WASHINGTON -- December 10 -- American Rights at Work, a new workers’ rights advocacy organization led by former Congressman David Bonior, announced that a worker in the United States is fired or discriminated against every 23 minutes for exercising his freedom of association on the job. “Workers are under attack and most Americans don’t even know it,” says Bonior. “Protecting workers’ rights to form unions is U.S. law, and a human rights standard that our country helped create.”

In observance of International Human Rights Day this December 10th, the group will unveil a ticker on its website ( www.americanrightsatwork.org ) that counts, in real time, the number of workers fired or discriminated against for union activity this year. International Human Rights Day commemorates the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1948, the treaty states, “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.”

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) prohibits employers from intimidating, coercing, or firing employees for organizing. But many companies defy the law. More than half of employers faced with organizing campaigns threaten to close down worksites if employees choose union representation. More than a third of employers give bribes or special favors to those who oppose the union. A quarter of employers fire pro-union employees during organizing campaigns.

Through its Workers’ Rights Clearinghouse, American Rights at Work has collected hundreds of cases from across the country illustrating rampant violations of U.S. labor law and international human rights standards. For example, Verna Bader, a 72-year-old grandmother, was fired in 1992 for attempting to form a union to address unsafe working conditions at a machinery plant in Taylor, MI. She worked on a machine with exposed wires that threatened to electrocute her. Maria Guadalupe Garcia, a nursing home worker from Los Angeles, was held captive in an elevator mid-floor with a supervisor until she agreed to sign a petition to do away with the union. “Democracy shouldn’t end when you enter your workplace.” Asks Bonior, “When the person who signs your paycheck says, ‘don’t join the union,’ do you really have a fair choice, free of intimidation?”

Despite the prevalence of employer retaliation against pro-union employees, the federal agency charged with enforcing labor law recently has issued decisions that dramatically reverse and erode workers’ legal protections. Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), whose members are appointed by the President, reversed a long-standing precedent and made it easier for employers to get away with threats to close a facility if employees unionize. Other recent decisions strip disabled workers and graduate teaching assistants of protection under the NLRA and prohibit communication between workers expressing displeasure over working conditions.

“This is not the face America wants to show the world in the 21st century,” says Bonior. “Workers rights are human rights. We can’t forget this principle here at home.”

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Visit www.americanrightsatwork.org to view the ticker, or to access new resources, fact sheets and materials in connection with International Human Rights Day.

American Rights at Work is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to educating the American public about the barriers that workers face when they attempt to exercise their rights to organize and engage in collective bargaining. Our mission is to fight for a nation where the freedom of workers to organize unions and bargain collectively with employers is restored, guaranteed and promoted.

[ 11 December 2004: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

I suppose that these violations are just another symptom of the erosion of democracy in the developed world. Human rights and popular rule on paper but not in fact, not enforced, not extending into all parts of life.

(Edited to address the original thread topic a bit.)

[ 12 December 2004: Message edited by: dokidoki ]

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South Carolina Factory Provides a Textbook Case
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: December 14, 2004

UMTER, S.C. - Tom Brown, the leader of an anti-union campaign at the EnerSys battery factory here, made some surprising admissions in recent testimony about how his campaign had been run and financed.

Mr. Brown, a longtime maintenance man, acknowledged that a mysterious consultant known as Mr. X had advised him on how to oust the union and had helped him write fliers that called the union's leaders names like "trailer trash," "Uncle Tom" and "dog woman." Not only that, Mr. Brown testified that envelopes filled with cash had often been sent to his home. He said he had no idea who had sent them. "I don't look a gift horse in the mouth," he said.

Across the South companies have long used bare-knuckled tactics to fight unions. But now a surprisingly detailed roadmap to such tactics has emerged from an unusual court battle between EnerSys and its law firm over whose wrongdoing - the company's or its lawyers' - led to a $7.75 million settlement that EnerSys entered into after federal officials accused it of 120 labor law violations in its seven-year effort to eliminate the union.

The company has accused the firm, Jackson Lewis, of malpractice and of advising it to engage in illegal behavior. The law firm says that EnerSys ignored its sound advice and that the company is trying to avoid paying its legal bill.

The wrangling has cast a spotlight on how the company fired and harassed the union's top officials and aided Mr. Brown, the anti-union leader, although federal law prohibits companies from financing or otherwise assisting efforts to get rid of a union.

The litigation also highlights a little known but thriving business in which law firms and consultants work with corporations to beat back unionization efforts. Jackson Lewis, a national law firm based in New York, describes itself as "committed to the practice of preventive labor relations."

"Union membership is declining because employers will stop at nothing to prevent employees from having a union," said David Bonior, the former Michigan Congressman who is now president of American Rights at Work, an advocacy group fighting violations of workers' rights. "Unfortunately, 75 percent of employers use union-busting consultants to fight unionization drives."

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