Beyond Card Check

I know a lot of people found the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act somewhat tedious and I suppose I'd have to admit that I find labor law to be a pretty dull subject. Dull, and yet vitally important to the futur of the country. Steven Hill and Dmitri Iglitzin write about some other issues in need of reform, notably:

For example, a subsection of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 makes it an unlawful "secondary boycott" for a labor union to bring any type of pressure against any person or business other than the employer where the unionized workers work. That means unions cannot challenge a parent corporation's directives to its subsidiary or a subcontractor, even if the directive might cause all of the employees to lose their jobs.

As they point out, one rarely sees this standard applied to any other sort of interaction and it's very harmful to efforts to make unions effective (which, of course, is the point).

3/22/07 12:20PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

On the subject of labor law, is it illegal to organize the Securities Industry? My boss says it is, but I don't believe him as yet.

Posted by: Marshall on March 22, 2007 12:25 PM

That's interesting. When I studied labor law it was like the ban on secondary boycotts was written in stone. It never even occurred to me there could be a debate.

The thing is, the ban on secondary boycotts is already a middle position, as a matter of practice. Let's say I'm a grocery store employee, and we're picketing my grocery store because they don't pay us enough. If the banana company continues to sell bananas to the grocery store, we can't go picket the banana company as well to try and get them to stop. That would be an illegal secondary boycott.

But in the real world, often people will choose not to cross a picket line, and that's their decision. The banana company may well decide not to do business with a store that's being picketed, or its delivery drivers may. So in a sense, we're already applying pressure to the suppliers by picketing; the compromise is that we're not allowed to DIRECTLY apply pressure.

The analogies to the Taliban and such are interesting and provocative, but ultimately I think they're comparing apples and bananas. The test of our labor laws is not whether they're ideal in some metaphysical sense, but whether they serve to bring about a situation of equal bargaining power. If you allow secondary boycotts, it can be based on a judgment that unions don't have enough bargaining power without them, but it shouldn't be based on abstract notions because that's not how labor law works.

Posted by: Steve on March 22, 2007 12:35 PM

I think it is worth exploring, economically, how tax code provisions for health care and pensions incentivized agreements that have in the long run been bad for both.

Posted by: theCoach on March 22, 2007 12:37 PM

In happens all the time. In most cases you cannot sue the parent for actions of a subsidiary. Check out The Buffalo Creek Disaster.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot on March 22, 2007 12:41 PM

I think the Employee Free Choice Act is a loser for now - the arguments against secret ballots are difficult to make in the context of a democracy, however these secret ballots are managed.

I do think that holding elections quicker (in most provinces of Canada, for instance, elections happen 5 days after filing), and beefing up penalties for illegal behaviour by companies could actually win.

I've organized on both sides of the border, and there's a huge difference in keeping up morale in the face of firings and attacks by employers for 6 weeks or more, plus appeals, versus in an environment where you organize and the company doesn't have time to do all of that.

Posted by: Brennan Griffin on March 22, 2007 12:55 PM

I think the Employee Free Choice Act is a loser for now - the arguments against secret ballots are difficult to make in the context of a democracy, however these secret ballots are managed.

It's a loser because of the partisan makeup of Congress and for no other reason.

Posted by: Steve on March 22, 2007 01:01 PM

I don't disagree with you, Steve, I just think you could peel off a few more Republicans if they had reforms that didn't play into the democracy argument. Employers and anti-union forces have framed this cleverly to play into the union image of undemocratic corruption. Not that the image is deserved anymore, but it still gives cover for anti-union politicians.

In a Democratic controlled Congress and White House, we could win EFCA, and that's the route we would go. Just tactically, though, with a Republican White House and a narrow margin in the Senate, I don't think we can win this. The argument I've heard is that it sets labor up for 2008, and maybe that's the case, I just don't quite see it.

If the energy were around stuffing a few provisions beefing up labor law with real penalties in some other bill that would be hard to veto, then I think we could win some short-term relief for workers' organizing now. Maybe someone is doing this already, and it works better in a stealth mode, so they're not trumpeting it. It would be reassuring to know that, though, instead of only hearing and seeing quixotic-looking efforts to pass legislation that won't have a real shot till 08, at best.

Posted by: Brennan Griffin on March 22, 2007 01:49 PM

Benjamin Griffin:

"Employers and anti-union forces have framed this cleverly to play into the union image of undemocratic corruption. Not that the image is deserved anymore..."

Whaa! The union image of undemocratic corruption isn't deserved anymore? Please back this claim up somehow. It seems more likely that the image has persisted because there have been recent examples of undemocratic corruption.

If I may also raise a meta-question, where do you think card-check unionism would lead? To unions like the UAW springing up in other industries? Wouldn't those unions have the same effect on other industries that the UAW has had on the big three, (i.e., dramatic decline and fewer jobs)?

Posted by: Fred on March 22, 2007 02:08 PM

That kinda makes sense. But wouldn't it be a better middle position to say that it doesn't count as a secondary boycott if the other company is a parent/alter ego/affiliate/wholly owned subsidiary/whatever? (Burden of proof on the union.)Stuff like that seems pretty common in other areas of law. Piercing the corporate veil and what not.

Posted by: JP on March 22, 2007 02:12 PM

I suspect that going back to the Truman Administration on the labor front would be a political loser for the Democrats. ln the postwar era, massive strikes were a big inconvenience for the public, and a source of constant political turmoil -- would the President intervene in the steel strike, the rail strike, the whatever strike that was this month's crisis. And, ironically enough, it sometimes turned out that the Democratic president would end up having to intervene against the labor union. Nostalgia for the good old days of constant labor brouhahas is highly limited among those who experienced them.

Posted by: Steve Sailer on March 22, 2007 03:38 PM

OTOH, you've got the Enmons decison, which basicly imunized union officials from being charged under the Hobbs act for acts of violence, so long as those acts are to further legitimate union aims. I'd say that's a pretty impressive counterballance.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore on March 22, 2007 03:44 PM

I would much sooner see the ban on secondary boycotts lifted than the imposition of card check. In the global economy, I think secondary boycotts are needed to educate the public about the interconnected nature of the business world.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a loser on the merits. The bill has every prospect of worsening the partisan balance in Congress. However you interpret the results of the 2006 election -- a referendum on the war, a referendum on GOP rule, whatever -- it was most certainly not a vote for organized labor to be able to intimidate workers into supporting unions when they don't really want to.

The election wasn't any kind of referendum on strengthening the role of organized labor at all. For this to be the first big bill out of Congress is nothing less than bait-and-switch. It is also a sign that the Democratic majority has no confidence in its own survival.

Posted by: John S. on March 22, 2007 05:54 PM

Thanks your article

Posted by: www.r10.net küresel ısınmaya hayır seo yarışması on October 9, 2007 07:03 AM

Thanks
Best regards
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