The War on the Working Class (Part Two)

I have long been a fan of labor lawyer/writer Tom Geoghegan who is one of those rare human beings who came out of law school both morally intact and with a beautiful and fluid writing style.  I had one of those hellish days on Thursday involving a lengthy meeting, a 220 mile drive and a hangover of epic proportions and so initially missed this post at "The G Spot" about him, which is well worth reading (and not just because Kathy G. kindly mentions my name at the end) -- both in terms of its discussion of Geoghegan's writing as well as some possible changes to federal labor law that would be of immense benefit to working people and unions.

One commenter on the site, eli, wisely pointed out a particularly important aspect of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act that has heretofore been neglected in the discussions of it that I have seen.  Most of the focus on the EFCA had been about the ability to obtain union recognition via card check rather than a formal NLRB election, an important boost in terms of helping organizing against intransigent employers.  However, what many people don't realize is that unions win a lot of organizing drives under the current law, however flawed it may be. The real sticking point in organizing is the inability to get employers to agree to an initial collective bargaining agreement. On multiple occasions in my career I have been involved in just this situation -- a union wins an NLRB election, following which the employer simply bargains to impasse without ever intending to reach an agreement.  Absent an ability to mount a successful strike (the subject of my first ever blog post) the union is usually forced to abandon the successfully organized unit.         

Under the EFCA, there is a provision for mandatory interest arbitration to resolve disputes about initial contracts.  This could be an incredibly important step in giving more employees the protection of collective bargaining agreements going forward.   And the importance of that is illustrated by the following article:

This is another story involving the horrible exploitation of immigrant labor at a meatpacking plant in Iowa.  The Employer there has been violating federal laws governing wages and hours, child labor, and worker safety in addition to employing massive numbers of undocumented workers.  This is just another example of the degree to which the exploitation of working people is something with which American business, and by extension, American society, appears completely comfortable.  (Maybe someone on the Washington Post Op-Ed pages would like to take a stab at this topic when they finish writing about John McCain's exemplary character.)

Of course, one thing that would help workers, particularly undocumented ones, would be a change in the make up of the U.S. Supreme Court, which in its infinite wisdom decided that undocumented aliens have no right to protection from illegal firing for union activities. 

There are myriad battles to be fought, but one thing is certain -- Obama, whatever his flaws, has to win this election in order for any change in this arena to be possible.   

Comments

[Corvus9]

This is great. More of this please. (I am pretty sure "more labor blogging" was one of the things repeatedly mentioned in the "what do you want to see more/less of" post from a while back, wasn't it?)

Going off from you conclusion, I guess what I am wondering is, though electing Obama is a necessary step before getting any of this done, in the sense that it won't definitely won't happen with McCain, will there actually be a positive result from electing Obama, instead of just continued deterioration. Will it extend to reshaping the Supreme Court in a positive direction, where even the liberals are pro-business? To what extent will he enact positive change? Or will he just turn out to be a centrist standing idly by while the working class continues to drown, like Clinton.

[Sir Charles]

I think Obama will definitely sign the EFCA if he is given the chance. The key will be a filibster proof Senate -- the bill got 51 votes in favor of cloture in 2007. The situation will be similar to that faced in the 1977 Labor Reform Act, which was fiibustered to death by Orrin Hatch. A one vote margin was the difference with Dale Bumpers selling us out.

Again, with the right Senate margin, I believe Obama will make good court and administrative apointments. If the Senate margin is slim and the Republicans continue their intransigent style, you may see more Clintonesque appointments.

At a minimum I expect the Department of Labor to cease being hostile to unions and workers.

[litbrit]

Please add several more armloads of praise to that of other readers, C--these posts are great.

I am going to send them to Robert, who worked construction as a teenager and is doing it again on our own house today, walking the I-beams and hauling tubes of flowing cement up to the third floor (they're almost finished with the floors--hooray!). And yeah, he's a Republican but he hasn't voted that way in two decades for exactly the reasons you set forth in the first post: they are NOT friends to the working man and woman.

I hope you're right about the DOL under Obama. I have lots of hope for lots of change in every department and agency. Normally I don't like to wish my life away, but boy, am I looking forward to 2009.

Again, BRAVO and thank you.

[Joe Klein's conscience]

Sir Charles:
I agree with Corvus9. We need more labor blogging. We need to show the working man that we won't sell them out.

[Sir Charles]

Alright, I will provide more labor blogging. Oddly enough, it is sometimes the hardest stuff for me to write.

Plus I also have to deal with "making middle school lesbians," generous Hess oil employees, and Chrissie Hynde, among other things.

But I've got a couple of other labor related topics that I want to deal with in the next few days.