By Brian Sonenstein
cross-posted to Living Liberally
I want to make sure that we provide a hat-tip thank you to kossack Elana Levin, who helped tip us off to the original AlterNet story.
Mike Elk over at AlterNet posted an article that broke our hearts yesterday about how Yuengling (which, ironically, I had always perceived to be the "working class beer") recently busted their union in a big, illegal way. But, as Elk expertly perceives, the blame should not fall solely upon the brewery (follow the link; it’s a great article):
Quickly I found my outrage shifting from beyond Yuengling to the lack of U.S. labor law protecting workers from such abusive, unfair practices [...] 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.
The Employee Free Choice Act, which has a tumultuous history in our legislature, would most likely eliminate a lot of the threats that dissolve unions like the one at at the Yuengling Company, by bringing stronger penalties to employers who don’t follow the rules. By neutralizing the employer’s ability to threaten and therefore sway union elections, it is likely that more laborers would join unions knowing that their jobs would not be in jeopardy.
And, as Dr. Gordon Lafer pointed out in his 2008 speech to Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, the idea that a ‘secret ballot’ would signify more democratic union elections is a myth if not a pure fallacy, since employers would continue to enjoy unparalleled access to voter rolls that they could use to intimidate a worker’s choice in the booth. In the words of Alexander Hamilton (which Dr. Lafer employs) "power over a man’s purse is power over his will."
We here at Living Liberally thought we could maybe help our fellow pining liberals find a new brew to sip that would satiate their progressive thirsts. Here are some brews we’ve noted for their green & sustainable practices, but to be honest, we’re not so sure about how they fare in terms of labor standards.
Know any good progressive brews? Got any background on these or any others you think we should know about? Let us know in the comments section.