The 'suits' and their fight for workers

If laws were made by working men and women who punch time clocks, Right to Work would be a sick joke and unions would prosper. Unions give workers rights on the job, guaranteed in writing. Workers know that without a contract every aspect of their employment can be changed, at any time for any reason, by the boss.

But laws are made by guys in three-piece suits who have no idea what it’s like to work for a living.

Big business is spending millions to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would make it easier for workers to join unions. Tom Donahue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, calls the card-check bill “payback” that unions expect in return for supporting Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Obama sees strong unions not as payback but an essential part of his effort to rebuild the middle class, the chief bulwark of a strong American economy.

Opponents wrap themselves in the flag, shocked, shocked, that card-check would deprive workers of secret ballot elections. Which sounds reasonable except for the fact employers openly violate federal law governing election campaigning.

This is what employers don’t want to give up during the interval before the “secret ballot” elections: The opportunity to intimidate or even fire union supporters and ban organizers from entering the premises or even posting union materials while requiring workers to attend meetings where only the company’s side is presented. The election is held on the employer’s property with workers escorted to the polls by management supervisors.

Obama put it best during the presidential campaign: “If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It’s that simple. That’s why I’ve been fighting for it in the Senate and that’s why I’ll make it the law of the land when I’m president of the United States.”

It is uncertain how soon he will push for passage of the bill, knowing the havoc it will wreak with business support of his other legislative goals. But appointing California Rep. Hilda Solis as his Labor Secretary is a good sign. “Unions are vital to the health and strength of our communities, and our workers are the bedrock of our economy,” said Solis, who co-sponsored the card-check bill in the House.

Solis believes in the “American Dream” because she lived it. She is the daughter of immigrants who were blue-collar union workers. She credits unions with securing the wages and benefits that allowed her parents to move their family into the middle class, send their children to college and raise a daughter who was elected to Congress.

As Labor Secretary, she inherits a department that for eight years abandoned its mission to protect workers. A good example is OSHA, where the Bush administration director said “employers, not workers”, were the agency’s real customers.

One thing is clear: our nation will never climb out of the abyss of economic meltdown by pushing harder on its citizens for cheaper wages. Rebuilding our infrastructure begins with rebuilding our middle class. Beating up on auto workers in bailout hearings and demanding they take less pay if their corporations are to survive is a defeatist message.

Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act will revitalize and invigorate not only organized labor but the American economy.