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In a packed hearing room in Washington, D.C. Thursday, workers testified about getting fired for attempting to organize unions while business leaders said they opposed the legislation that would enable workers – instead of employers – to choose whether to conduct secret balloting to form a union.
The Employee Free Choice Act was the subject of the sometimes-contentious, three-hour hearing before the Health, Employment, Labor and Pension Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee.
The fact-finding session was called “Strengthening America’s Middle Class Through the Employee Free Choice Act” hearing.
Ivo Camilo, a Blue Diamond worker, told the Congressmen about the company firing him for his union activity during a campaign to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. And Keith Ludlam, a Smithfield Packing Co. worker, talked about the violence and intimidation workers experienced from the company when they tried to join the United Food and Commercial Workers.
The Employee Free Choice Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-CA, on Tuesday, would enable workers to form a union by getting signed permission from 50 percent plus one of those to be covered. If they wanted to, workers could still conduct secret elections to determine whether the union should represent them. As it is now, the company decides whether the secret balloting must be conducted.
In addition, the Employee Free Choice Act would strengthen penalties for companies that illegally intimidate or fire workers to block unionization. And it would establish a procedure under which a neutral third party would settle a contract in cases where a company and a newly-certified union cannot agree on a pact within three months.
Also at the hearing, Theresa Joyce, a customer care representative for AT&T/Cingular, talked about the positive and cooperative relationship the company and the union maintain to this day. She said it is because AT&T/Cingular permitted union organizers to distribute material during their break times, and the company decided secret balloting was unnecessary after organizers collected signatures from more than half of the workers saying they wanted union representation.
On the other side, Jennifer Jason, testified against the bill. Once an organizer for the union, Unite Here, she’s now a consultant specializing in union avoidance. She contended that union organizers force themselves into workers’ homes and coerce them to sign cards seeking union representation.
Congressman Robert E. Andrews, D-NJ, who chaired the hearing, responded, however, that he was more likely to believe the workers’ stories of intimidation by companies because of statistics collected by the National Labor Relations Board. In 60 years, said Andrews, the NLRB found only 42 instances of coercion by unions but in 2005 alone, 31,000 workers got back pay because the NLRB determined companies had illegally discriminated against them for union activities.
Like Ms. Jason, Charles Cohen, chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, testified against the act, which he repeatedly called the “employee no choice act.” In fact, however, the bill allows workers to choose to select a union through the sign up procedure or through secret balloting.
One of the final witnesses, Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon who wrote a report called, “Free or Fair?” talked about how undemocratic the NLRB secret balloting is. Many workers are afraid to vote in those elections held on company property and closely monitored by company officials. So the decision about unionizing may be made by a small minority of workers. On the other hand, the card signing method requires a majority of all eligible workers to consent.
The bill is now expected to go before the full committee, which may choose to conduct another hearing.
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