In These Times Blog
By Roger Bybee
January 26 2010
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/547/corporate_unionbusting_continues_even_as_unionized_workforce_shrinks/
A couple months ago, a student of mine at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee got desperate for money to support himself and his son, and applied for a job at Target.
Even before working a single minute, Target subjected him and other new workers to a "captive audience" meeting where a slick, hard-hitting anti-union video was aired.
There's no union drive going on in Milwaukee among Target workers, but the giant retailer—like much of Corporate America—isn't taking any chances with a Democrat in the White House, and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) on the political horizon.
MOVEMENT ON EFCA?
Target is starting its indoctrination early, because like other big retailers such as CVS and Ikea, the Swedish-owned home furnishings company, it has been worried about the now-remote possibility that a strong EFCA could be enacted. As originally drafted, the legislation would provide for speedy elections, curb management threats, and provide for recognition of the union when a majority of workers signed authorization cards.
Prior to the victory of Republican Scott Brown last week in Massachusetts, which deprived Democrats of their theoretically filibuster-proof 60 vote edge needed for even a watered-down EFCA to win, Target was stepping up its campaign to prevent unionization efforts that, they feared, would materialize if EFCA ever passed:
"Minneapolis-based Target, the second-biggest U.S. discount retailer, updated its anti-union video for employee training to explain the consequences of the bill, company spokeswoman Donna Egan said in an e-mailed statement," reported Bloomberg News, picking up on information dug up by Mike Whitney at FireDogLake.
PRO-BAILOUT, ANTI-UNION
The anti-union carpet-bombing is incessant, almost universal in the private sector with management fully exploiting its unilateral access to workers on the job. Further, the anti-union war is now accelerating against public-sector as well, observed sociologist Stanley Aronowitz, former union organizer who has written extensively on labor.
Corporations have been actively trying to influence not just their workers, but their investors and the general public as well, against unions. Michaels Stores, the arts and crafts supply chain, is trying to mobilize its stockholders, portraying worker's right to organize as a threat to the company:
"If the Employee Free Choice Act is adopted, it would be easier for our associates to obtain union representation and our businesses could be adversely impacted."
Most galling was the parade of corporate executives and lobbyists who came to the Capitol seeking government bailouts--representing workers' taxes-- about a year back. At the same they were seeking handouts, they also systematically met with the senators and congresspeople from their states to urge them to oppose the EFCA, as witnessed by United Electrical workers political director Chris Townsend.
The anti-union fever is now intensifying in the public sector, where 37.4% of the workers are unionized. To help attract a new Honda plant--which very carefully selected an "anti-union, pro-Klan" site in southern Indiana--Gov. Mitch Daniels managed to wipe out public employee bargaining rights.
Other public officials like Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker---also the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate--are using budgetary problems and the economic crisis to drive a wedge between supposedly "over-paid" public employees and the general public, and then exploit that resentment as an opening to promote more and more privatization of public-sector jobs.
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS BANNED FROM UNION BY UW
Even at the University of Wisconsin campus in liberal Madison, university officials are flatly prohibiting international students from joining a new graduate research assistants union. Top UW administrators have been claiming that joining a union might somehow jeopardize their student visas. "It's in their best interests to not be covered," said the university's human relations director.
However, this potential menace to the international students turns out to be non-existent. At a number of other universities like Oregon and California, where international students have joined teaching and research assistant unions, there have been no problems with their visa as a result.
Richard Boris, director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions—funded by both labor and management organizations—at the City University of New York’s Hunter College, called the university's position "astonishing" and "absolute malarkey."
For Peter Rickman, president of the Teaching Assistants Association (an American Federation of Teachers affiliate) at UW-Madison which is organizing the research assistants, the right of international students to join a union is a simple matter of justice: "If they are not included in the bargaining unit, they will not be covered by the contract. There is no good reason to exclude people from these basic rights."
Rickman's sentiment was echoed by State Rep. Cory Mason, a Racine Democrat and former AFT organizer himself, who stated, "This is the only bargaining unit I know of anywhere in the country that discriminates against people based on what country they're from."
RIGHT TO ORGANIZE TRAMPLED
At this point, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 has been so trampled on that it cannot effectively protect workers rights. Employers have long understood that they preserve their wealth and power by illegally firing pro-union workers as rapidly as possible.
A "culture of impunity" prevails as the cost of providing wrongly-discharged workers with back wages, if the company is found in violation, is trivial compared with the savings in higher wages and more benefits and avoiding the obligation to negotiate with the workers as equals. In 2005, for example, 31,358 workers were illegally fired in the U.S.
Corporations' sense of "impunity" is likely to remain strong in the near future, barring an all-out grassroots revolt by workers, thanks to the continuing effectiveness of the filibuster—now used routinely to block almost any Democratic legislation—and the Republicans' refusal to allow President Obama's National Labor Relations Board board nominees to be considered. The board currently has just two members, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush appointees, respectively.
The result is endless delays, as in the case of workers at a Brooklyn home for the developmentally disabled. Six years after voting on unionization, they are still waiting for the NLRB to certify the outcome.
Despite all the pounding, American labor still has the potential power of 15.3 million unionists. But membership as a percentage of the workforce has been dropping, especially with the Great Recession producing major job losses in unionized manufacturing plants and construction sites. As David Moberg reported last week, and as the Wall St. Journal reported:
"Organized labor lost 10% of its members in the private sector last year, the largest decline in more than 25 years. The drop is on par with the decline in total employment but threatens to significantly limit labor’s ability to influence elections and legislation.
"…the Labor Department reported that private-sector unions lost 834,000 members, bringing membership down to 7.2% of the private-sector work force, from 7.6% the year before. The broader drop in U.S. employment and a small gain by public-sector unions helped keep the total share of union membership flat at 12.3% in 2009."
With unions losing members and thus leverage at the bargaining table, corporations and the rich are able to snatch an ever-greater share of the wealth their workers create, reports Too Much, the always-interesting e-newsletter written by Sam Pizzigatti :
"In 2010, the [congressional Joint Committee on Taxation] calculates, a little over 1 million U.S. taxpayers will report incomes over $500,000. These 1 million top-earners will collect an astounding $241 billion more in income this year than the just under 80 million taxpayers who will take home less than $40,000."
There's a clear link between the above statistics: as workers lose the power to bargain for their fair share of the wealth that they create, America grows ever more unequal. Every day seemingly moves America further away from being a middle-class society, as Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on economic recovery recently warned.
The super-rich have far more than they can ever possibly need, but they continue to relentlessly take away our lunch money by taking away our unions.
 

by Robert Reich
Monday, January 11, 2010
 
There’s only one big remaining issue on health care reform: how to pay for it. The House wants a 5.4 percent surtax on couples earning at least $1 million in annual income. The Senate wants a 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided “Cadillac plans.” The Senate will win on this unless the public discovers that a large portion of the so-called Cadillacs are really middle-class Chevys, expensive not because they deliver more benefits but because they have higher costs.
 
The dirty little secret under the hood is that less than 4 percent of the variation in the cost of current health-care plans has to do with how many benefits they provide. Most plans that cost more do so because (1) a particular set of employees is older and tends to get sicker than the average set of employees (that’s true for a lot of old rust-belt firms), (2) the plan is offered by a small business that lacks bargaining clout with insurers (small businesses pay, on average, 16 percent more for the health insurance they provide, per capita), (3) the work that employees do subjects them to greater risk of medical problems (health-care workers, for example), or (4) most employees are women (who tend to have higher health-care costs than men because women are the ones who bear children). Plans could also cost more but deliver average benefits because (5) insurers in the area don’t face much competition (one main reason for the public option).
 
So by taxing so-called Cadillac plans, the Senate bill would actually end up taxing the Chevy plans of a large portion of the middle class. And as time goes by, a still larger portion, since the Senate plan is geared to the overall rate of inflation rather than to the (much higher) rate of increases in health-care costs.
 
Defenders of the Senate plan say not to worry. Employers who bear the tax and therefore have an incentive to cut back on health care for their employees will make it up to employees in higher wages. But anyone taking even a passing glance at today’s labor market knows this is wishful thinking. Employers have no incentive to raise wages when almost everyone is worried about keeping their jobs. (Besides, a dollar’s worth of tax-free health benefit is worth more than a taxable dollar of wages.)
 
In any event, I thought a major purpose of health-care reform was to get more care to more people, not to cut it back. Even employees who get extra dollars of wages to make up for the cutbacks won’t necessarily plow those wages back into health care.
 
Some say the Senate’s excise tax is the only way to control long-term health care costs. Baloney. If a portion of the middle class loses their health care, they won’t get the preventive care that’s so crucial to containing long-term costs. If Congress wanted to do more cost containment it would allow Medicare and Medicaid to use their huge bargaining power to get lower costs from pharmaceutical makers and medical suppliers. And it would have a public option to compete with private insurers.
 
Of course, we’re playing with probabilities here. No one knows exactly what will happen when the Senate excise tax hits — how many employers will cut back coverage without raising wages to compensate, how many middle class people will be hit hard by this, how many who do get higher wages will use them to buy health care, including preventive care.
But why even take these chances when the House bill simply and cleanly goes after the top 1 percent? It’s not as if couples earning over a million can’t afford to pay the tax. When I last looked, the top 1 percent was taking home a record 23 percent of total income. If anything, the Great Recession is widening the gap. It’s bonus time on Wall Street again. But the middle class is taking a beating.
 
This is the last big fight on health care reform. It’s being fought right now. Make your voice heard.
 

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One of the most critical issues facing Congress, President Obama, and the American people is reforming the system for paying for health care. People in the United States spend more money for health care than in any other country, but the U.S. lags far behind most of the developed world in every measure of public health, including infant mortality and life expectancy.
The medical, drug and health insurance industries in the U.S. take in some 15 percent of gross national product every year.  With so many trillions of dollars at stake, the political fight is intense. The insurance industry is spending an astounding $1.4 million dollars a day in the effort to influence Congressional deliberations over how to reform the system.
This summer, town meetings on health care are taking place in many constituencies. The right, encouraged by the insurance industry’s massive spending, is using these meetings to create the appearance of a mass movement opposing health care reform. The AFL-CIO and Change to Win are encouraging union activists to attend these meetings and speak out for reform.
Health care reform is a vital, if not the most vital, battlefront for American Labor - Health Care for all Americans.
Below are fact sheets about health care reform and web sites with further information. Click here for a list of town meetings in and around New York.
Why it matters for union members
Most union members have on-the-job coverage won as a benefit. But that does not let us off the hook.
When someone without insurance needs medical attention, who foots the bill? We do. Hidden in the cost of employer-based coverage is a subsidy for the services for the uninsured. The AFL-CIO estimates that subsidy at $922 a year per union member.  We also pay as taxpayers. When people who cannot afford to pay turn to public hospitals for help, we end up paying through our taxes. Yet the services that they receive are too little, too late.
Meanwhile, health costs remain the 800-pound gorilla at every round of contract negotiations.
As long as the current system of health care and benefits remains the same, labor will continue to be behind the eight ball at the bargaining table. As long as the current system of health care and benefits remains the same, employers, both private and public, will continue to use health benefits to depress wages and extract concessions.
Select sources of information about the future of health care and health insurance in the U.S.
 
Fact sheets

1. Health care reform 101

10 reasons for health care reform
The public option
Medicare and the Public options
The Senate and House bills compared

2. Exposing the myths and lies

Top 5 lies on health reform
Myths & facts
The fiction factory vs. the CBO
 
Websites

1. Why we need change now

Bill Moyers: Oysters for Healthcare
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/07/bill_moyers_michael_winship_oy.html
Alternet: Howard Dean: "This Is Ridiculous. We're 60 Years Behind the Times" on Fixing Health Care
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141129/howard_dean%3A_%22this_is_ridiculous._we%27re_60_years_behind_the_times%22_on_fixing_health_care/?page=entire
Center for American Progress: The Economic Imperative for Health Reform
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/health_imperative.html
Senator Bernie Sanders: The Health Care Crisis - Letters from Vermont and America
http://sanders.senate.gov/files/TheHealthCareCrisis.pdf
 

2. Prescriptions for changing the present system

AFSCME: Health Care for America
http://www.afscme.org/issues/19584.cfm
SEIU: Principles for Health Care
http://www.seiu.org/a/healthcare/the-health-care-solution-seius-vision-for-reform.php
Consumer Reports: Health Care – A Prescription for Change
http://www.prescriptionforchange.org/2009/06/post_29.html
Health Care for America Now: What Comprehensive Reform Means for You
http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/what_comprehensive_reform_means#whatcomp
 

3. The single-payer approach: Medicare for all

Kaiser Health News: True Believers: Selling a Single-Payer System, Despite a Lack of Buyers
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/July/07/Single-Payer.aspx
Healthcare-Now: What is Single-Payer Healthcare?
http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/whats-single-payer/
California Nurses Association: Why Single Payer Healthcare Is the Only Genuine Reform for Labor
http://www.calnurses.org/assets/pdf/0707_singlepayerunion_broch.pdf
Tikkun:  The Health Care Battle Lines http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jul_09_roland
 

A once-in-a-generation showdown over the reform of federal labor law is shaping up in Congress.  Unions and their supporters are fighting for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.  Employers are backing multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign to defeat it.