Washington Post: Enable Choice on Labor Unions

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031300966.html

Enable Choice on Labor Unions

By Steven Hill and Dmitri Iglitzin
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; 12:00 AM

The top priority of pro-labor members of the United States Congress is passage of the employee Freedom of Choice Act, a law that would make it easier for workers to organize a union in their workplace and negotiate a contract with their employer. This legislation has been the subject of vigorous public debate among labor organizations and business lobbyists, yet it only scratches the surface of a badly needed overhaul of U.S. labor law.

Currently, labor law is stuck somewhere in the mid-20th century instead of in the 21st century. It has yet to catch up with a new era where the basic relationships between workers, employers, government and the global economy are changing before our eyes.

Leading economists acknowledge that rising productivity and soaring corporate profits have not translated into benefits for the average American worker. Instead, median incomes are flat, healthcare costs are skyrocketing, pensions are being de-funded and corporate employers are threatening to shred the social contract with their employees that has prevailed for 60 years.

Every nation today is grappling with a fundamental question: How do we enact sufficient security for workers while not stifling entrepreneurship and economic growth? In this age of globalization, the most successful countries will be those that can strike the proper balance between business, workers and government regulation. They are like three legs of a stool, and if any leg is too short, it will be destabilizing.

Yet under current labor law, workers and labor unions are getting short shrift. For example, a subsection of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 makes it an unlawful "secondary boycott" for a labor union to bring any type of pressure against any person or business other than the employer where the unionized workers work. That means unions cannot challenge a parent corporation's directives to its subsidiary or a subcontractor, even if the directive might cause all of the employees to lose their jobs.

FULL article at link.