Workers Should Be Free to Organize Without Being Harassed by Their Employers
By William M. George, President, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
Last Friday, Arlene Brockel met with Senator Specter as part of a hearing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at the State Capitol to tell him her story about what happened when she tried to form a union. She worked as an assembler at B. Braun in Bethlehem, PA, a leading manufacturer of disposable medical supplies, for almost 20 years.
In 2001, Arlene and her co-workers decided to form a union with the United Steelworkers of America because they felt that raises and promotions were based on favoritism and were inconsistent. They were in the process of facing across-the-board cuts in pay, and they wanted to have a say in their working conditions.
Despite the fact that a strong majority of the workforce signed cards indicating the desire to form a union, B. Braun responded in a way all too familiar to workers who attempt to form a union in this country: relentless hostility. It began when the company started sending literature from supervisors to their homes. Before long, the cafeteria televisions began looping anti-union videos all day long, anti-union signs were put up everywhere, they began unannounced searches of lockers, and the company held picnics and events to try and sway favor.
When workers continued to express outward support for trying to form a union, the company escalated their effort to thwart workers’ free choice. Soon after, the workers were forced to endure repeated threats from direct supervisors, often warning them that the company will move down South and close within five years if they voted to form a union. Supervisors made workers sit in mandatory group meetings that would last for hours at a time. At the meetings, union supporters were often singled out for public harassment and humiliation. Arlene says that she was told that if they successfully formed a union, they might lose several vacation days, health care and other benefits, and the company would not guarantee any changes in wages.
By the time of the election, it is no wonder that their union suffered a crushing defeat. Despite charges with the National Labor Relations Board, in the end all the company had to do was put up a notice in the workplace saying that they would not violate the law.
That is why last Friday she met with Senator Specter thanking him for personally mailing a letter of support during her campaign but also requesting that he join his colleagues in the Senate by signing onto the Employee Free Choice Act, bipartisan federal legislation that would reduce the grueling obstacles that workers currently face when they try to form unions. Already, 33 U.S. Senators and 206 Members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors.
The fact is that B. Braun is not unique in their effort to prevent workers from deciding for themselves whether or not to form a union. More than three-quarters of private-sector employers use workers’ own supervisors to pressure workers in one-on-one meetings, and a quarter of employers illegally fire one or more workers for supporting a union. Even when workers do successfully form a union, in one-third of cases where workers successfully voted to form a union, a first contract still had not been reached two years later, according to Cornell University’s Kate Bronfenbrenner.
The denial of workers’ freedom to form unions is so pervasive that Human Rights Watch - an internationally recognized organization that monitors basic human rights - calls the routine violation of workers’ rights in the United States a fundamental human rights issue.
The Employee Free Choice Act would allow employees to freely choose whether to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation, provide mediation and arbitration for first contract disputes and establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first contract negotiations.
This is no small matter, since more than 42 million workers say that they would vote to form a union tomorrow if given a fair chance. It is critical that workers like Arlene and others across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are given the opportunity to make a free and fair decision on whether or not to form a union at their workplace. This legislation would go a long way to make that freedom possible once again in America.