Labor rights advocates say that the three pillars of the EFCA could turn the tides for labor: making it easier for workers to organize a union by allowing majority sign-up, also known as "card-check," union authorization; imposing binding arbitration on employers and the union if they fail to negotiate a first contract under certain deadlines; and creating stiffer financial penalties for employers who violate workers' rights during organizing campaigns or contract negotiations.

The bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in March. Yet, even before its introduction, the bill faced attacks by corporate lobbies waging a heavily-funded PR campaign against the EFCA.

It seems some media outlets are reporting that the business lobbies are winning the war. Just this week The Los Angeles Times reported that key components of the bill are in jeopardy and that "business groups have outmaneuvered workers groups, jeopardizing key components of a congressional proposal that has been unions' top priority."

But advocates of the EFCA still believe some reform will pass this session. The Center for American Progress pointed out this week that "labor reform is still vitally necessary and has a good chance of getting through Congress."

The bad news for labor is that the highly contentious majority sign-up ("card-check") provision -- which would have allowed unions to form when a majority of workers sign cards -- could be compromised out of the bill. Labor rights groups prefer card-check campaigns simply because drawn-out National Labor Board elections are routinely manipulated by employers during the long pre-election period in which companies frequently subject workers to harassment and intimidation.

The Center for American Progress reports that while so much of the debate has centered around card-check, the bill could still include "other important measures aimed at ensuring fair contract negotiations and instituting penalties that actually deter labor law violations."

As the Center for American Progress details:

In place of majority sign up -- which "probably won't" be in the final bill, according to EFCA's chief sponsor, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) -- a few alternatives have emerged. One would involve a sped-up election process, which advocates hope would blunt employers' ability to intimidate workers from organizing. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has floated another proposal "that would use mail-in elections." Under the plan, "if a majority mailed the ballots to the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB would recognize the union." Both of these aim to address one of the core problems with the current system for forming a union: the employers have nearly unlimited access to intimidate -- and ultimately fire -- workers who want to organize, while facing little in terms of penalties.