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But Employers Are Waging a Secret
War in Our Workplaces
Recent polling shows that more than three times as many workers say
they want a union as actually have a union. What, then,
is stopping them?
In countless efforts, when a majority of workers join together to form
a union, they are blocked by employers who wage an ugly war against
them. It's a war of firings, humiliation, isolation and division that
has gone on in secret too long. Many workers - 10,000 each year - are
fired for trying to unionize.
When workers form their union, three-quarters of their employers aggressively
fight their efforts. Half illegally threaten to close the workplace,
and a third fire workers in blatant disregard of the law. The democratic
process becomes a sham as nearly all companies - 91 percent - force
their employees to attend one-sided, antiunion meetings, often forbidding
them to speak.
Even when a majority of workers votes to join a union, many employers
stall for years through the bureaucratic legal system and effectively
refuse to negotiate a union contract.
New Orleans hospitality workers have had to endure this kind of secret
war as well. Aramark, the food service contractor for the Convention
Center and Superdome, hired an antiunion law firm to keep its workers
from unionizing. At the Convention Center, a series of closed-door meetings
and letter to their homes did not stop the workers. They won a National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-conducted union representation election,
so Aramark stepped up its campaign for the Superdome election two weeks
later.
Intimidation and harassment were at the core of this strategy. The company
hired an off-duty police office to demand workers' identification when
they came to work on the days of the vote. The company fired a worker
for her union support and harassed dozens of others.
In this poisoned atmosphere, Superdome workers lost their union
vote. While the union has filed charges with the government about the
company's illegal action, the process is slow. Too often, justice delayed
becomes justice denied.
Addional Information here>>
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