[Peace-discuss] proposed Organizational Endorsement of the Employee Free Choice Act...

[John W.]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>wrote:

If the Employee Free Choice Act, or something close to it, becomes
> law, there will be a dramatic expansion of unions in the United
> States, particularly in the South. Polling has consistently showed
> that many non-union workers would love to be in a union, if they could
> get past the current regime of employer intimidation. In addition to
> bringing economic benefit and workplace protection and voice to those
> folks who gain union representation, it would fundamentally alter the
> politics of the United States in a progressive way. There will be more
> anti-discrimination protections and they will be better enforced
> throughout the country; more peace candidates will be elected to
> federal office; there will be fewer wars. It's hard to imagine any
> feasible progressive reform in the next four years that would have a
> greater long-term impact on the United States than making it easier
> for workers to win union representation.


Just out of curiosity, Robert (or Ricky, or whoever wants to respond to
this), how would this new act guarantee better enforcement of
anti-discrimination and anti-intimidation protections?  The original law -
the one in the 1930s that established the right to organize private-sector
unions in the first place and established the National Labor Relations Board
- forbids employer intimidation in the union organizing process.  The
problem has always been weak enforcement, combined with a series of adverse
Supreme Court decisions that watered down the law.

NO law is worth a damn unless there is stong and principled enforcement -
which always boils down, in the end, to human integrity or the lack
thereof.  I get sick of people constantly proposing new laws when there are
perfectly good laws already on the books that have become worthless through
lack of enforcement.

John Wason
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