Hollywood Ending: Union Wins an Employee Victory
The successful conclusion of the Writers Guild of America’s strike after arduous contract negotiations is a victory for their membership over Big Business in Hollywood, demonstrating the relevance of unions in today's technology driven, global economy. The victory demonstrates exactly why the Center for American Progress supports the Employee Free Choice Act to promote union growth.
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Kudos to the WGA for holding the line and getting some concessions from the studios. But for most Americans the opportunity to negotiate as a group is non-existant and it is next to impossible to join together to gain leverage with an employer.
If you are one person looking for a raise, management will likely tell you to look down the street because 5 other guys would be glad to do your job for less. That's why people like the writers join together, so that they don't cut each others throats by doing work for less than it is worth. Instead, they work together to set standards that benefit all their members.
Industries without an existing unions are impossible to organize without enforcement of the labor laws that were respected back in the 1950's. Today, the shareholders of a company want labor cheap and don't care if a few laws are broken along the way to bust a union. If the law has no penalty, then it makes good financial sense to break it and keep employees from negotiating with the power of a group. Today, the labor rights that our grandfathers enjoyed are a fiction for those not in a legacy union. GM, Ford, and Chrysler employees enjoy unions, but their foreign competitors can open new plants in the South without risk of unionization. Those foreign plants pay close to union scale to discourage organization, but they don't provide the same long term benefits that US owned auto plants give. Those in industries with no union presence, like high tech, find their high skilled jobs have become an easily off-shored commodity.
The House of Reps has passed a solution to return respect for the right to organize called the Employee Free Choice Act, which adds penalties for illegal firings of employee organizers.
The Employee Free Choice Act is stalled in the Senate over changes to 'card check' procedures, a currently legal and optional way to form a bargaining unit without a costly and time consuming government administered election. Card check is a signature process, similar to a petition, and simply saves the step of an election after a majority of valid signatures have been collected stating a desire to be represented by a union.
Our Democratic Presidential candidates, Senator Clinton and Obama both support the EFCA. Senator McCain vehemently opposes adding penalties for violating laws protecting the right to organize, and proposes to eliminate the option of using card check with his "secret ballot protection act".
Senator Obama also supports the Patriot Employers Act, which helps to prevent off-shoring of jobs and abuse of labor laws by giving tax breaks to companies that act for the good of the nation by keeping jobs in America and not violating the rights of employees. That act was introduced last fall and is languishing in committee, though Obama mentioned it recently in a stump speech.