THE NLRB UNDER BUSH:
A
NATIONAL DISGRACE
Members of AFSCME Local 1739
at
SPIN distributed holiday food baskets
to families. (more inside)
AFSCME
Local 1739
Fred Wright |
In September, the NLRB issued a large number of decisions, many of them pending for years and almost all undermining workers’ rights. Of the decisions harming the fundamental rights of workers, the Bush appointed members voted down the line against the position of labor.
In Grosvenor Resort, the NLRB made it even less expensive for employers to fire workers attempting to organize a union. In St. George Warehouse, the agency’s Republican majority reversed a fortyfive year precedent to make it even more difficult for fired workers to collect back pay. It places the burden on workers to prove that they took reasonable steps to find work. Thereby, removing the burden formerly on the employer to prove – in order to deny backpay – that employees they fired did not adequately search for work. Dissenting members on this decision wrote that it actually frustrates the very enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act.
And perhaps most chillingly, in Dana Corporation, the Republican majority gave a minority of anti-union employees the right to demand a decertification election after an employer grants union representation
upon a showing of majority
support. This decision threatens to undermine
recent organizing successes that have
come through majority sign-up.
Other decisions stripped protections
from workers regarding collective
bargaining and the right to strike.
As a group, these latest NLRB
decisions have created the greatest
single assault on the fundamental rights
of workers since the GreatDepression.
They represent a deliberate and
calculated effort to pull apart – brick by
brick – the wall of worker and union
defense created by President Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal. They are
attempting to undermine and even
destroy settled law, that represents a
70 year social contract between the
United States and its working men
and women.
It is imperative that Congress pass
the Employee Free Choice Act. It
would it many cases allow for
employee reinstatement, backpay and
help end the climate of fear that has
been created by seven years of
anti-worker NLRB decisions. In
mid-November, workers marched on
NLRB offices in more than 20 cities
and declared that the agency should be“
closed for renovations.” Renovations
are an understatement. The NLRB
should be shut down for a major
structural overhaul. After seven years
of the Bush Administration, the
agency’s foundations should be
checked. But, not the principles upon
which those foundations were set.
Dignity, freedom, and the desire to
bargain collectively are bedrocks and
will not be shattered by George Bush.