HippoBLOGamus

Continued from Part 1

Whether you are a labor journalist or cover labor as an “objective” journalist, I will suggest to you that you should keep in mind a key character trait of workers, and anyone else for that matter. For all our aspirations and higher ideals, as reflected in Debs’ analysis, at the end of the day, people will act in their own self-interest.

This is an important concept to grasp if you want to persuade – whether it is to motivate workers to rally for a good contract, or for their union, or to convince skeptical bystanders that your cause is just and they should support you. That is the guts of the job I have now with a communications firm that develops campaigns to promote worker rights and protections through unions.

The biggest struggle in the labor movement is to protect workers from employer intimidation and retaliation leading up to a union election. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers to form a union simply by showing majority support, saving the workers from the vicious anti-union campaign that so many employers today use to thwart the will of their workers.

Now the opponents of this legislation – fueled by big bucks from Chambers of Commerce and other corporate sponsors – contend that unions want to take away workers' right to a secret-ballot vote. Think about it. These employers, who spend billions of dollars a year on union-busting law firms that can help them stay “union free,” are trying to protect the rights of their workers.

The dirty little secret that is little reported is how much worker rights have been undermined since Congress forced the Taft-Hartley law on President Truman, over his veto. Unions have been systematically undermined, most egregiously by the last Bush administration, which tried every way possible to rip the heart out of the labor movement.

My firm is working with a number of unions to help promote EFCA passage, but we’re not so sanguine about its chances, given the enormous amount of money being thrown into the anti-EFCA campaign. President Obama may support it, but he may not be willing to waste political capital if a filibuster bottles up the legislation.

The good news for us is that legislative campaigns are back in style. With a Congress and executive branch with staunch union supporters in power, workers may yet have a chance to reclaim their Labor Department and get justice from the labor boards.

Read Part 3

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