Labor Day Guest Op-Ed
Submitted by admin on Fri, 09/03/2010 - 6:46am
The middle class in jeopardy
By Todd M. Koch
Questions you will never see on Jeopardy: What country holds elections where one side can force all voters to listen to all its campaign speeches and propaganda? What country allows bosses to threaten the jobs of workers who don't vote the company way?
The U.S.A.
"In 1954, there were 17 million union members, which then meant 35 percent of the workforce," Harper's Magazine noted in July, 2009. "This was the high point of unionism in the country and also was, not coincidentally, when the American middle class was created. The decline of the union movement since then has been accompanied by growing social inequality, slashed salaries and, for the first time in American history, a de-linking of rising productivity from rising wages."
American paychecks have been flat since 1973 while output per hour worked has doubled. We are working twice as hard for the same money. No wonder voters are angry.
The United States has the most repressive labor laws in the industrialized world. Combined with government cooperation in exporting good-paying jobs, the middle class has been shrinking for almost 40 years.
A huge majority would join a union if they had a chance. The current law is rigged to make sure they never do.
That's why the majority of the Nevada congressional delegation (Sen. Reid and Reps. Berkley and Titus, all D) supports the Employee Free Choice Act.
Hundreds of millions in corporate propaganda, largely funded by low-wage employers like Wal-Mart, have been directed against this proposal.
It will bring "the demise of a civilization," according to ex-Home Depot CEO Bernie Marcus.
Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson places it on par with radical Islam.
Wow.
On April 8, 2009, a business group gave a presentation on the issue at Reno's Atlantis Hotel. It included the usual scaremongering: The proposal is un-American because it eliminates secret ballot elections.
Copies of the actual bill were conspicuously absent - because it doesn't say anything about eliminating secret ballots.
Current law would remain. An employer can ask for a secret ballot election at any time. Unions would still have to get authorization cards from 30 percent of the employee group to trigger a secret ballot election.
The proposal adds one higher hurdle, giving workers automatic union recognition and the right to begin bargaining if more than half sign cards.
Both the election and majority sign-up processes are now permitted and both would continue. The difference is that current law gives employers the right to choose between the two processes while the Act would give that choice to workers. Since it is the workers' right to organize, they should be free to choose the representation process.
The Employee Free Choice Act would bring balance to an election process now so perverted that free elections are almost an impossibility and the right to strike has been so eroded that work stoppages are an endangered species.
The American middle class is running out of chances. Passage of this measure could bring it out of intensive care.
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Todd M. Koch is president of the Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO.
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