A world where an assailant can be charged with a one week sentence - reflecting the hospital time his victim had to endure recovering from the trauma of a viscious beating. Or one where a robber gets a reprieve from his or her punishment once the victim's insurance carrier makes up for the stolen items.
There is a world like this that exists for employers, a unique reality shaped by the policies and statutes set by the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB's penalties against illegal firing of union supporters are so minimal that employers treat them as a minor cost of doing business.
Employers who illegally fire workers for union activity are only required to pay back wages minus what the worker has earned in the meantime. In effect, there are no punitive damages. All an employer need do is pay the fired worker back the wages that would have been paid up to when that worker found a new job. There is no other fine on top of that of any form - turning illegal firings into anything but something illegal. Instead, they become an upfront cost that average $3,800 per fired worker - an "investment" that saves the employer whatever they later would pay in higher wages and benefits for employees.
If reprisals for actually firing workers are so minimal, what are the penalties like for other common Unfair Labor Practice violations?
In most cases, if an employer is found guilty of violating labor law, the typical remedy is ordering the employer to post a notice in the workplace promising not to break the law again. This usually occurs when an employer commits a non-economic ULP, meaning, an Unfair Labor Practice that did not result in a loss of pay to any employee.
These usually consist of threatening to close a factory down, interrogation, illegal spying, harassment and other forms of coercion that do not include a firing or a reduction in pay.
Because of the present day NLRB policies, anti-worker employers have every available means at their disposal to run rampant over the workplace rights of their employees. That is why business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers and Association of Building Contractors want to keep the NLRB the way it is and are opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act. That is why after decades of dormancy, this unholy anti-union network has been revved up once again like a bad hemmorhoid to battle the Employee Free Choice Act, the greatest threat to their status quo.
Under the stats quo, management holds all the cards. In fact, instead of referring to current NLRB supervised elections as union organzing campaigns, they should instead be called "employer controlled balloting."
Employer Dominated Speech In the WorkplaceUnder the present system, management is allowed to bombard employees with anti-union messages anywhere and anytime in the workplace. Workers can talk about the union only on break time and only in the break area, unless those views are pro-employer - at that point they can do as they please under the law.
Employer Dominated Access to Workers
And what about those union organizers that pro-employer groups say the law is supposed to protect "their employees" from? Well, organizers are barred from visiting employees at work, and instead must rely upon scheduling visits with workers offsite during off work hours.
Company supervisors, however, can meet in one on one closed door meetings with employees at work. While they cannot threaten an employee with retaliation during these meetings, what's to prevent them from doing so when the employee cannot have a witness with them?
Economic Leverage Over Workers
Employers have the added advantage of economic leverage over everyone in the workplace. Unions do not provide workers with paychecks, employers do. Nor do unions schedule work assignments, permit time off, schedule overtime, or grant promotions. Employers do, which creates a set of unique circumstances that are difficult to avoid.
While those conditions are not the fault of the current system, how those resources are allowed to be brought to bear are. Workers are subjected to thinly veiled threats from supervisors about lost work time due to higher labor costs. While they cannot threaten to shut down plants, supervisors can barrage workers with "examples" of other plants that were closed.
Open-Ended Delays
Workers can face an infinite number of delays during the course of a union election. Workers at Case Farms in Morganton, NC - for example - waited seven years for their employer to appeal a union election from back in 1995. The case was allowed to go all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States, where justices refused to grant the case a writ of certiorari.
The rules governing the employer appeals process is so slanted towards the employer that Gordon Lafer at Oregon University writes:
These guidelines not only allow the appeals process to drag on for years, but mandate that the workplace be governed as if employees voted against organizing for the duration of the appeals process.
No Mechanism for First Contract Resolution
Because of factors such as the lengthy appeals process that employers take full advantage of, workers are not guaranteed a union under the current system, even though they voted for one.
One out of three successfull union elections do not result in a first contract for employees under the current system. While management is urged to negotiate with the union, there is nothing in current U.S. labor laws that sets a deadline for a first contract. In fact, machiavellian union-busters hired at an average of $450 an hour urge their clients to use their time to wear down their pro-union workforce until such time that a decertification election can be held a year later when the workers are sick and tired of the daily hassles.
In 2000, Human Rights Watch issued a report that found that U.S. labor laws were so weak and ineffective that they failed to deter unscrupulous employers from engaging in illegal conduct.
It's no secret that the number of union members in the United States has been in decline for decades. Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a report stating that union membership has declined from 12.5 percent of the workforce down to 12 percent. Conservative and pro-employer try hard to make the public believe this decline is due to the erosion of the labor movement's appeal to American workers.
Nothing is further from the truth. Not when 58 million American workers would join a union today if they could - but are barred from doing so due to the myriad array of obstacles set in their path by the policies of the pro-employer NLRB.
It is long past time to abolish the corrupt and draconian employer dominated policies of the NLRB. The Employee Fee Choice Act will do away with employer controlled elections and replace them with a system of worker choice where workers vote "yes" or "no" to being represented by a union.
Additionally, employers who do break the law will not be rewarded for doing so with weak and ineffective penalties. Penalties will be stiffened - deterring employers from waging economic terror on workers involved on either side of an organizing campaign.
Please contact your Senator or Representative to urge them to vote for this bipartisan bill that will bring equity, fairness and opportunity back to the workplace.