A series of rules have been proposed recently by the National Labor Relations Board that improve the rights of workers on the job. The rule changes by the NLRB have been hailed by organized labor as great triumphs that will promote the right to organize. But some question whether the regulations go far enough.

In December, the NLRB ruled that employers must start posting the rights of workers to join a union. This decision was met by many congratulatory press releases celebrating a great victory for unions. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka hailed these rules saying:

Every working person in America deserves to know his or her rights. Just as employers are currently required to post information regarding the laws that protect workers’ health and safety, their rights to a minimum wage and to a workplace free from discrimination, this rule ensures that workers’ rights are effectively communicated in the workplace. It is necessary in the face of widespread misunderstanding about the law and many workers’ justified fear of exercising their rights under it.

In November, the NLRB ruled that expressing one’s negative opinion of a boss using social media such as Facebook or Twitter was free speech protected by the Constitution. This was hailed as a major victory for workers trying to organize because it gave broader protection to workers criticizing their companies. In October, the NLRB issued a decision saying that employers now must electronically inform workers through email of their union busting violations. Previously companies were forced to only post a notice on a bulletin board.

Each time these rulings are issued by the NLRB, they are lauded as signs of great progress by organized labor. However while the NLRB has expanded the rights of workers in theory, it still has not changed the penalties for illegal union busting. Requiring an employee to send out an e-mail as opposed to posting a paper notice or having to post the rights of a worker to join a union does not change an employer’s behavior of intimidation.

Employers still face no serious financial penalties or lose government contracts for illegally firing a worker. Nor has the NLRB shortened the election period to seven days—as many in labor hoped—in order to prevent the boss from running effective intimidation campaigns for months. So why do so many in organized labors celebrate these rulings with such great hope?

What these ruling represent is that the NLRB has shown the willingness to change the rules ever so slightly in order to protect the rights of workers. The NLRB has shown it has the power and willingness to do it. However, until the NLRB is willing to issue tough penalties and improve voting conditions for workers, these expanded workers’ rights will help workers little as they exercise their right to organize.

This article was originally published on Working In These Times.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who has worked for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, the Campaign for America’s Future, and the Obama-Biden campaign. He has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, and NPR, and writes frequently for In These Times, Huffington Post, Alternet, and Truthout.

For unionists, pay freeze reminiscent of Reagan’s attack on federal workers

The Obama Administration, looking to bolster its deficit-cutting credentials and show its desire to take on what some label a “special interest”—organized labor—yesterday announced a two-year freeze on the wages of all federal workers. Tim Fernholz of The American Prospect points out that the pay freeze will reduce the deficit by .1% over the next ten years. Obama’s pay freeze also reinforces the notion that public employees earn exuberant salaries despite a Bureau of Labor Statistic report showing that civil servants earn 24% less than their counterparts in the private sector.

“This proposal to freeze federal pay is a superficial, panicked reaction to the deficit commission report,” stated AFGE National President John Gage, a union that represents over 600,000 federal government employees. “This pay freeze amounts to nothing more than political public relations. This is no time for scapegoating. The American people didn’t vote to stick it to a VA nursing assistant making $28,000 a year or a border patrol agent earning $34,000 per year.”

AFGE for Obama? The union is not so enthusiastic after The White House froze the wages of federal employees on Monday. (Photo courtesy of the AFL-CIO)

Attacking “greedy federal workers” allows Obama to claim he is taking on special interests when he is completely unwilling to take on the rich over the Employee Free Choice Act or the Bush tax cuts. But, as recent polling analysis released by the Center for American Progress indicates, labor is seen by many Americans as just another big institution too far removed from the public.

This pay freeze is in line with the president’s earlier attacks on teachers unions and lack of leadership on the EFCA. The important question we should ask is, will scoring cheap political points by scapegoating workers lead to unintended consequences that could impede economic recovery?

“Is this Obama’s PATCO?” says Campaign for America’s Future Co-Director Robert Borosage, referring to President Ronald Reagan’s mass-firing of Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization members in 1981. “Will employers across the country use his language and his message to inflict another round of pay cuts?” A cut in wages by corporations across the board could decrease demand swinging us even further into a depression.

Regardless of the economic impact of President Obama’s pay freeze, the political impact is clear. Republicans smell blood in the water and will attempt to push The White House to make even more attacks on workers and workers will continue to wonder who is on their side. Indeed, the vote of union members appears to be at turning point. For the first time in a generation, less than 50% of union members voted Democratic. Obama’s attacks on federal workers will push them even further in the arms of right-wing, corporate-funded, populist demagogues.

“There will be no rejoicing in the homes of workers tonight,” said UE Political Action Director Chris Townsend. “But the corporate CEO’s who frequently dine at the White House will enjoy this immensely as they realize what an opportunity this president has presented them.”

*This post originally appeared in Working in These Times on November 30, 2010.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who has worked for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, the Campaign for America’s Future, and the Obama-Biden campaign. He has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, and NPR, and writes frequently for In These Times, Huffington Post, Alternet, and Truthout.

The 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days have been treated like heroes since their rescue this week. They were invited to the country’s presidential palace for a special soccer game. A Greek mining executive offered to pay for them to take an all-expense paid trip to Greece to just relax for a few weeks on Greek beaches. Many other companies have made huge donations to their families.

They are being viewed as heroes, but some disagree with this characterization.

“The miners are not ‘heroes,’ as they have been called around the world for surviving underground for over two months,” Néstor Jorquera, president of the Chilean mineworkers union, CONFEMIN, told the Inter Press Service. “They are victims.” Many in the international labor movement have complained that news accounts have ignored the poor treatment of workers by the mining company, which intially refused to pay their wages after the miners were trapped underground on Aug. 5.

San Esteban, the company that operates the mine, claimed they had no money to pay the workers who were trapped under the mine. In fact, the company was apparently so broke that it couldn’t even pay the costs of the recovery. The government of Chile was forced to pay for a rescue that some say could cost anywhere between $10- $20 million.

As a result, the president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, vowed to make major changes to the way workers are treated in Chile. “Never again in our country will we permit people to work in conditions so unsafe and inhuman as they worked in the San Jose Mine, and in many other places in our country,” he said.

It’s important to note that working conditions in Chile are notoriously unsafe. There were more than 191,000 workplace accidents, including 443 deaths, in a country with only a population of 17 million people in 2009, an astronomical rate for such a small country.

President Pinera set up a commission in August to write a report on workplace safety, which is due to be delivered on Nov. 22. The president also announced the creation of a new mining agency to more strictly enforce mining safety laws and increase funding for safety programs.

But Jorquera, president of CONFEMIN, says this is not enough. He called for Chile to agree to the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines, like most industrialized countries around the world have done.

Whether or not Chile signs on to that convention will make clear how serious the country’s leaders are about reforming mine safety laws. It won’t be much of a surprise if the media, which often neglects workplace safety issues, quickly moves on after the rescue and ignores mining safety issues in Chile and elsewhere. But let’s hope Pinera, and the rest of Chile’s leaders in government, act now to ensure we never have to watch another harrowing subterranean story like this unfold.

This article was originally published on Working In These Times.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). Currently, he works at the Campaign for America’s Future in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he has worked as a staffer on the Obama-Biden Campaign and conducted research on worker owned cooperatives at the Instituto Marques de Salamanca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When Mike is not reading twenty blogs at a time, he enjoys jazz, golden retrievers, and playing horseshoes.

In the coming days, many great eulogies of Ted Kennedy will be written. Many will offer personal anecdotes about what a great man he was. I do not intend to write one here.

I have no great anecdotes or personal stories to tell about how Ted Kennedy directly touched my life. I meet the man once briefly in passing while walking in the U.S. Capitol.

I did however lose an older brother, far too young, much as Senator Kennedy did. Anyone who has ever lost an older brother understands the intense pressure that the surviving younger brothers to live up to the legacies of their older brothers. Its an inescapable burden.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my brother. I find myself wondering often what my brother would do if he were still alive. He died at the young age of twenty one of leukemia far before he could develop into the type of activist that I am today. He never got the chance to fight for working people the way that I so luckily have.

Ever since I turned twenty-one, I have treated every day like it was one extra day and cherished it. It has made me want to get up in the morning and worker harder and be smarter because I feel so lucky to be alive. I feel that to not work as hard and diligently as I possibly could would be a disservice to my brother’s legacy. My brother’s legacy serves as a constant source of inspiration for some of the darkest hours and toughest fights.

Senator Kennedy cited his brother’s legacy too in passing health care reform with a public option out of his committee earlier this year. In his statement he said:

“This room is a special place. In this room, my two brothers declared their candidacy for the presidency. Today, the nation takes another major step toward reaching the goals to which they dedicated their careers, and for which they gave their lives. They strived, as I have tried to do, for a fairer and more just America — a nation where every American could share fully in the promise of quality health care.”

America has lost an older brother in the death of Ted Kennedy. We must all be fortunate that we are still alive and around to fight to make a public health insurance plan available for all Americans that Ted would have loved to fight for. We must work harder for the things that we believe in. If Ted were still alive today, he would be fighting like hell for the public health insurance option that he considered a fundamental human right.

Lets fight for my brother too. He died tragically and far too young. His death shocked my family. Fortunately, my father was a member of a union and the union provided us with excellent health care. In the closing days of my brother’s lives, we did not have to worry about medical bills. We spent them enjoying the company of my brother, Jeremy.

Every American deserves the same type of high quality health care that my brother, Jeremy, had in the closing days of his life. There is no reason why people in the richest country on the planet should have to suffer because their only crime was being too poor to afford quality health care.

Let’s fight like hell for the public health insurance plan that Senator Kennedy so dearly fought for in the closing days of his life.

My deepest condolences to the friends and family of Senator Kennedy.

I hope that Ted is in heaven now finally reunited with his brothers as I hope to someday be reunited with mine.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). Currently, he works at the Campaign for America’s Future in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he has worked as a staffer on the Obama-Biden Campaign and conducted research on worker owned cooperatives at the Instituto Marques de Salamanca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When Mike is not reading twenty blogs at a time, he enjoys jazz, golden retrievers, and playing horseshoes.

This article originally appeared in Campaign for America’s Future on August 26, 2009. Reprinted with permission by the author.

After reading an article by Chris Townsend the other day, I noticed the the strong similarities between union busting and the tactics of teabaggers — namely, how they suppress, intimidate, and delay action at all costs. They both rely on intimidating people to the point where there is no longer any space left to make any logical argument.

From Chris Townsend, who started off his career as union activist thirty years ago as a garbageman in Upstate New York and thirty years later is continuing to take out the trash in Washington, D.C. as Political Action Director for United Electrical Workers (UE):

House and Senate Democrats should know that what they are now witnessing in their meetings is nothing more than what hundreds of thousands of working people are subjected to every year when they try to join a union. The only difference is that working people are forced to endure months of intimidation, lies, disruption, and chaos – and frequently termination from their jobs — when they try to exercise their right to join a union. The Democrats should be glad that they are only forced to tolerate a few hours of this corporate attack.

Think about the hell that these Congressman are going through at these meetings and then think about what workers must experience when they try to join unions. You’d be folding the way Democrats are folding on the public option if you feared losing your job in the same way.

Bosses and union busting consultants rely on threats to intimidate and coerce people. In 57% of all union drives they threaten to close factories, but only close them 2% of the time. Indeed, they do fire workers in about 34% of all union drives just to intimidate the rest of the works.

From Townsend:

When workers try to join a union today in the private sector, in almost every case the boss goes into action; he hires a lawyer to delay, and then he hires a union busting consultant to launch the legal and illegal counterattack. The boss never admits to this, however, and claims throughout that he just wants everyone to have a “secret ballot” election someday to settle things fair and square.

Hmm sound familiar? We just need some more time to make sure we do this right? Isn’t this what Republican and their corporate allies Blue Dogs in Congress did last month hoping to buy some time so they could get to the rough intimidation sessions of August. Townsend goes on to explain:

The boss and [union busting] consultant then turn the workplace upside down — just like they are doing in the town hall format — with their contrived chaos and terror. They lie, misrepresent, instill fear, generate chaos, and completely muddy the waters with their sophisticated and unsophisticated tactics at the same time. And not satisfied to browbeat workers in a group setting.

The boss and his [union busting] consultant then subject workers to one-on-one interrogation and humiliation sessions all intended to make it clear to the worker that voting “no” is their only option. By the time the “secret ballot” election rolls around the damage is done. Confused and terrorized workers then vote “no” and against joining the union. Their desire or need for a union does not matter any more. The laws protecting the worker don’t matter because they are rarely enforced. By election day workers just hope to just have some sense of normalcy returned to their workplaces after the bosses contrived turbulence has run its course.

Sounds exactly what members of Congress are experiencing right now. They are being threatened in completely safe districts by opponents using lies and violent outbursts to scare them into voting against the public option. Townsend goes on to wonder what would happen if they held an election:

We suggest that they go so far as to conduct a “secret ballot” election after their meeting has been destroyed by the current crop of disruptors, and then we’ll ask them how legitimate they think the results are. Democrats must learn this lesson; the operators storming the town hall meetings are interested in killing-off all reform efforts, and they will do or say or raise a stink any way they have to in order to win. Because just like in the world of the anti-union consultants, they know full well that when the confusion and terror has run its course, large numbers of people who were formerly in favor of health care reform might not be in favor of it anymore.

Free and fair elections don’t exist in the workplace in America because of the intimidation and lies that employers use against their workers. Studies have shown that 60 percent of workers want to join a union if they were able to but only 8 percent of private sector employees are members of unions. I don”t know how conservative can claim an election could be considered democratic if you have to choice between your job and voting your conscience.

These teabag protests have showed to the nation what conservatives and their corporate bedfellows consider “democracy”. Democracy for the corporate right wing is “You Shut Up or I’ll Destroy You”. The Corporate Right Wing and their allies engage in lies because if they told the truth that they were putting people before profits, nobody would support them.Teabag protests have demonstrated their form of democracy. Democracy to the corporate right wing is the so called secret ballot union elections in which 1 in 5 workers lose their job.

What they are really creating is climate of fear in which no logical argument can be made. My experience as a union organizer has taught me that the only way to counter these types of arguments is to fight fire with fire. If 10 protesters show up at a town hall to shout lies about “killing grandma”, we need to show up with 100 protesters to stop the smears and shout about how lack of health care is killing us all.

It’s time to stand up and be counted that’s the only way to win. Please go to Campaign for America’s Future website to see how you can attend your town hall meeting.

Mike Elk: is a third-generation union organizer and worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). He works currently as an editor at AlterNet.

This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post on August 19, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

I had the rare privilege of meeting one of my heroes, Paul Wellstone, shortly before his death in 2002 when I visited Washington as part of a conference for high school students interested in politics. We had the opportunity to meet several senators during our time in Washington, but Paul Wellstone treated us differently — more like we were friends coming over for a cup of coffee than a bunch of nerdy high school students on a trip. He insisted that we not call him “senator,” but instead simply Paul.

While other senators were going on and on about their accomplishments or telling corny jokes, Paul went around and asked what issues were important to us and what we were doing currently to advocate for these policies. He suggested ideas about how we could become more involved, more effective, and what other issues we might want to get involved in. He encouraged us “to go out and fight because that was the only way change has ever been achieved.” Paul’s faith in my ability to achieve social change inspired me so much that I spent the rest of my summer volunteering full time to help elect Ed Rendell as governor in Pennsylvania.

A few months later. I was in tears as I listened to the news over NPR that Paul Wellstone and his loving wife, Shelia, had died in a plane crash on their way to a funeral of a steelworker in Northern Minnesota. Paul Wellstone, a tireless champion of the working class served as an inspiration to a generation of activists during the dark days of a decade long Republican reign. For the last seven years, I have kept a photo of Paul Wellstone and me on my desk as a source of inspiration for when the times get tough.

Paul came to the United States Senate under the most unusual of circumstances. He was a college professor who had been arrested protesting with union workers and had previously spent most of his career organizing welfare mothers and poor farmers. No one had expected him to win his first campaign for Senate against an incumbent Republican Senator as he was outspent nearly seven to one. Paul had a secret weapon though his ability to inspire regular people to get out and organize. Unemployed, single mothers held bake sales to help fund his campaign, youth not old enough to vote spent hours volunteering for him. He formed a grassroots army of thousands of ordinary folks and trained them in community organizing.

When Paul Wellstone was elected to the Senate, he never forgot the thousands of ordinary folks that put their hopes and their dreams in him by working to get him elected. He summed up his philosophy about why he was in the Senate by saying, “I don’t represent the big oil companies, the big pharmaceuticals or the big insurance industry. They already have great representation in Washington. Its the rest of the people that need representation.”

Many Senators had referred to Paul as “The Conscience of the Senate.” Only 5 feet 4 inches tall and walking with a severe limp, Wellstone would stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate and rail against corporates interests with the tenacity of the All-American wrestler that he was once. And then he would go back home on the weekends and teach those people how to community organize and fight against the powerful interests that were ruining their lives. Its unknown how many people Wellstone inspired, but to this day you can still see thousands of green bumper stickers in Minnesota with the phrase “W.W.W.D. — What Would Wellstone Do?”

Last week, Al Franken, a friend of Paul’s who had been inspired to run for office by Paul’s death, took back Paul’s old seat from Republican Norm Coleman. After reading, I found myself wondering of what Paul would be doing now if he was still a U.S. senator. Paul had spent the majority of his career in the minority party in the Senate. In his book Conscience of a Liberal, Paul admitted that in his time in the U.S. Senate he spent nearly 85 percent of his time defending against Republican attacks on working families and he never had the opportunity to fight for things like the big reform measures that he craved. I thought about how Paul would be down on the floor of the Senate to talk about the 20,000 people that die every year due to a lack of health coverage, or to talk about how his access to quality health care as a United States senator allowed him to continue having a productive life despite his semi-debilitating multiple sclerosis.

While Paul spent the most of his career in the minority, he did indeed spend a very brief time in the majority in 1993-1994 when Democrats had the opportunity to pass a health care reform. However, Democrats caved to the insurance companies’ lobbyists and no comprehensive health care reform was passed. As Mike Lux, a top Clinton aide at the time argued in his book The Progressive Revolution, Democrats were then swept out of power for their inability to stand up to special interests. Democrats would remain in the wilderness for the rest of Wellstone’s tenure in the Senate.

If Democrats fail to deliver on a strong public health insurance plant that an overwhelming 76% favor according to the Wall Street Journal, they too will fail as a party. Reforming health care is about standing up to the big special interests that are spending $1.4 million every day on an army of lobbyists so that they can continue to deny people the health care they need.

Furthermore, health care reform is literally about saving lives. Democrats should avoid looking for some easy compromise on health care with the insurance industry that would deny some people care in order to score a quick legislative victory.

As Wellstone said, “Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives. It’s about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people.”

Beating the insurance industry is going to be one of the toughest fights we as a movement have ever engaged in. Unfortunately, we don’t have Paul Wellstone around to fight for us anymore. However, we do have the people that Wellstone believed in the most — ourselves. So I say its about time that we ask ourselves, What Would Wellstone Do?

Mike Elk: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer and worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). He works currently as an editor at AlterNet.

This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post on July 14, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

This week, workers at Hartmarx Factory won a major victory against Wells Fargo, as Wells Fargo agreed to keep their factory open. The story of the Hartmarx workers had drawn national attention as they threatened to occupy their factory if Wells Fargo closed it. Their victory yesterday represents a major triumph in the growing trend of factory sit ins that started last December when workers, members of United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago

Last January, Hartmarx, the maker of men’s apparel and an employer of nearly 4,000 people, filed for bankruptcy after Wells Fargo refused to extend them a line of credit. Wells Fargo then pushed for the company to be liquidated in order to increase their short term profits. They favored liquidating the factory and laying off the 4,000 workers despite the fact that there were proposals by several groups to purchase the company and keep it running.

The workers, members of SEIU, refused to accept the bank’s ruling and decided to do something about it. The workers said they were inspired after having gone to see a speaking tour of members of who had occupied Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. They then decided that perhaps they should consider threatening to occupy their plant in order to force the bank to keep it open. The workers then voted to sit-in to occupy that plant if Wells Fargo decided to liquidate it and drew national media attention to their story.

As a result of the worker’s resolve to fight the company, they received a large degree of political and community support. Over 43 members of Congress signed a letter calling on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to investigate Wells Fargo’s use of bailout money. Congressman Phil Hare, a former worker at Harmarx, promised to be Wells Fargo’s “worst nightmare” if they closed the plant. Finally, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias brought Wells Fargo to their knees when he threatened to cut off $8 billion dollars worth of business that the state does with Wells Fargo if they closed the plant

As a result of the union members’ activism, community pressure and politicians’ threat to take action against Wells Fargo, the union was able to force the bank to accept a bid from another company to keep the plant open. The final decision represents a major victory in the worker sit-in movement against the banks. The victory at Hartmarx confirms the growing trend that I wrote about last week that whenever these banks are challenged through direct action in a visible, public way that they always fold to demands.

Now the fight moves onto a plant across town from Hartmarx in Moline, Illinois. Wells Fargo has cut off credit to Quad City Die Casting factory. Workers at the plant, who are members of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE), the same union that occupied Republic Windows and Doors last summer, are engaging in direct action against Wells Fargo as they call for Wells Fargo to keep the plant open. So far, Wells Fargo has refused to even sit down with the union and negotiate. The union though has not been dissuaded and promises to continuing fighting the banksters of Wells Fargo.

Last week, UE held protests at over 20 cities throughout the country to protest Wells Fargo. In addition, a delegation from their union visited over 100 congressional offices last week to call for an investigation into how Wells Fargo is using its bailout money. The union charges that after having received $25 billion in bailout money that Wells Fargo has an obligation to look to promote economic recovery by keeping the plant open. Speaking at the protest in Davenport, Iowa, UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley said, “We can’t let this giant bank default on its obligation to the American people and the people of the Quad Cities. Wells Fargo is a roadblock to economic recovery.”

Now the question is whether we as the progressive movement will join them in solidarity to support keeping factories open. Please go to UE’s website and send a letter to your congressman calling on them to investigate how Wells Fargo has refused to spend its $25 billion in bailout money to support economic recovery. Our resolve as a movement to support the struggle of workers at Quad City Die Casting will determine our ability to support this growing worker uprising to fight banks that have destroyed our economy. Keeping good American manufacturing jobs such as the union jobs at Quad City Die Casting in this country is key to creating a successful economic revival not built on the speculative bubbles of the past. Its time that banks like Wells Fargo get out of the way on the road to economic recovery.

Mike Elk: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer and worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). He works currently as an editor at AlterNet.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet on July 2, 2009. It is reprinted here with permission from the author.

Over many years, I have developed an intimate relationship with the sweet, lager taste of Yuengling Black & Tan. After moving to the cutthroat world of Washington, D.C. politics, I found that Yuengling always comforted me with memories of my working class roots and the world of flannel hunting jackets, wedding receptions at union halls, 4th of July barbecues, and tailgate parties that represented my native Western Pennsylvania. I took pride in introducing my friends to this beauty of a beer—cheap, delicious, and made by union workers back home in Pennsylvania. Women had come and gone, dogs had died, but Yuengling had always been there for me – until now.

This past weekend when I discovered that Yuengling had illegally busted their union, I was emotionally devastated. I had just bought a case of Yuengling earlier that same day and had it sitting at home in the refrigerator waiting for me.  What would I do? I was broke and couldn’t possibly afford to buy another case of beer, but at the same time I couldn’t possibly  enjoy drinking a Yuengling knowing what they had done to their workers. So instead, I found myself  at home, watching a baseball game on a Saturday night, and enjoying a nice, cold glass of milk as I struggled to deal with how Yuengling had betrayed not only its workers, but me.

Quickly I found my outrage shifting from beyond Yuengling to the lack of U.S. labor law protecting workers from such abusive, unfair practices. It turns out that the company had petitioned for a decertification election to kick the union out of the brewery when the contract of the union expired. Dick Yuengling, the owner of Yuengling Brewery, gathered all the workers and told them that “the writing was on the wall”. He said that if they didn’t vote to kick the union out, he would close the plant, and ship the work to a non-union facility in the South. The workers, scared of losing their job in a region with  high unemployment, voted to ditch their union and save their jobs.
While threatening to close a plant if a union wins such an election is highly illegal, the Yuengling Company has been able to get away with due to the weakness of U.S. labor law. According to a study recently released by Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University, employers threaten to close facilities in 57% of union elections if workers choose a union, despite the fact that this threat is carried out only 2% of the time.  This is because under U.S. labor law the penalty  for threatening to close plants or firing workers during a union election is that the boss merely has to post a piece of paper saying they broke the law.

As one longtime union organizer once put it to me “If the penalty for robbing a bank was you had to post a piece of paper saying you robbed a bank, we’d all be bank robbers!”

Under current U.S. Labor Law, employers can freely violate the law without serious penalty. As a result, workers are fired from their job in 34% of union elections  and companies illegally threaten to close a facility in 57% of all union elections. In this economy, losing one’s job is tantamount not just to losing more than just a job, but also to losing home to foreclosure and more gravely – one’s health insurance. As a result of the ability of bosses to freely intimidate with such Gestapo-style tactics, 58% percent of workers indicate they would like to join a union, but only 8% of private sector employees are members of one out of the fear of what their bosses might do to them for trying to join  a union.

The Employee Free Choice Act would give U.S. labor law real teeth – leveling heavy fines against employees who unlawfully intimidate or threaten workers. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers to join unions free of intimidation a process of majority sign where workers merely would have to get 50% of their co-workers to sign a card to be part of a union.

Currently, The biggest obstacle to the passing the Employee Free Choice Act is quite ironically the very Senator who represents the workers at Yuengling Brewing  – “Democrat” Arlen Specter.  Quite ironically, Arlen Specter, who had in previous years voted for the Employee Free Choice Act, has fallen victim to the same type of corporate intimidation and flipped his position to being against the Employee Free Choice Act. Its time that Arlen Specter show solidarity with the 20,000 workers that are fired every year for attempting to join a union. Arlen Specter needs to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would protect the rights of workers to freely join unions that the overwhelming majority of his constituents favor especially the once unionized workers of a once dear friend – Yuengling.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer and worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). He works currently as an editor at AlterNet.

This article originally appeared in AlterNet on June 17, 2009. Re-printed with permission by the author.