Legislative — 4

Worker Issues

Organizing and Expanding Workers’ Rights
Despite our country’s proud tradition of workers’ rights, the fundamental right of workers to join together to form a union has always been under attack, and never more so than today. Instead of respecting workers’ right to freely choose to form a union, more and more employers are resorting to threats, intimidation, and firings to block the exercise of this right.

Even workers who successfully vote to form a union face enormous obstacles in obtaining a contract. Employers refuse to bargain. They fire workers who support the union. They threaten to close down the plant, and they also hold mandatory meetings to intimidate workers. Yet these same employers face only a minimal penalty for violating our labor laws and obstructing this basic choice of America’s workers.

During the 108th Congress, for the first time in decades, Congressional leaders have joined with the union movement to champion historic legislation to enable U.S. workers to join unions and negotiate contracts without employer harassment. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced the Employee Free Choice Act (S. 1925 and H.R. 3619). The Act is designed to help employees exercise their free choice whether to form a union free from employer coercion.

• Specifically, the Employee Free Choice Act does the following:
• Guarantees employee free choice through majority recognition.
• Facilitates initial labor agreements through mediation and arbitration.
• Provides more effective remedies against employer coercion.

The labor movement draws its strength from its ability to effectively organize. A strong labor movement is not only able to negotiate better contracts, they are able to protect those contracts and better represent our members in the political and legislative process. It is for these same reasons that we are urging Congress to support this important legislation and restore the rights of American workers to freely and voluntarily choose union representation.

Worker Safety
President Bush turned his back on millions of workers who suffer from ergonomic injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, when he supported and signed legislation repealing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s ergonomics standard. The special legislation, used to repeal the standards, also means that OSHA is prohibited from re-establishing standards unless Congress allows it. Anti-worker members of Congress voted to eliminate the safety guidelines after Bush administration made killing the standard a top priority. The OSHA ergonomics standard would have gone into effect in 2001 after a decade of fighting. The new standard was the most significant job safety rule ever issued by OSHA. While Bush and his big business allies won the congressional battle to kill ergonomics, the IAM will continue to stand with other unions and civil organizations to stop any further erosion of safety protections for workers.

Apprenticeships & Job training
The IAM supports state and federal funding for apprenticeship and job training programs which have joint participation between the employer and the IAM. The IAM has some of these programs currently in place around the country including; automotive, aerospace, and wood products.

Comp Time
This piece of legislation was cleverly labeled as “Family Time and Workplace Flexibility Act” (S. 317) by some and “Family Time Flexibility Act” (H.R. 1119) by others. While these titles sound worker-friendly, bills like this are not really friendly to workers at all. The GOP along with corporate America promoted this legislation as “family friendly” meant to allow workers to have more time with their families. The problematic nature of these bills becomes apparent when the worker discovers there are restrictions placed on how the comp time can be used. S. 317 and H.R. 1119 said that employees can use comp time as long as it does not “unduly disrupt the operations of the employer.” Everyone knows who will ultimately decide comp time scheduling: Employers. Additionally, nothing would prevent the employer from forcing an employee to take time off involuntarily or limiting whether a worker can use the compensatory time at all if it is burdensome to the workload.

Comp time in lieu of overtime is hardly a new idea. In both the 105th and 106th Congress, we had to block similar anti-worker, anti-family measures. Our message then still applies today: Comp time legislation invites employer abuse. Some employers in thinly capitalized industries—such as construction, garment-making and janitorial services—might permit their workers to accumulate comp time. Then, when the cumulative value of the comp time becomes too high, the firms pack up and leave workers uncompensated for extra hours they worked.

True employee flexibility?—This is not “flex time” legislation. Nothing in this legislation gives workers greater control over when the work, how long they work, and when they may take time off from work.

For many, time is money—Comp time is a luxury low-wage workers cannot afford. These workers are most likely to depend on overtime pay for subsistence. Who believes that there are not employers out there that would coerce low-wage workers to accept comp time instead of the premium overtime rate? Working families need more time and more money—certainly not less of either. If Congress is truly concerned about providing flexibility for workers, it should expand family and medical leave.

It is important to note that under existing law employers can allow scheduling adjustments so that employees can tend to family matters.

Fortunately, we were able to force the GOP to pull the “Family Time Flexibility Act” from the floor agenda last summer because it lacked the necessary votes for passage. However, we anticipate that corporate America will try to resurrect Comp Time in the 109th congress. The Legislative Department will continue pressuring representatives and senators to oppose this legislation.