WaPo ignores views of labor in article about labor
March 22, 2009 11:17 am ET by Jamison Foser
Today's Washington Post article about the Employee Free Choice Act notes "the widespread perception in Democrat-dominated Washington that there is not a level playing field between labor and business."
As if to prove the accuracy of that perception, the Post manages to devote nearly 1,000 words to the Act without ever once quoting or paraphrasing a representative of the labor movement. The Post did, however, manage to quote three CEOs and devote several paragraphs to anti-labor views like these:
Giving organizers the ability to use card check, [Starbucks CEO Howard] Schultz said, would lead to a slew of separate bargaining units at a company like his, leading to "havoc and significant cost and disruption." [Whole Foods CEO John] Mackey had an even grimmer view. "Armed with those weapons, you will see unionization sweep across the United States and set workplaces at war with each other," he said. "I do not think it would be a good thing."
Gee, why would anyone think there is not a level playing field between labor and business?
Furthermore, John Mackey, the Whole Foods CEO, is an anti-union conservative. The Post article leaves that out, and suggests otherwise by saying his company "likes to project a progressive image."
See this: "A notorious foe of unions, he's a staunch libertarian described by The New York Times Magazine as a man "who admires Ronald Reagan and prefers The Wall Street Journal editorial page to this newspaper's."
Luckily, this "third way" BS isn't fooling anyone except the anti-union media. The "compromise" involves giving the CEOs everything they want regarding union elections; it gives minor concessions regarding companies' abilities to intimidate and pressure pro-union employees (as though this wasn't something common-sense in the first place) while introducing new ways for companies to clamp down on workers during unionization.
And yeah, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is a pretty famous anti-union figure in the corporate world, of the sort who'd have hired the Pinkertons if this was a century ago. If I remember correctly, he most recently compared a unionized workplace to contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
Mackey compared unions to herpes: "It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover."
This "compromise" keeps the playing field tilted toward management, without binding arbitration on contracts, and without the option for majority sign-up.
You can just see where this will go, ending in a toothless bill that will fail to solve ANY of the present problems facing workers. And only workers get screwed, so who cares, right?Of particular concern is the removal of majority sign up – which exists under current law - and the removal of the arbitration provisions. Removing the arbitration provisions will allow companies to continue to stall and delay and refuse to negotiate a contract in good faith.
AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Bill Samuel reflects labor's concern:
The Employee Free Choice Act is about protecting the fundamental freedom of workers to bargain with their employers for a better life and to join a union without corporate interference and harassment.
The proposal being circulated by these companies falls short of meeting these standards.
We are open to discussing the legislation with parties who are legitimately concerned with protecting workers. However, a proposal coming from corporations, some of whom have their own history of violating workers' rights, is simply not an alternative that lives up to giving workers back the freedom to form unions.