newsrackblog.com

The Senate is taking up S 1041 this week, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The act would:

• Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
• Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
• Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.

The last provision — called “card check” or “majority signup” by labor, and “streamlining union certification” in the bill — is designed to make it easier for workers to unionize. It’s important to note that EFCA doesn’t prohibit the traditional route to unionization: secret ballot elections. Instead, it simply provides an alternative.

The “majority signup” unionizing process recognizes that traditional secret ballot elections in the workplace can bear little resemblance to the elections we (hope we) use to elect political leaders. The graphic to the right, based on a report for American Rights At Work, shows some of the differences. Imagine if your mayor could credibly threaten you with shutting down the city if his opponent were elected.

While such tactics are supposed to be illegal, it can be years before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) gets around to considering complaints — let alone punishing management. Thus, according to the AFL-CIO, 25% of companies facing union campaigns illegally fire pro-union workers.

Management has the advantage anyway: they can campaign round-the-clock against unions with posters and meetings, while workers are restricted to breaks and after hours organizing; 92% of companies facing union campaigns have mandatory, closed door anti union meetings; union organizers, of course, can’t compel anyone to listen to them.

Some fret that the “card check” method will make it too easy for pro-union workers to coerce other workers into signing pro-union petitions as well. It’s hard to see how, though; labor law (including the EFCA) prohibits that. At any rate, a study by Adrienne Wheaton and Jill Kriesky found that workers actually feel less coerced by co-workers in “majority signup” situations than in secret ballot ones. That would make sense: “majority signup” would create less of an embattled atmosphere than a high stakes secret ballot election. (Meanwhile, of course, the respondents felt much less coerced by management as well.)

Something is keeping reported tens of millions of Americans from joining unions even though they’d like to; it’s probably because it’s usually just too much of an uphill battle. The Employee Free Choice Act will level that playing field — and bring higher wages and better benefits to workers, for a change.

Contact your Senators and urge them to support this bill and resist Republican efforts to filibuster it. The Employee Free Choice Act deserves an “up or down vote” — and then it deserves to win.

=====
FURTHER READING: For the Long Run: The Employee Free Choice Act, Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University, April 2006, and other documents at the AFL CIO’s “Who Supports the Employee Free Choice Act?” Wal-Mart is the poster child of unionbusting, of course; one of the most recent studies of their methods is by Human Rights Watch: Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart’s Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association (summarized here).

From American Rights At Work –

After a victory in the House, the battle for workers’ rights has moved to the Senate. We need your help to make the Employee Free Choice Act a reality.

By making a donation to American Rights at Work, you’re helping with our urgent efforts—educating policymakers with briefings on Capitol Hill, telling workers’ stories in the media, and countering the constant drumbeat of misinformation from the well-financed, well-established, and well-coordinated anti-union network.

Related: the AFL-CIO hopes you’ll write your Senators urging them to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and support Verizon workers in New York and New England who’ve made their demands for union representation known via the proposed card-check mechanism.
UPDATE, 4/4: here’s a list of Senators supporting the EFCA; if you’re from one of their states, thank them!

Zimbabwe: Solidarity with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions - for human rights and the rule of law — The news out of Zimbabwe continues to be terrible, including a brutal police beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the runup to last week’s parliamentary elections. (A Guardian report quotes Mugabe: “Of course he was bashed.”) Now, a LabourStart release explains:

Alarmed at the growing willingness to oppose the regime openly, including from within the ruling ZANU-PF party, the regime has banned political protests for three months, especially to prevent protests against the Government’s economic failures. But the ZCTU [Zimbabwean Council of Trade Unions -- ed.] and others have responded by stepping up their criticisms and protests, and a general strike has been announced for 3-4 April. Over the weekend of 10-11 March, the security services violently attacked opposition leaders and on 13 March, raided the offices of the ZCTU to seize materials about the strike.

Via LabourStart, this link gives you a chance to send a message of solidarity with the ZCTU to Zimbabwean embassies and agencies. If anyone can stop Mugabe’s thugs, it will be the unions — remember Solidarnosc?

SaveDarfur.org is calling for more US funds for peacekeepers in Darfur. From a recent e-mail:

Congress has agreed that the President failed to address the full funding needs of Darfur peacekeeping in his recent budget request for fiscal year 2008.

To quote the official language of the recently passed funding bill, Congress “is concerned that the Administration has not adequately planned for future peacekeeping activities in Sudan/Darfur in FY 2008 and urges the Secretary of State to work with the Office of Management and Budget to submit a budget amendment for FY 2008 addressing these urgent needs.”

Please join us and Congress in urging the President and his Office of Management and Budget to provide the funds to prevent this budget shortfall that would threaten the Darfur peacekeeping effort.

None of this is enough by itself. But it’s a start for many of us. Go ahead, lend a hand.

An occasional review of further developments in stuff I’ve written about.

Babel, 12/4/06 — I really liked the movie, so I’m pleased the Academy Awards people nominated it for Best Picture, Best Director, and two Best Supporting Actresses including Rinko Kikuchi, who I misidentified as Yuko Marata though crediting her with a “really memorable performance.” It also got well deserved Oscar nominations for best original screenplay, film editing, and music score.

Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, 12/18/06 — The appeal reads: “As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.” Last week that petition, signed by over a thousand military personnel, was delivered to Capitol Hill. From the LA Times account by Noam Levey:

When the campaign began three months ago, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow dismissed the first signatories as “65 people who are going to be able to get more press than the hundreds of thousands who have come back and said they’re proud of their service.” The 1,000 signatories still represent a tiny fraction of the military personnel who have served in and around Iraq since the 2003 invasion. But according to the group, those who have signed the appeal include about 100 officers. Approximately 70% of the signatories are active-duty military, while the rest are reservists or members of the National Guard, said Madden, who added that the group would not reveal the names of the signatories to protect them.

Employee Free Choice Act, 6/13/05 — This perennial progressive wish list item may have the best prospects in years. The measure allows for union locals to be formed once enough signatures are gathered — rather than via up or down votes notoriously susceptible to management pressure and bullying tactics. You can learn more about “card check” systems via American Rights at Work, and you can send your congressman a message you support this sensible measure via a AFL-CIO Working Families petition: “Some 58 million workers would join a union if they could. But, as Human Rights Watch has documented, employers routinely harass, coerce, intimidate and stall to block workers’ freedom to choose union representation. In fact, every 23 minutes a worker is fired or penalized for supporting a union.” The Senate bill is S. 842, and the House version is H.R. 1696; I’m happy to learn my congressman, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD-8), is a co-sponsor.

Security Council votes 12-0-3 for UN troops in Darfur, 8/31/06 — One of the three abstentions was China. Now that nation is signaling a slightly different stance — but still no real pressure. The New York Times is running the headline China’s Leader to Visit Sudan and Seek End to Darfur Conflict, with Howard French reporting that Chinese officials announced President Hu Jintao will visit Sudan in early February and “press for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in that country’s western Darfur region.” However, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that, “while China intended to use its diplomatic influence to encourage a settlement of the Darfur crisis, it would not press Sudan publicly or threaten it with sanctions.”

Fair Share Health Care: canary in the ERISA coal mine, 12/15/06 — Last Thursday The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld last year’s ruling overturning Maryland’s “Fair Share Health Care” law on the grounds that it conflicted with federal law, specifically the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The Baltimore Sun’s Matthew Dolan et al report:

…A divided three-judge panel ruled that the state’s Fair Share Health Care Act was incompatible with federal rules that promote uniform treatment of employees.

“In short, the Fair Share Act leaves employers no reasonable choices except to change how they structure their employee benefit plans,” Judge Paul V. Niemeyer wrote for the majority, adding that such a constricted choice also violates the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.

One of the three judges disagreed; Judge M. Blane Michael held that the law was “‘a permissible response to the problem’ of escalating Medicaid costs.” While the article reports that most Maryland legislators don’t want to revisit the legislation, Senate Leader Mike Miller is an important exception:

“We’re going to try to work around what the [court's] majority said and comply with the law,” Miller said. “But at the same time, we can’t allow 60 percent of Wal-Mart employees’ kids to go without health insurance and use the emergency rooms for care. There has got to be some relief for Maryland and the other states.

Emphasis added. And even though he counsels against appealing the verdict, I also agree with Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, a Charles County Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee: “First of all, Congress needs to loosen up the ERISA laws.” More on the 4th Circuit’s ruling another time, I hope. For now, I’ll just reprint dissenting Judge Michael’s final words:

Because a covered employer has the option to comply with the Act by paying an assessment — a means that is not connected to an ERISA plan — I would hold that the Act is not preempted.

Yes! Jiminy Christmas, that ought to be the ballgame — at least one judge gets it.

=====
NOTES: Fair Share court ruling via Steve Fine (”fineline”)
EDIT, 1/25: Judge Michael’s final words and my comment added.

In 2002, nurses at Oakwood Heritage Hospital in Taylor, Michigan decided they wanted to join a union. Today 12 of them know they won’t be allowed to — by this country’s so-called “Labor Relations Board,” which has morphed from a protector of employee rights into an advocate for management’s every wish to curtail the right to organize.

The reason: under a brand new reading of labor law, they’re statutory supervisors. From the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) 3-2 Oakwood decision:

Where an individual is engaged a part of the time as a supervisor and the rest of the time as a unit employee, the legal standard for a supervisory determination is whether the individual spends a regular and substantial portion of his/her work time performing supervisory functions. Under the Board’s standard, “regular” means according to a pattern or schedule, as opposed to sporadic substitution. The Board has not adopted a strict numerical definition of substantiality and has found supervisory status where the individuals have served in a supervisory role for at least 10–15 percent of their total work time.(emphasis added, footnotes omitted.)

So if someone spends one hour in ten assigning some responsibilities to co-workers, they’re supervisors (and likely unwilling-scabs-to-be) — even if they can’t hire, fire, discipline, or reward anyone. From the dissent (published with the decision, footnotes likewise omitted) by Clinton appointees Wilma B. Liebman and Dennis P. Walsh:

Today’s decision threatens to create a new class of workers under Federal labor law: workers who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees. Into that category may fall most professionals (among many other workers), who by 2012 could number almost 34 million, accounting for 23.3 percent of the work force. [M]ost professionals have some supervisory responsibilities in the sense of directing another’s work—the lawyer his secretary, the teacher his teacher’s aide, the doctor his nurses, the registered nurse her nurse’s aide, and so on.

If the National Labor Relations Act required this result—if Congress intended to define supervisors in a way that swept in large numbers of professionals and other workers without true managerial prerogatives—then the Board would be dutybound to apply the statute that way. But that is not the case. The language of the Act, its structure, and its legislative history all point to significantly narrower interpretations of the ambiguous statutory terms “assign . . . other employees” and “responsibly to direct them” than the majority adopts. The majority rejects what it calls a “results-oriented approach” in interpreting the Act. But the reasonableness of the majority’s interpretation can surely be tested by its real-world consequences. Congress cared about the precise scope of the Act’s definition of “supervisor,” and so should the Board. Instead, the majority’s decision reflects an unfortunate failure to engage in the sort of reasoned decision-making that Congress expected from the Board, which has the “primary responsibility for developing and applying national labor policy.”(emphasis added)

The decision was reached without any public hearings on the matter — an indication the Board knew just how explosive the result would be. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney writes,

It is a sad day for every American who works to put food on the table and gas in their cars, when the rights they count on can be cynically eviscerated by a Labor Board that is informed more by political ideology than sound legal analysis.

The NLRB should protect workers’ rights — not eliminate them. If the Administration expects us to take this quietly, they’re mistaken. Over the next week, working people will be coming together in the streets in cities across the nation to make sure everyone knows the Bush Administration is slashing workers’ right to have a voice on the job.

For more, see “Working Americans Under Attack” at The Center for American Progress (CAP) Progress Report, an extremely informative and link-rich summary of the case and its implications. See also “NLRB Undermines Workers’ Rights” at American Rights at Work where you can let President Bush know just what you think of this transparent union-busting action by his cronies at the NLRB.

It’s unlikely that will change Bush’s mind, of course. So if you care about worker rights and unions, I’d suggest working like hell (and giving cash till it hurts) to get his Republican buddies in Congress defeated. With a majority in the House and Senate, Democrats can begin to try to reverse this and other travesties of the Bush years. Until then, the best we can do is make sure they know we’re paying attention.

But meanwhile we can also (try to) get a laugh out of it. Via American Rights at Work, check out this July Stephen Colbert segment on the NLRB and the related “Kentucky River” case:

From the Sierra Club press release:

On Wednesday, June 7th, the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest grassroots’ environmental organization, and the United Steelworkers (USW), North America’s largest private sector manufacturing union, will announce the formation of a historic strategic alliance. [...]

The Alliance will promote a new vision for American public policy–creating jobs by promoting smart energy solutions to global warming; reducing the risks from toxic chemicals in the workplace and the community; and building a responsible trade policy for America. This unprecedented alliance will chart a new direction for the nation’s labor and environmental movements, bringing together almost 2 million members around a shared vision of the future.

(Via Climate Crisis Coalition - Daily News.) The “Blue/Green Alliance” is described in a bit more detail in a second press release:

“Good jobs and a clean environment are important to American workers–we cannot have one without the other, said Leo Gerard, International President of USW. “In fact, secure 21st century jobs are those that will help solve the problem of global warming with energy efficiency and renewable energy.” [...]

The USW and the Sierra Club have worked jointly on issues of mutual concern for many years, including the Clean Air Act, trade reform, and corporate responsibility. Currently, the two organizations have joint projects in fifteen states. The new Alliance will build on these existing programs and focus initially on three key issues-global warming and clean energy, fair trade, and reducing toxics. The work will begin in four states-Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, and Washington with plans to expand into at least 10 more states in the next two years.

As the Duluth News Tribune’s Lee Bloomquist reports, the partnership extends a model Minnesota collaboration between regional branches of the two organizations, which worked together on the possible discharge of water from a Minntac Mine taconite tailings basin.

“It’s not that different than what’s already been going on,” said Bob Bratulich, United Steelworkers District 11 director. “I see this event as just a formalization of the alliance. We’re just going to be working together on projects that we have common interest in.” [...]

“We have a lot of the same goals and issues,” said Jerry Fallos, a Steelworkers associate member coordinator in Eveleth. “The Sierra Club believes in renewable energy, not just for the economics, but for the environment, and so do we.”

It’s encouraging to see alliances like this one work against the assumption that fighting pollution and carbon dioxide emissions must threaten jobs and economic growth. If the Steelworkers-Sierra Club alliance does nothing but blunt the political appeal of making that charge at election time, it will have been a worthwhile initiative.

It’s over! The Washington Ballet dancers have settled their labor dispute with the company, mentioned here last December (”Nutcracker on ice: dancers locked out“). Sarah Kaufman reports for the Washington Post (”Dancers, Company Agree on Contract“):

With the help of two federal mediators who presided over five days of marathon negotiating sessions, the Washington Ballet reached a tentative agreement with its dancers on a first-ever union contract, both the ballet and the dancers’ union announced yesterday. If the deal holds, it will put the company back in business for the first time since the Christmas season and end an often bitter negotiating process that stretched over four months.

While Kaufman writes that neither side would discuss details, an American Rights at Work e-mail reports that “[t]he Washington Ballet plans to implement changes in work conditions and rules immediately, which is great news for the dancers who persevered to gain respect on the job and safe working conditions.”

The dancers’ union, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) sounds pretty satisfied, too, offering an olive branch to Washington Ballet president Kay Kendall and artistic director Septime Webre, and thanking the mediators and especially AGMA’s own Eleni Kallas for her “steadfast refusal to accept less than what she thought the dancers deserved in their contract.”

The dancers had already planned performances to help them offset some of the lost income of the Christmas and spring seasons. The “Dancing for Relief” performances are this Thursday through Sunday at the American Dance Institute (1570 East Jefferson St. Rockville, MD); adult tickets are $35. If you can’t make it to one of the performances, you can still donate, I have a hunch they won’t mind. Click through below to buy tickets and get more details.

Dancing for Relief:
Union benefit for Washington Ballet dancers

7:30pm Thursday March 9, 2006
7:30pm Friday March 10, 2006
7:30pm Saturday March 11, 2006
2:30pm Sunday March 12, 2006

I’m really inspired by these folks; they’ve shown Washington, D.C. how it’s done when men and women decide to stand up for themselves. And this is certainly a town that can use the lesson. Good for all of you! Way to go!

I’m a little sad: a family tradition of seeing the Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker will be interrupted this year. It’s beloved music and a beloved piece, done exceptionally well by an excellent company of dancers. Who’ve had enough, and rightly so.

The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaufman and Darragh Johnson explain what’s happening in All Toes Point To the Picket Line:

For the second night in a row, the Washington Ballet has canceled its ‘Nutcracker’ performance because of labor strife. It announced last evening that it would scrap tonight’s show — just as its dancers, dressed in coats and boots instead of costumes, were throwing up a picket line on the slick sidewalk outside the show’s venue, the Warner Theatre.

Cutting to the chase, I hope you’ll join me in supporting the dancers in a long-running dispute with Washington Ballet management. In a nutshell, the argument centers on just how grueling rehearsal and performance schedules will remain. The outcomes have arguably been remarkable performances and seasons by a relatively small company on the one hand, but not surprisingly — the dancers claim — increased injuries on the other.

The ballet’s artistic director, Septime Webre, emerges as more than a bit of a taskmaster in this story. An earlier piece by Sarah Kaufman, “Going Toe-to-Toe,” is a superb piece of reporting confirming that, and detailing the travails of one dancer, Nikkia Parish, who — I’m convinced after reading this piece — lost her job because of her support for unionizing the ballet company, and her willingness to stand up to Webre and the company management:

As a newcomer to the Washington Ballet from the much larger Pennsylvania Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem, Parish says she became alarmed at the frequency of injuries in the company. She began making a connection between the company’s chaotic rehearsal schedules and the aches in her knees and her back, and in the foot that eventually became too painful to dance on.

Voted by the dancers last fall to be their representative, she not only raised concerns with Webre, she says, she proposed solutions. Both of the other companies she had danced with had been unionized. Remembering the hourly take-fives and dependable schedules, Parish added her voice to the growing campaign to organize the Washington Ballet.

Parish and three other company members acquired career-interrupting injuries during the 2004 season. Things came to a head in the winter of 2004/2005, when the dancers contacted the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) and hearings were held initiating the process to voting for unionization at the Washington Ballet. Parish and another apprentice dancer, Brian Corman, testified on behalf of AGMA.

After the proceeding, Parish says, “some of the dancers said, ‘Oh, you should’ve seen Septime’s face when you got up to testify.’ ” She never found out if it was her words or the mere fact that she was testifying at all that caused her boss to turn, as she says others told her, “all different shades of white.”Two weeks later, the NLRB ordered the ballet to hold an election among the full company members and the apprentices, and on Feb. 14, the dancers voted to allow AGMA to represent them. One dancer, who AGMA officials say had wanted to get out of the company, had already left by this time. All the others had their contracts renewed for another year.

Except for Parish and Corman.

Wal-Mart has nothing on these guys. Take away the toe shoes and the tutu and Parish’s story sounds like a garden variety slam-dunk labor law violation — and indeed, the National Labor Relations Board is considering the case. An AGMA lawyer commented that the Washington Ballet did “exactly what I would do if I was trying to beat the union.”

There’s often an attitude in the artsy crowd (and sometimes in the nonprofit crowd) that their mission excuses anything, especially exploiting workers or running their operations like feudal kingdoms, beyond criticism or oversight. If anything, that’s even more annoying than the mere greed motivating most corporate miscreants.

So if Webre and the Washington Ballet want to flog their dancers across the finish line one more time, I think there’s no reason the dancers should put up with it any more. I’m happy to forgo my annual Nutcracker fix for that. If you’d like to lend your support, the excellent folks at American Rights At Work have set up one way for you to do so.

=====
EDIT, 12/19: 2d Kaufman title corrected.
UPDATE, 12/19: Posts and pretty active commenting about this at DCist and Metroblogging DC, among others.
UPDATE, 12/21: AGMA has posted a full account, “Washington Ballet’s Dancers Locked Out,” on its web site, along with the terms of the interim agreement it is seeking. Looks pretty reasonable to me, see for yourselves. No corresponding statement from the Washington Ballet on their site that I found, other than regret at cancelling the remaining Nutcracker performances. PS: very nice photo of the dancers about to go picketing (or just back from it) here.

Dear Thomas,

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to President Bush’s order to suspend the Davis-Bacon law in the counties affected by Hurricane Katrina.

I strongly agree with you. As you know, under the Davis-Bacon law, a federal contractor must pay its worker the prevailing wage for that location. By suspending this law, federal contractors can cut Gulf Coast workers’ wages, charge the federal government no less for the work done, and pocket the difference–the President’s proclamation does not require contractors to cut their charges to the taxpayer. It is entirely unacceptable that President Bush would condemn these workers–many of whom are victims of Hurricane Katrina–to subpar wages as they begin to rebuild their homes and lives.

To this end, I am pleased to report that I am an original co-sponsor of the Fair Wages for Hurricane Victims Act (H.R. 3763), which seeks to reverse this unconscionable action by the Bush Administration and reinstate the Davis-Bacon law for the counties affected by Hurricane Katrina. I have also written President Bush requesting that he rescind his order to suspend the Davis-Bacon law. Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this matter, and please do not hesitate to contact me whenever I may be of service.

Sincerely,

Chris Van Hollen
Member of Congress

(Links added) Chris Van Hollen was the 4th cosponsor of the bill — only George Miller, Nancy Pelosi, and Major Owens were ahead of him. He’s my Congressman, and unless you live in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, no, you can’t have him too.

American Rights at Work (ARAW) reports on the latest bit of NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) pettifoggery:

Security firm Guardsmark instituted a rule directing employees not to ‘fraternize on duty or off duty, date, or become overly friendly with the client’s employees or with co-employees.’ In September 2003, the Service Employees International Union filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against Guardsmark, claiming that the company’s work rules inhibited its employees’ Section 7 rights.

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act [(NLRA)] grants workers the right to ’self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations…and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection…’ While the law allows employers to ban association among co-workers during work hours, Guardsmark’s rule was broader in that it applied to the off-duty association of co-workers.

On June 7, 2005, the Board ruled 2 to 1 that Guardsmark’s fraternization rule was lawful. The Board majority argued that workers would likely interpret the fraternization rule as merely a ban on dating, and not a prohibition of the association among co-workers protected by Section 7. But the dissenting member of the Board pointed out that since the rule already mentions dating, workers would understand fraternization to mean something else. She noted, ‘the primary meaning of the term ‘fraternize…[is] to associate in a brotherly manner’…and that kind of association is the essence of workplace solidarity.’

The ARAW report actually concedes more than I would in granting that employer bans on co-worker dating legitimately prevent sexual harassment (I might concede the point for dates between supervisors and supervisees). But as the dissent points out, the NLRB reasoning is dishonest in the extreme. Employees are not to fraternize off duty? They are not to “become overly friendly with co-employees”? This twists the NLRA completely out of recognition. I’d suggest it’s even unconstitutional — the first amendment guarantees a right to peaceable assembly. I hope the SEIU and other unions continue to fight such edicts by an NLRB that is not merely worthless to unions, but apparently actively hostile to them.

(Via moquol, where the author extrapolates a near-future bit of science (non)fiction from the story.)

=====
UPDATE, 8/8: Nathan Newman was there first: Meet a work buddy, get fired (TPM Cafe “House of Labor”)
UPDATE, 8/10: Harold Meyerson op-ed in the Washington Post today, Big Brother On and Off the Job. Meyerson points out that it’s the NLRB precedent that matters, not the particulars of the case (Guardsmark has in fact been unionized.) He concludes: “So as we fight to bring liberal democracy to quasi-feudal backwaters in distant lands, we might remember that the fight for individual rights in the American workplace — and now, beyond it — is itself a long way from a victorious conclusion. And thanks to the NLRB, it just got longer.”

From American Rights At Work:

So far this year, 10,000 workers have been fired or discriminated against for supporting a union. It’s illegal for employers to intimidate, coerce, or fire employees for supporting a union. But it happens all the time.

That figure is probably an underestimate - it’s based purely on the number of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-ordered back pay awards to employees illegally fired or otherwise financially punished for labor activities. What the NLRB doesn’t know about doesn’t get counted.

I think the right to unionize is an essential part of a decent, well functioning economy. Companies with billions in their bank accounts for advertising, political largesse, and sometimes brute force have a huge advantage over ordinary employees if there aren’t unions to insist on decent pay, hours, and benefits, and safe working conditions.

The American Rights At Work organization is asking everyone who cares about labor rights and the freedom to form unions to join in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696, S.842). The bill, sponsored by Representative George Miller (D-CA) in the House and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) in the Senate, would impose stiffer penalties against employers that violate labor law. It would also

…set up a process for newly-organized workers to negotiate a first contract in a timely manner. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers could opt to follow the “voluntary recognition” method of organizing, where workers choose union representation through a process in which a majority signs cards indicating their support.

This process offers a more private way to signal support for union representation, and is thus less susceptible than formal votes to company pressure tactics — such as firings. For more information about “card checks,” see ARAW’s fact sheet Card Check vs. NLRB elections:

During the traditional NLRB process:*
• 25% of employers fire at least one worker for union activity during organizing campaigns.
• 92% compel employees to attend mandatory “captive audience” meetings to hear and view anti-union propaganda with no opportunity for questions or discussion.
• 52% of employers threaten to call the INS to intimidate undocumented workers.
• 51% threaten to close the plant and relocate if workers choose union representation.

The Employee Free Choice Act is common sense fair play for employees who need to negotiate for better deals from their employers. Let your Senators and your Representative know you support this bill.

=====
* Kate Bronfenbrenner, “Uneasy Terrain: The Impact of Capital Mobility on Workers, Wages and Union Organizing,” U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission, 2000. This footnote was copied from the cited ARAW fact sheet.