Protect Workplace Speech and Freedom to Form Unions

On June 1, the New York Senate put the state in position to be first in the nation to enact a Domestic Workers' Rights law (S2311) by a vote of 33-28.  The New York Assembly led the way in June 2009 when it passed its own version of the bill (A1470).  This groundbreaking legislation will extend core labor rights, from fair labor standards to paid sick days, to creating a framework for collective bargaining, to domestic workers.  This will include those employed to work in a private home to perform housekeeping and/or to care for children, the infirm, or the elderly.

A crime wave has been sweeping Illinois, with surveys of low-wage workers in the Chicago area showing an average of 146,300 cases of wage theft each week -- resulting in about $7.3 million each week in unpaid wages, or $380 million stolen from workers each year.  In order to crack down on this criminal wage theft, the Illinois General Assembly on May 3 nearly unanimously (56-0 in the Senate and 112-1 in the House) passed SB 3568, which will strengthen the state’s ability to enforce violations of the Wage Payment and Collection Act.

On March 1st, a new law in New York goes into effect, strengthening the freedom of employees to form labor unions at hotels or convention centers run or funded by state authorities, a dramatic victory for hotel workers in the state.  The law has specific language requiring that hotels or convention centers where state public authorities have a substantial proprietary interest include a "labor peace agreement" with hotel unions in the state in exchange for the unions agreeing not to strike for five years.  The law follows a similar executive order by the Governor approved last year.

Too often workers are forced by employers to listen to religious, political, or anti-union propaganda that has nothing to do with their work responsibilities-- yet they are threatened with being fired if they don't attend such employer-mandated meetings.  The Oregon legislature this past week joined New Jersey in giving employees the right to skip such employer propaganda meetings without fearing reprisals.

It seems relatively simple.  The proposed federal Employee Free Choice Act would give employees the freedom to form a union when a majority of workers sign cards saying that they want one, avoiding the often months of employer harassment that have inevitably accompanied traditional National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election processes.

With a new administration in Washington, D.C. promising to enact federal labor law reform for the first time in generations, corporations are plowing money into the states in an attempt to undermine workers rights there.  Calling itself the "Save Our Secret Ballot" (SOSB) coalition, this corporate effort is looking to amend the state constitutions of Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada and Utah to block workers from choosing majority sign-up rules to form unions -- a clear attempt to thwart implementation of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act which if enacted would give employees the choice of traditional elections run by the federal government or signing authorization cards by a majority of employees. 

Reacting to a spate of recent farmworker deaths, both houses of the California legislature have approved a new "mediated election" process for farmworker unions. AB 2386 will strengthen farmworkers abilities to form labor unions and address workplace conditions.

Six farmworkers have died this summer of suspected heat illness and 15 have died since 2003 despite requirements adopted in 2005 that employers provide minimum heat illness safeguards. AB 2386, sponsored by Speaker Emeritus Nunez, proposes a new process that allows farmworkers to quickly vote by mail with two choices on the ballot to directly vote for the union on the ballot or to vote for a more traditional union election later, with the whole process overseen by a mediator jointly chosen by the union and the employer.

Workers often face a no-win situation: they are forced into employer-sponsored meetings where they are harangued with the employer's political views or anti-union propaganda and, if they actually speak out with their own opinions, they get punished or even fired.

On December 24th, the California Supreme Court gave a major Christmas present for labor rights, affirming that under California law, union members in a mall could distribute handbills calling for a consumer boycott of one of the mall's tenants. The decision, Fashion Valley Mall v. NLRB, built on an earlier state high court decision in 1980 that deemed malls to be a "public forum" where the public had free speech rights. The recent decision extended that principle to active labor boycotts -- a critical tool for labor to get its message out to consumers.

It's well-known that deregulation of the trucking industry has led to worse working conditions in the industry and lower safety standards on the road. But new coalitions are focusing on the way conditions in the trucking industry contribute to pollution that chokes trucking hubs like our ports.