Push for 'Free Choice Act'
Perils of Unionizing Detailed

By ARI PAUL

Jesus Morales, a former truck driver at the Baldor food shipping company in The Bronx, said he never stood a chance. Even before considering supporting the organizing drive by Teamsters Local 202, he and other workers had to watch anti-union videos before entering their trucks.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow 'WE NEED THIS BILL': Former Baldor Specialty Foods driver Jesus Morales, center, told the City Council Civil Service and Labor Committee Feb. 28 that under current law his boss was able to fire him for associating with pro-union workers. Along with other activists, he testified in favor of a resolution supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

"They would brainwash us day after day after day after day," Mr. Morales said of the company's management. "This would be constant."

Council Looks to Help

Mr. Morales, who said he was fired for associating with pro-union workers, was one of the many union activists who testified before the City Council's Civil Service and Labor Committee Feb. 28 on a resolution supporting the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would create harsher penalties for employer violations of labor law when workers were engaged in organizing and contract negotiations. It would also make it easier for workers to unionize by merely requiring that they sign union cards, rather than going through a lengthy National Labor Relations Board election, which many labor leaders believe gives employers the ability to intimidate workers into voting against a union.

AFL-CIO Senior Field Representative Susan Bornstein told the committee that workers in the private sector organizing unions are regularly fired illegally and face anti-union coercion in the workplace under the existing law. It has resulted, she said, in many workplaces where there is a pro-union majority unable to get formally recognized.

Committee Chairman Joseph P. Addabbo assured those testifying that his committee would approve the measure and that it had the support of at least 18 of his colleagues, including Speaker Christine Quinn.

'Can't Talk About It'

Virginia Arce, a Verizon worker organizing for the Communications Workers of America, testified in favor of the act, saying that the current labor law governing private-sector employers allowed her boss to put a moratorium on union activity at her job site.

"Verizon has made it impossible to talk about the union at work," she said. "I have more freedom to talk about the union in Mexico than I do at Verizon."

Jean Sassine, a worker who clears streets for movie sets, said that although a majority of staff in his workplace signed United Auto Worker cards, their employer still would not negotiate or recognize them as a bargaining unit.

'Intense Level of Fear'

"If the Employee Free Choice Act were law, we would have a union today," he said.

Ms. Bornstein also noted that one major union trying to organize nearly 600 workers in the city could not find one to testify at the hearing, a sign that employer intimidation was high.

"That's how intense the level of fear is," she said.

The Employee Free Choice Act has bipartisan support in both houses of Congress but not enough to override a filibuster in the Senate or a promised veto by President Bush. Supporters of the bill believe a change in the White House will make it easier for the measure to be enacted. Both Democratic candidates for President, U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, voted in favor of the act; the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, voted against.

Secret Elections?

Critics of the act have said that union elections should be secret, just like government elections. But Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, saw a big distinction.

"You're not threatened with being fired," he said of political elections in a phone interview. "You're not subjected in your workplace all day long to captive audience meetings. There's really just no comparison between that experience and what happens when you run for office."