(The following Letter to the Editor by Gregory L. Marston appeared on the Courier-Record website on March 5, 2009. Brother Marston is the BMWED’s State Legislative Director in Virginia.)
Dear Sir:
It is not true that the Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate the secret ballot in union elections.
Big corporations aren’t spreading that lie about secret elections because they care about fairness in the workplace. They’re spreading the lie because they know the Employee Free Choice Act will make it harder for them to intimidate their own workers.
The truth IS that the Employee Free Choice Act would allow secret elections if 30 percent of workers say they want secret elections.
Teamsters have been through enough difficult organizing campaigns to know just how nasty and widespread union-busting has become. Back in the ‘50s, only a few hundred people got back pay because they were improperly disciplined for trying to form a union.
In 2006, that number rose to 32,000, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Most Americans support fairness in the workplace. A majority (78 percent) of Americans favor legislation to make it easier for workers to bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, according to a January 2008 poll by Hart Research Associates. They want Congress to pass the Employees Free Choice Act. They obviously see through the dishonest corporate campaign against it.
Many Americans also want to be union members. Almost 60 percent of non-managerial American workers would join a union if they could, Hart Research Associates found.
Unions raise workers’ wages and make their workplaces safer. Union workers are more productive and more innovative than non-union workers.
Strengthening unions is the way to rebuild America. Creating more good union jobs is the way to get our economy growing again.
Gregory L. Marston
Melody Lane