UNIONS: Abusive tactics used against organizers
STEVE KRUEGER; Seattle
Re: “The federal ‘Free Choice Act’ is anything but” (editorial, 3-15).
The secret ballot is, as the editorial stated, fundamental to democracy. So is the absolute right of workers to organize to negotiate wages and working conditions with their employers.
Unions wouldn’t need to gain certification through majority membership sign-up if employers like Wal-Mart and others didn’t use abusive and coercive tactics to deprive workers of that right.
Today, when an employer learns that its workers are trying to organize, the first step usually is to fire the employees who are behind the effort. Next, workers are ordered to attend closed-door meetings, where the employer can browbeat them with threats (“We’ll close if a union comes in”) and cleverly developed messages (“We’re just a big family, and this will destroy the special relationship that we all enjoy”).
Again, Wal-Mart shows how successful these tactics can be. It’s one of the country’s most profitable companies, but its employees are among the lowest paid, having to rely on taxpayer-provided programs for medical care for their families.
This happens every day. In good times, workers suffered while their corporate owners prospered. In these rough times, positions are abolished and those who still have jobs lose their insurance, medical care and pensions.
Union representation is not the cure for all that afflicts the American worker, but unions do give workers a voice in the second most important relationship they have: their job. Most workplaces we organize say that leveling the playing field with their boss is actually more important than increasing their wages. (Krueger is president of the Seattle Local, American Federation of Television And Radio Artists.)
