Monopoly Power as Union Buster

The Washington Monthly has an interesting piece on unions joining forces with non-traditional allies to take on the concentration of power, the monopolistic power that seems at times to exceed the power of private corporations in the Rockefeller/Morgan/Aster/Vanderbilt era.

Union busting disclosure

Former union organizer Mike Elk has a post at In these Times about proposed DoL changes to employer's reporting requirements when they engage union busters. The big targeted change? Requiring employers to fill out detailed disclosures of expenses for union busters, including law firms. Under current rules legal advice is exempt from the reporting requirements as long as the law firm does not directly engage in persuading employees (persuader activity) to reject unionization.

Repent! union buster, Repent!

According to a group called Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice, union busting is a mortal sin.

"The penalties are so miniscule . . ."

From the AFL-CIO blog (with video) a GRIT TV segment on union busting. Hint: they blame the consultants for scaring workers away from unionization. Basically Labor continues to engage in the delusion that all workers would join unions "but for" their employer's opposition. But at the end of the video, the point well made is the penalties for serious violations are an insufficient deterrent to employer misconduct. Assuming this aspect of the NLRA is broken,  and there is a lot of agreement among labor relations professionals on both sides on this point, it does not follow that the election process is broken.  With EFCA, unions want employees to choose unionization without providing time for any presentation of the case for remaining union free. That's what is really at stake with both card check and quickie election proposals.

Union busting exposed!

Just in time for Halloween, we have a pro-EFCA blogger posting about Union Busting. More here at the website. Supervisors talking points exposed here. Pretty hysterical in multiple senses of the word.