Security guards marched to Miami Beach City Hall on Friday in a staged protest against Security Alliance ~ Photo © 2009 Carlos Miller, NBC Miami

In January, about seventy-five percent of the Security Alliance guards signed cards to form a union with SEIU--but since that time, he and the 50 or so security guards employed by Security Alliance of Florida in the Miami Beach area had been experiencing intimidation, scare tactics and harassment at the hands of their employer for exercising their rights to organize. Ruiz was the only one out of his coworkers who was willing to speak about their efforts to form a union on the record.

His reward for having the courage to speak out for what he believes in? Losing his job. "We are trying to make this city safer for everybody, but I was fired when they found out I was speaking out and wanted a union," said Richard Ruiz, who was terminated after working for more than two years for Security Alliance. "Employers shouldn't stop decent people from trying to have a better life."

What if your employer told you that in order to keep your health coverage you and your spouse must submit to invasive health screenings from your insurer?

If you refused, you'd lose the health coverage you've always counted on. Oh, and the company is self-insured but they promise they won't use your private health information to decide whether to keep your coverage, hire you, fire you, or make your spouse go on a diet.

Unbelievable, but that's what my employer wants to force us to do! That's one of the reasons why more than 700 of us are on strike.

Tell our employer, Bemis Manufacturing company, that workers aren't lab rats.

My coworkers and I work in Terre Haute, Indiana. We make the flexible food packaging you see on your grocery store's shelves. Our company has been union for 52 years and is successful, with profits up more than 16 percent.

We did not make the decision to strike lightly. In an effort to avoid a strike we made an alternative offer to work without a contract while the bargaining continued but Bemis refused and actually lowered its offer. They even cut off insurance benefits which we had already paid for and demanded we accept low wage temp workers turning good jobs into McJobs.

Will you take a stand with us?

Tell Bemis to negotiate in good faith and respect its workers.

For the last 52 years, Local 1426 of Workers United in Terre Haute, Indiana has worked with Bemis to grow their local plant from 150 employees to over 1,000 employees. Yet in spite of their growing size, members of the union have agreed to modest wage gains over the years that just barely keep up with the cost of inflation--because that was what was best for the community and to keep the company competitive.

In recent years management changed--and it was not the only thing changing around the plant. Without any advance notice last year, the Company announced that it was going to require all employees (and their spouses) to submit to invasive medical testing in order to remain eligible for their health insurance. Not only was this illegal for the way it was done, with no bargaining with union representatives, but as you can imagine, it was hugely insulting and demeaning to workers and their families.

On the on the heels of recent news that reports a bill version of the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate may not include majority sign-up provisions, we thought we'd revisit why we need this provision included in legislation to restore giving workers the actual choice of whether they want union representation.

Majority signup is based on a simple idea: if a majority of workers say they want a union, they should get a union. And the public agrees: three-quarters (75%) of adults favor allowing workers to have a union once a majority of the employees in a workplace sign authorization cards indicating that they want to form a union, including 44% who strongly support the idea. [Hart Research Associates, 1/8/09 ]

One of the most common scare tactics corporate special interests continue to use to try and stop the Employee Free Choice Act is the charge that majority signup is baaaaad for workers because it makes them feel pressured or coerced into signing cards. To those opponents we say: check your facts. Academic studies show that workers who organize under majority sign-up feel less pressure from co-workers to support the union than workers who organize under the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process.

During NLRB elections, 46 percent of workers complained of pressure from management. In contrast, during majority signup campaigns, only 4.6 percent of workers who signed a card with a union organizer reported that the presence of the organizer made them feel pressured to sign the card. [Adrienne Eaton, Ph.D. of Rutgers University, and Jill Kriesky of Wheeling Jesuit University, Fact Over Fiction: Opposition to Card Check Doesn't Add Up, 9/06]

So, where's the controversy? "As negotiations on the Employee Free Choice Act continue in Congress, members need only look at public opinion to realize the only controversy over majority signup is being fabricated by a vocal, well financed, factually-challenged minority led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and corporate powerhouses like Wal-Mart," said Tom McMahon, Executive Director of Americans United for Change in a statement today.

There's no debate among working people in this country that the system is badly broken for the 60 million workers who would form a union tomorrow if they could. The current labor system is no longer effectively protecting and enforcing workers' rights in the election process. It has become a system that allows big business and corporate special interests to routinely harass, intimidate and even fire workers who try to form a union and bargain for better pay and benefits and a voice on the job. "These Corporate special interests will continue to say or do anything to keep the system broken, but when three-quarters of the American people agree majority signup is central to labor reform and building a strong economic foundation for our disappearing middle-class, Congress really doesn't have to listen," says McMahon. We couldn't agree more.

Majority signup is a democratic, proven approach that allows workers to have a fair, direct path to join unions--and it's important that both the House and Senate consider this common-sense idea to level the playing field against corporate greed.

Please add your name to the petition to Congress in support of majority signup and the Employee Free Choice Act.

The goal of workers seeking to form a union is to sit at the table with the employer
and bargain an agreement on their wages, benefits, and working conditions. Gaining
union representation can be a long and arduous process for workers. Even when workers
are able to form a union, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) fails them because so many are denied the right to collectively bargain with their employer.

A recent study document that only 38% of new unions are able to negotiate a first contract within one year of NLRB certification and only 56% are able to achieve a contract after two years. That means that under the NLRA, 44% of new unions still don't have contracts two years after they are certified, and many newly-unionized workers never achieve a first contract.

We broke down what these delays mean for several states. Download the individual reports here.

• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Indiana
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Montana
• Nebraska
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia

The current system to form a union in the workplace is grossly slanted in favor of employers who too often use harassment and intimidation to stop unions and keep workers from getting a fair deal--and it's only gotten worse in recent years, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and American Rights at Work.

Today only 12.9 percent of U.S. workers belong to a union, despite the fact that studies have shown that if workers' preferences were to be realized , as many as 58 percent would have union representation. The overwhelming majority of workers who want a union do not have one--in large part because of the ineffectiveness of current labor law to protect and enforce workers' rights in the election process.

"No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing," authored by Cornell University professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, found that corporations are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics in their campaigns against workers' organizing efforts--with a ramped-up focus on coercive tactics designed to intimidate and punish union workers seeking to form a union. The research looked at 1,004 union organizing drives and found that employers threatened to close plants in 57 percent of the campaigns and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent of elections.

Other significant findings of the report, from the 1999-2003 data:

• Interrogation: In 63 percent of all union organizing campaigns, workers are interrogated in one-on-one meetings about their support of the union or their coworkers' stance on the union. These sessions occur at least once a week in two-thirds of elections.
  
• Threats: 54 percent of workers are threatened during such meetings.
  
• Firings: Workers are fired during 34 percent of election processes.
  
• Resisting Collective Bargaining: Even in cases when workers do successfully win their election, 52 percent still have no contract one year later and 37 percent are still without a contract two years after they vote to form a union.