Are CEOs really concerned about protecting workers' democratic rights?
Hardly. Most CEOs don't want to give workers the freedom to decide for themselves whether to join together for a voice at work. It's not surprising, especially when you consider that CEOs are now paying themselves an average of 344 times more than workers.
Big business' supposed concern for workers' democratic rights was called into question just weeks before the election after Wal-Mart management allegedly instructed employees to vote against President-elect Obama - prompting an ongoing investigation of the company by the federal government. Later, Wal-Mart's CEO made clear that Wal-Mart's opposition was not about secret ballots, intimidation or any of the other arguments that corporate interests commonly make. In a moment of candor about the Employee Free Choice Act, he admitted, "We like driving the car and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us," according to Business Week.
Simply put, corporate CEOs don't want workers to share in the prosperity they helped create. Here are the real facts about the Employee Free Choice Act and the secret ballot election:
Workers are free to choose to have a secret ballot election under the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act will not eliminate a worker's right to a secret ballot. This legislation would put the choice of how workers form unions in workers' hands, not big corporations. Workers can choose to have a secret ballot election if they want one.
Employer intimidation is the norm when workers try to organize.
Under current law, even after a majority of workers sign cards saying they want to form a union, their employer can legally refuse to honor workers' majority decision, demand an election and delay the process for months. During that time:
- 91% of employers force employees to attend intimidating one-on-one meetings with their supervisors
- 51% illegally threaten to close down a worksite when employees try to join together to form a union.
- 30% unlawfully fire workers who support forming a union as a way of intimidating others.
In the current company-dominated system, workers who ask for a union election don't get a chance to vote in four out of 10 cases.
No evidence to support union intimidation claims
Corporate interests try to claim that allowing workers to sign cards when choosing to form a union will lead to union intimidation-but there's simply no evidence supporting their argument.
Think about it. It's the CEO who signs a worker's paycheck who holds the ultimate influence over that worker-and for decades management has used that influence to illegally fire, intimidate, and threaten workers attempting to join together for a voice on the job.
Jonathan Zesloff, a legal scholar at UCLA, recently investigated big business' claims by looking at the record in Canada's largest province, where workers have used majority sign up for 50 years. His findings? Not a single case of union intimidation when workers were allowed to form a union when a majority of workers signed cards.
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