Post by Judge Sam on Jul 16, 2009 15:23:12 GMT -5
Not sure how these flavor posts are being received, it's something new I tried for this game just because, to me, the subject material is so interesting. Not sure if you are enjoying it or learning anything from it all. I actually have quite a bit more... I meant to intersperse some more earlier during the game but it was all just so busy.
1. How Do You Drive Out a Union? South Carolina Factory Provides a Textbook Case
Vincent Gailliard, at home in Sumter, S.C., lost his job at an EnerSys battery factory. He was fired after becoming president of a union that the company was trying to drive out.
SUMTER, S.C. - Tom Brown, the leader of an anti-union campaign at the EnerSys battery factory here, made some surprising admissions in recent testimony about how his campaign had been run and financed.
Mr. Brown, a longtime maintenance man, acknowledged that a mysterious consultant known as Mr. X had advised him on how to oust the union and had helped him write fliers that called the union's leaders names like "trailer trash," "Uncle Tom" and "dog woman." Not only that, Mr. Brown testified that envelopes filled with cash had often been sent to his home. He said he had no idea who had sent them. "I don't look a gift horse in the mouth," he said.
Across the South companies have long used bare-knuckled tactics to fight unions. But now a surprisingly detailed roadmap to such tactics has emerged from an unusual court battle between EnerSys and its law firm over whose wrongdoing - the company's or its lawyers' - led to a $7.75 million settlement that EnerSys entered into after federal officials accused it of 120 labor law violations in its seven-year effort to eliminate the union.
The company has accused the firm, Jackson Lewis, of malpractice and of advising it to engage in illegal behavior. The law firm says that EnerSys ignored its sound advice and that the company is trying to avoid paying its legal bill.
The wrangling has cast a spotlight on how the company fired and harassed the union's top officials and aided Mr. Brown, the anti-union leader, although federal law prohibits companies from financing or otherwise assisting efforts to get rid of a union.
The litigation also highlights a little known but thriving business in which law firms and consultants work with corporations to beat back unionization efforts. Jackson Lewis, a national law firm based in New York, describes itself as "committed to the practice of preventive labor relations."
"Union membership is declining because employers will stop at nothing to prevent employees from having a union," said David Bonior, the former Michigan Congressman who is now president of American Rights at Work, an advocacy group fighting violations of workers' rights. "Unfortunately, 75 percent of employers use union-busting consultants to fight unionization drives."
Labor experts call the EnerSys case unusual, with federal labor officials accusing the company of firing the top seven union leaders, spying on workers, refusing to bargain and ultimately closing the 500-worker plant to retaliate against the union. Its $7.75 million settlement is evidence of how far the company strayed from the law. But labor experts also say the case opens a window onto some common tactics.
"Jackson Lewis is a key player in the union avoidance industry," said Fred Feinstein, former general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board. "This kind of aggressive anti-union campaign is not unusual."
Jackson Lewis says it did nothing wrong.
"Jackson Lewis zealously represents its clients," Kevin A. Hall, a lawyer representing the firm, said. "In doing so, the firm always honors the letter and the spirit of the law. Jackson Lewis was neither involved in the initial campaign by the union to organize the employees nor involved in any effort to assist the employees to oust the union." EnerSys refused to comment.
This tale began a decade ago when the International Union of Electrical Workers began rounding up support at the factory, which produced giant batteries to power forklifts and provide backup power to cellphone towers.
The union petitioned for a unionization election when many workers voiced dismay about meager pensions, bullying supervisors, production speedups and safety problems, especially with the high temperatures and lead used in production.
The company, then called Yuasa, hired Jackson Lewis to help mount a last-minute anti-union campaign. The company required employees to listen to speakers saying the union did not want to help workers, but only wanted their dues money. Management posted pictures of tombstones and skulls and crossbones in the cafeteria to warn employees that unionized factories often closed.
But on Feb. 23, 1995, the workers voted 191 to 185 to unionize. Management was livid.
"They said that if the union came in the company was doomed," Paulette Jackson, a union steward and quality control worker, said. "They fought tooth and nail. They didn't want a union in the South. Period."
The company fired Ms. Jackson, accusing her of failing to detect some faulty batteries, but her supervisor later told the National Labor Relations Board that the charges were trumped up.
continues here:
www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/national/14union.html?pagewanted=2
2. video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-582501436157763581&hl=en
That link is a documentary about the labor movement titled the Wobblies, a nickname for the International Workers of the World, a huge umbrella labor organization representing unskilled labor in the 1900s. Very informative.
3. Remember when I was telling you about how evil Wal-Mart is with respect to unions? Their 24-hour headquarters lined with security cameras keeping a watch out for even the slightest upstart of union activity? Well, in this article dated 3 days after Spies 6 started, it seems their tactics have spread...
Corporations Now Widely Using Wal-Mart Tactics, New Report on Unionbusting Finds
A definitive study of anti-union campaigns finds that corporations are punishing workers seeking to form a union with a wide range of tactics.
A definitive new look at the scope of employer anti-union campaigns by a noted Cornell University labor scholar finds that corporations have ramped up a wide-range of tactics designed to punish and intimidate workers for seeking to form a union. In nearly 60 percent of union election campaigns, employers threaten to close the plant, half of employers threaten workers in one-on-one "sweat sessions," and in a third of the elections, they retaliate by firing workers.
Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, has studied labor organizing for decades, and now concludes, "There's been a change in the nature of employer campaigns. They've become not just more intense, not just more aggressive, but they switched to a more punitive system: there's no more of this 'let's try the soft stuff and pretend to be nice.'"
In response, the Chamber of Commerce attacked her as too pro-union to be believed, even though she reviewed a random sample of 1,000 National Labor Relations Board elections and all those elections' unfair labor practices documents and decisions, supplemented by in-depth interviews and surveys of organizers involved in over 500 campaigns.
She's also been criticized by business interests for actually interviewing and surveying union organizers and workers for her research. But as Ross Eisenbrey, the vice-president of the Economic Policy Institute, which is releasing her report, observes, "Employer groups don't believe the victims [of unionbusting], the workers. Who are you going to believe, the employers?" He adds, "Despite a very difficult burden of proof, unions are winning 45% of allegations."
Today, with the backing of such organizations as American Rights at Work and the Economic Policy Institute, she and other experts held a briefing on the new report on Capitol Hill, with findings that are expected to boost the union movement's case for the Employee Free Choice Act. At the briefing a Rite Aid employee also gave a vivid illustration of the vicious obstacles thrown in the way of workers seeing a fair opportunity to organize (via Daily Kos):
Despite corporate spin against union rights, the harsh reality, based on confirmed NLRB decisions on unfair labor practice claims (which often are never filed because of regulatory roadblocks and weak enforcement), is that over 20,000 workers a year are fired or retaliated against for trying to form a union. As the Center for American Progress Action Fund reported recently in its primer on the Employee Free Choice Act: "Every 18 minutes a worker is illegally fired or discriminated against by their employer for their union activity--including discrimination even after a workplace has been organized--yet firms face few consequences when caught.."
(continues at this link)
www.alternet.org/workplace/140167/corporations_now_widely_using_wal-mart_tactics%2C_new_report_on_unionbusting_finds/?page=2
1. How Do You Drive Out a Union? South Carolina Factory Provides a Textbook Case
Vincent Gailliard, at home in Sumter, S.C., lost his job at an EnerSys battery factory. He was fired after becoming president of a union that the company was trying to drive out.
SUMTER, S.C. - Tom Brown, the leader of an anti-union campaign at the EnerSys battery factory here, made some surprising admissions in recent testimony about how his campaign had been run and financed.
Mr. Brown, a longtime maintenance man, acknowledged that a mysterious consultant known as Mr. X had advised him on how to oust the union and had helped him write fliers that called the union's leaders names like "trailer trash," "Uncle Tom" and "dog woman." Not only that, Mr. Brown testified that envelopes filled with cash had often been sent to his home. He said he had no idea who had sent them. "I don't look a gift horse in the mouth," he said.
Across the South companies have long used bare-knuckled tactics to fight unions. But now a surprisingly detailed roadmap to such tactics has emerged from an unusual court battle between EnerSys and its law firm over whose wrongdoing - the company's or its lawyers' - led to a $7.75 million settlement that EnerSys entered into after federal officials accused it of 120 labor law violations in its seven-year effort to eliminate the union.
The company has accused the firm, Jackson Lewis, of malpractice and of advising it to engage in illegal behavior. The law firm says that EnerSys ignored its sound advice and that the company is trying to avoid paying its legal bill.
The wrangling has cast a spotlight on how the company fired and harassed the union's top officials and aided Mr. Brown, the anti-union leader, although federal law prohibits companies from financing or otherwise assisting efforts to get rid of a union.
The litigation also highlights a little known but thriving business in which law firms and consultants work with corporations to beat back unionization efforts. Jackson Lewis, a national law firm based in New York, describes itself as "committed to the practice of preventive labor relations."
"Union membership is declining because employers will stop at nothing to prevent employees from having a union," said David Bonior, the former Michigan Congressman who is now president of American Rights at Work, an advocacy group fighting violations of workers' rights. "Unfortunately, 75 percent of employers use union-busting consultants to fight unionization drives."
Labor experts call the EnerSys case unusual, with federal labor officials accusing the company of firing the top seven union leaders, spying on workers, refusing to bargain and ultimately closing the 500-worker plant to retaliate against the union. Its $7.75 million settlement is evidence of how far the company strayed from the law. But labor experts also say the case opens a window onto some common tactics.
"Jackson Lewis is a key player in the union avoidance industry," said Fred Feinstein, former general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board. "This kind of aggressive anti-union campaign is not unusual."
Jackson Lewis says it did nothing wrong.
"Jackson Lewis zealously represents its clients," Kevin A. Hall, a lawyer representing the firm, said. "In doing so, the firm always honors the letter and the spirit of the law. Jackson Lewis was neither involved in the initial campaign by the union to organize the employees nor involved in any effort to assist the employees to oust the union." EnerSys refused to comment.
This tale began a decade ago when the International Union of Electrical Workers began rounding up support at the factory, which produced giant batteries to power forklifts and provide backup power to cellphone towers.
The union petitioned for a unionization election when many workers voiced dismay about meager pensions, bullying supervisors, production speedups and safety problems, especially with the high temperatures and lead used in production.
The company, then called Yuasa, hired Jackson Lewis to help mount a last-minute anti-union campaign. The company required employees to listen to speakers saying the union did not want to help workers, but only wanted their dues money. Management posted pictures of tombstones and skulls and crossbones in the cafeteria to warn employees that unionized factories often closed.
But on Feb. 23, 1995, the workers voted 191 to 185 to unionize. Management was livid.
"They said that if the union came in the company was doomed," Paulette Jackson, a union steward and quality control worker, said. "They fought tooth and nail. They didn't want a union in the South. Period."
The company fired Ms. Jackson, accusing her of failing to detect some faulty batteries, but her supervisor later told the National Labor Relations Board that the charges were trumped up.
continues here:
www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/national/14union.html?pagewanted=2
2. video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-582501436157763581&hl=en
That link is a documentary about the labor movement titled the Wobblies, a nickname for the International Workers of the World, a huge umbrella labor organization representing unskilled labor in the 1900s. Very informative.
3. Remember when I was telling you about how evil Wal-Mart is with respect to unions? Their 24-hour headquarters lined with security cameras keeping a watch out for even the slightest upstart of union activity? Well, in this article dated 3 days after Spies 6 started, it seems their tactics have spread...
Corporations Now Widely Using Wal-Mart Tactics, New Report on Unionbusting Finds
A definitive study of anti-union campaigns finds that corporations are punishing workers seeking to form a union with a wide range of tactics.
A definitive new look at the scope of employer anti-union campaigns by a noted Cornell University labor scholar finds that corporations have ramped up a wide-range of tactics designed to punish and intimidate workers for seeking to form a union. In nearly 60 percent of union election campaigns, employers threaten to close the plant, half of employers threaten workers in one-on-one "sweat sessions," and in a third of the elections, they retaliate by firing workers.
Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, has studied labor organizing for decades, and now concludes, "There's been a change in the nature of employer campaigns. They've become not just more intense, not just more aggressive, but they switched to a more punitive system: there's no more of this 'let's try the soft stuff and pretend to be nice.'"
In response, the Chamber of Commerce attacked her as too pro-union to be believed, even though she reviewed a random sample of 1,000 National Labor Relations Board elections and all those elections' unfair labor practices documents and decisions, supplemented by in-depth interviews and surveys of organizers involved in over 500 campaigns.
She's also been criticized by business interests for actually interviewing and surveying union organizers and workers for her research. But as Ross Eisenbrey, the vice-president of the Economic Policy Institute, which is releasing her report, observes, "Employer groups don't believe the victims [of unionbusting], the workers. Who are you going to believe, the employers?" He adds, "Despite a very difficult burden of proof, unions are winning 45% of allegations."
Today, with the backing of such organizations as American Rights at Work and the Economic Policy Institute, she and other experts held a briefing on the new report on Capitol Hill, with findings that are expected to boost the union movement's case for the Employee Free Choice Act. At the briefing a Rite Aid employee also gave a vivid illustration of the vicious obstacles thrown in the way of workers seeing a fair opportunity to organize (via Daily Kos):
Angel Warner, a working mom from California, offered a compelling story of these coercive tactics in action. Warner is a Rite Aid warehouse worker who tried to form a union through the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) at a large warehouse with 600 workers. The warehouse was inadequately heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and the work was difficult and at times unsafe. That's why Warner and her co-workers hoped to form a union. Wages and benefits were an issue, she said, but not the only issue. Mostly, they were concerned about job security and improving safety on the job, especially after management imposed a quota system that encouraged unsafe behavior.
"You walk a fine line of taking a trip to the hospital or a trip to the unemployment line.
"We like our jobs, we just want dignity, respect and a voice in our workplace. A person can only take so much--we decided it was time to stand up for ourselves."
Warner said that, as she and her-co-workers tried to form a union, management pulled union supporters aside for threatening meetings and singled out potential supporters for harassment. Pro-union employees were fired, and the workers filed 49 labor law violations against Rite-Aid --but the only repercussion for Rite-Aid is having to re-hire two employees and post fliers saying they would no longer engage in unfair practices.
Warner and her co-workers won the election by only a handful of votes, even after getting two-thirds of the employees to sign up, because of the extended election period and the abuses by management during that time.
Despite corporate spin against union rights, the harsh reality, based on confirmed NLRB decisions on unfair labor practice claims (which often are never filed because of regulatory roadblocks and weak enforcement), is that over 20,000 workers a year are fired or retaliated against for trying to form a union. As the Center for American Progress Action Fund reported recently in its primer on the Employee Free Choice Act: "Every 18 minutes a worker is illegally fired or discriminated against by their employer for their union activity--including discrimination even after a workplace has been organized--yet firms face few consequences when caught.."
(continues at this link)
www.alternet.org/workplace/140167/corporations_now_widely_using_wal-mart_tactics%2C_new_report_on_unionbusting_finds/?page=2
