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Workers’ rights violations so far this year in America, 14,465.
14,465 represents a tremendous amount of affected workers’ and their families, but what does this statistic mean to us? This figure was derived from the 1993-2003 NLRB Annual Reports, which indicate an average of 22,633 workers per year were ordered to receive back pay from their employers. The National Labor Relations Board orders back pay awards to workers who were illegally fired, demoted, laid off, suspended without pay, or denied work by their employers as a result of the workers' union activity. In other words, every 23 minutes, a worker is fired or discriminated against for their support of a union.
Every time this happens it weakens all workers’ rights to fair wages, benefits, and conditions of work. All of our hard work and struggle to obtain a decent life for our families will cease to exist as long as we turn a blind eye to corporations and anti-union politicians that continue to prevent Workers’ from organizing. So who is really afraid of the Employee Free Choice Act? They are well-financed and well-organized group of corporate coalitions and lawyers whose sole purpose is to spread misinformation and confusion.
One group comically calls itself the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, and has vowed it “will fight this piece of legislation every step of the way to make sure it never rears its head again.” Another group is the Center for Union Facts. Notorious lobbyist Richard Berman, whose recent crusades were to weaken DUI laws, runs this one. Also in this bunch we find the National Right to Work Committee, which is bankrolled by corporations and conservative foundations.
I cannot forget to mention the nation’s largest union avoidance law firm, Jackson Lewis, which tells it clients to treat any attempt to unionize as “war.” |
