Workers' Rights Under Attack: Right Wing Politicians' Corporate Agenda on the Offensive

This year, we have seen unprecedented attacks on workers' rights at the state level. Anti-worker governors have gone after public servants like teachers, police, and firefighters in an effort to destroy the public unions. Now, corporate interests - and their bought and paid for politicians in Washington - are using their power at the federal level to wage war on the few checks that seek to hold them accountable. A prime example is the series of attacks against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the only federal agency charged with protecting workers' rights. Here are some key messages about the right wing's all-out assault workers' rights:

Independent agencies like the NLRB should not be manipulated, bullied or destroyed by politicians seeking to score political points. The attacks on the NLRB are about busting unions and preventing more workers from joining them - not creating jobs or strengthening our economy.

As their profits are through the roof, corporations would rather squeeze workers than create good jobs here at home. Corporations are using their profits to contribute to anti-worker politicians and hire anti-worker lobbyists at a time when our country faces a jobs emergency.

Not only are corporate politicians stalling job creating legislation, they are going after workers who already have jobs, trying to turn back the clock and gut rights and protections that have been in place for more than half a century. Republicans presidential candidate Newt Gingrich went so far as to say he would abolish the NLRB if he became president.

Almost comically, corporations and their lobbyists are expressing outrage over a NLRB rule requiring that a simple poster explaining workers' rights be posted at the workplace. This shows how committed they are to suppressing workers' rights on the job.

Now corporate interests and their allied politicians are attacking the NLRB for issuing a simple rule change that would modernize an outdated union election system plagued by delays, bureaucracy, and litigation. Currently, workers who want to form a union encounter delays of months and even years--if they get to vote at all.