U.S. should be ashamed for exporting anti-labor tactics

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/OPINION03/805160310

Friday, May 16, 2008
Mark Gaffney: Labor Voices

"In no other developed country do employers routinely fight to the death efforts by their employees to form a union." That's the finding about the United States of John Logan, a professor at the London School of Economics and an expert on union organizing issues.

In "Unions Facing Hard Time: The Global Crisis in Union Collective Bargaining," Logan's report finds that collective bargaining coverage remains robust in many Western European countries. There are dramatic increases in collective bargaining density in South Africa, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan fueled by grassroots political movements.

By contrast, Logan writes, "The United States is out of step with most of the developed world when it comes to collective bargaining coverage." The United States is "unique, in having a system of union recognition that encourages employers to fight attempts by their workers to choose a union."

The effect on workers' organizing struggles in America is shocking, Logan told the Building Tradesman newspaper. "In 2005, over 31,000 workers (in the U.S.) were disciplined for union activity -- that's one every 17 minutes of the year." This has global consequences.

"There is growing evidence that the weakness of American law, which gives free rein to anti-union employers, is emboldening union avoidance consultants, employer groups and multinational corporations to export U.S.-originated, anti-union strategies to other parts of the world," Logan says. If the sustained assault on American unions continues, it will likely have escalating negative consequences for workers in other nations.

American companies recently lobbied the Chinese government, asking the communist leadership not to expand their workers' freedoms. It seems some American companies had gotten used to operating in a land where workers are some of the most repressed in the world, and they wanted to keep it that way.

FULL story at link.

As I am currently involved in the UAW's effort to Unionize the Atlantic City casinos, I am finding out first hand exactly how (intentionally) WEAK the US labor laws are. Harrah's, along with the other gaming companies have spent MILLIONS on their avoidance campaigns, have fired DOZENS of employees (with no just cause), and now REFUSE to recognize the Union at Bally's Atlantic City although the NLRB recently (finally) certified our June 2007 landslide election win.

K & R:headbang: