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RIBCO
Articles of Interest
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2006-10-13
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Labor Board's Ruling Guts The Right To Form Unions |
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Detroit News.Com
David Bonior
Last week, the working world became a great deal more difficult for nurses, and it may get worse very soon for 8 million more workers. They are losing the right to be represented by labor unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and safer working conditions.
In a series of cases widely viewed as among the most important the National Labor Relations Board will decide this decade, the board created a new definition of "supervisor." Changing who and how to classify an employee as a supervisor could deprive millions of workers the opportunity to come together to form unions.
The NLRB's new interpretation invites employers to classify nurses and many low-level employees with minor authority as supervisors. In the working world, supervisors are seen as managers, hiring, firing and granting overtime or vacation time to employees. Now, a nurse who oversees other nurses or technicians, even if he or she doesn't have the power to hire or fire, may be regarded as a supervisor and stripped of union rights.
Aiding employer aggression
While the ruling could spill over to other fields, such as construction and communications, the most detrimental repercussions will be in health care. No bargaining unit means that health care employers are free to overwork and underpay their nurses through even higher patient-to-nurse ratios, stalled wages and forced overtime. A broad definition of supervisor basically legalizes union-busting tactics.
Time and time again, the current board, appointed by President Bush, sides with business directly against the interests of workers. The "Bush board" has sought to override the labor law's intent to protect workers in favor of absolving employers of legal responsibility to respect workers' inalienable freedoms of association and free speech. It has ruled against teaching assistants, workers with disabilities and temporary workers.
Employers are increasingly using aggressive maneuvers to exploit already weak labor laws. When faced with organizing drives, 30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers, 49 percent threaten to close a work site if the union prevails, and 51 percent coerce workers into opposing unions with bribery or favoritism.
These union-busting tactics have gone virtually unpunished and unchecked, jeopardizing millions of workers' rights to form unions and collectively bargain.
Eroding the ability of workers to choose unions has occurred in tandem with the middle-class squeeze. As fewer workers have access to labor unions, real wages have dropped, benefit packages have diminished, and fewer people have company pensions. The federal minimum wage has been frozen for a decade.
The time for congressional action is now. The people who work hard to make America work won't be hoodwinked any longer by leaders who profess to support freedom and democracy but then pull the rug out from under them.
Because the recent rulings digress from what members of Congress intended when they originally issued labor laws, they must rewrite the rules. We need to be clear that America's workers have the fundamental human right to collectively bargain. We must support the freedom to climb the ladder to the middle class via unions.
Former U.S. Congressman David Bonior is chair of American Rights at Work, a workers' rights advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., and a professor of labor studies at Wayne State University. Please e-mail letters to letters@detnews.com.
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