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It is irrelevant why the individual does not vote. His non-vote has the effect of a no vote. Choosing not to participate still affects the outcome of the event. It is functionally the same as voting.
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Whether you call it a statement or a vote doesn’t change the result of a sufficient number of people doing it. To use yor example,
your statement of support for gay marriage does not have any power, because nobody counts it to determine whether to change the state constitution. They count your vote. No amount of statement in either direction changes anything. However a statement to support the union does in fact have power, because a sufficient number of such statements actually changes things.
Coercion is not just holding someone up to a wall and threatening to kick them in the jibblies if they don’t vote your way. It can be as simple as your friends ignoring you at the bar after your shift.
How many kids start smoking or [whatever] in order to fit in, be ‘cool’, and not be ostracized by their peers?
How many people evaded their peers/coworkers questions about who they were voting for this past election, because they were voting differently than their little clique?
And coming from the other direction, don’t overlook pressure from management.
Right now, the cards just indicate a desire to have the vote, not your position. You could want a union, or want a vote so you can finally get the union people to shut up about it already. With this change, they become the vote, and there is going to be an awful lot of pressure on those who haven’t yet voted from both sides… From pro union employees to reach that 50%+1, and from management to avoid it.
Lets put it this way. There are 101 employees at the company you work for. 50/50 split so far, and everyone knows you are the only person who hasn’t voted. Lets pretend you are undecided as well. Is that a position you would ever want to be in?
I don’t know why these people are buying the union line when a majority of Americans want to keep the secret ballot
Survey
Just whose side are the Democrat politicians on anyway?
"Officer, I’d like to report a union thug coming to my house to discuss an upcoming vote. No, he didn’t threaten me, he just complemented me on my spouse, beautiful children, house, car, and rabbit. "
This conversation wouldn’t happen if votes were kept secret. I’ve been harassed by union representatives before and that is for not signing the card. It’s easy to sign a card to avoid intimidation and then voting how I really feel if it is a secret ballot.
Secret ballots are fundamental in the concept of unfettered voting. You haven’t made a case that would justify giving up a method that allows voting without retaliation.
I’ll ask you again, do you think your vote in political elections should be made public?
Coercion need not (and is unlikely to) take the form of a knock down drag out brawl in which the 2 sides compare numbers beforehand and then have at it if their chances look good.
What if the pro-union guys are all senior employees? What if refusal to sign results in you getting put at the bottom of the list for overtime hours? How about bad peer reviews? What if your car gets keyed? OK that’s pretty minor. There’s a multitude of things to do, short of beating people.
82% of their contributors?
You would think.
This “education” is one thing if it’s educating someone between Barack Obama or John McCain. But when the institution that stands between you and the unemployment line starts “educating” you on how you should vote-- it doesn’t matter how bad you want a union-- you’re scared enough to do what your boss says.
Imagine if federal agents went to houses and told people if they voted for Obama, they would be contributing to the downfall of the United States government.
Most union campaigns do not organize around fear and intimidation. Organizers are not forcing people to join or sign cards or vote a certain way; our number one goal is to build an organization.[sup]*[/sup] If we built unions out of trickery, intimidation, lies and fear, these workers would have no reason to stay together after the organizing campaign was done. They would decertify, which is a relatively easy thing to do (easier than certifying, anyway). Where’s the benefit for unions to spend time and resources organizing a union through less-than-upright methods, only to have it decertify in a year or sooner?
We’re non-profits. We’re not looking to rake in the dough. The dough that’s brought in through dues goes to grow the organization and service our members. Again, why would we waste our resources to trick and intimidate workers to form a union they don’t want, only to have them leave 6, 12, 18 months later? Unions put out resources to organize workers that actually need and want a union.
In an NLRB election, the employer stands to benefit long-term by waging an aggressive and expensive “Vote no” campaign based around intimidation, trickery and half-truths. In an NLRB election AND card-check situation, a union loses in the long-term by waging an aggressive and expensive “Vote yes” campaign based around intimidation, trickery and half-truths, as the workers will feel no need to stay with the union once the campaign is done.
- Does thuggish and intimidating organizing take place? Of course. Bad shit happens every day. But honestly, that’s a pretty 20th century view of union organizing. What worked in 1950, 1975 and even 1990 doesn’t work so well in 2008, and unions are starting to see that and organize around issues and workers’ motivations rather than “Sign this card if you know what’s good for you.”
Upon preview: Flying Dutchman, you’ll excuse me if I fart in the general direction of a survey about organized labor which was conducted by a group founded by Newt Gingrich and which is currently taking up the GOP mantra of “Drill, baby, drill.”
Take them to Old Country Buffet
Tell your supervisor since they’re probably the ones that control OT hours anyway. And if you’re supervisor’s being a dick, talk to his/her supervisor.
So the minority who want to unionize just so happen to be the people responsible for the entirety of your peer-review? And don’t peer reviews usually have some type of redress mechanism to dispute them? Seriously… Are these real concerns? They seem pretty minor and easily dealt with.
How about this R&R Partners and the Summit Group poll Almost the same numbers.
One point I think hasn’t been made too clear here and bears emphasizing:
If the employer can document intimidation and threats from the union organizers in the campaign, they can take it to the NLRB. If they win the case, card check goes out the window and the secret ballot is back in, no matter how many people in the unit signed cards.
That right there is a very strong incentive for union organizers (solidarity, Happy!) to operate on the up-and-up. They’d be wasting their time trying to strong-arm unorganized workers because the minute the employers get a whiff, it’s straight to the NLRB and their efforts to get 50% +1 are for naught. And what employer isn’t going to be watching the shop floor like a hawk for that kind of thing?
In general, it’s good to remember one thing: The bosses are organized. They have their company and the law to back them up. The shop floor workers, the ones actually making the decision, don’t have anything similar to back them up. Anything that makes it easier for workers to organize is a good thing in my opinion and I will be very glad to see the Employee Free Choice Act pass. I hope Obama does it.
In the interests of full disclosure…
Jeff Skinner
President
Translators and Interpreters Guild
CWA Local 32-100
Ah, yes, a poll commissioned by a Chamber of Commerce. Stellar find.
I imagine the poll numbers might be different if the question were, say, “Do you support workers having the right to form a union without employer intimidation?” It’s all in the wording, my friend.
I love the loaded first question:
How can anyone disagree with that question without saying “I believe that secret ballot elections are not the cornerstone of democracy”? This is a totally loaded question, and I don’t believe that most (or possibly any) of the respondents actually know the language of the bills in question.
This survey, and the previous one linked, are both just self-serving crap from interested parties.
And this thread, and most threads about trade/labor unions on the SDMB, shows that quite a few people know little to nothing about unions, what they do, or how they work.
[quote=“Happy_Lendervedder, post:48, topic:474272”]
Most union campaigns do not organize around fear and intimidation. QUOTE] Really? I guess you haven’t had someone try to get you to sign up as you drive away from work while another person with a clipboard writes down your license plate number.
You haven’t provided a reason why voting should be public domain.
Oh for crying out loud. How are you going to prove that? And if you tried you would be painting an even larger target on your chest.
Nobody representing this proposal has made a case for open ballots. If people want a union and vote it in with secret ballots then the current policy works. All this does is expose workers to unneccessary scrutiny.
Ah, the bait and switch technique. very clever.
The relevant survey
I take it that you must be in the tiny minority on this question and wish to take that right away.
Yes or No ?
Your question does not accurately reflect the language of the bill(s) under discussion. Therefore, I have no answer to your question.
Also, the only bait & switch (or other misleading technique) is used by the survey. The question I quoted has a statement and a question all in one sentence. You either agree with the whole thing, or you disagree with the whole thing. That’s a setup.
[quote=“Magiver, post:54, topic:474272”]
Point to where I said “No union campaigns organize around fear and intimidation.” I am sorry for your experience, but I actually admit that many campaigns in the past did employ some degree of this technique, and a few still do, but I can tell you from first-hand experience and observation that most do not.
I assume by “public domain” you mean that the employer can see who signed a card. Well, they can do that under the system now, as once the employees petition for an election (with 30% of the unit signing cards), the company has the right to see the cards.
Many public employers (states, counties and cities) already have what is considered “card check” (50% of the unit plus one sign cards and file for recognition). The workers that sign the cards in these campaigns are aware that the employer can see the cards once they are filed, but they are okay with that since once the cards are filed, they have the strength of a union behind them. If the cards are never filed, the company never sees them. And for the record, the names of card signers isn’t “public record;” no one can FOIA to see who signed and who didn’t, and no one’s passing out lists of people who never signed cards. In the 70-plus years that public employees have been organizing, these “black lists” just haven’t happened. Once the workers actually have recognition and a contract, they couldn’t give two shits who didn’t sign before.
Proof of intimidation is the burden of the employer; presumably if they’re watching the shop floor like a hawk they won’t need to rely employee testimony to make their case.
What about the opposing side of a union campaign? Do you assert that the employer’s efforts against organizing a union are 100% free of intimidation and coercion? Are those solely the purview of union organizers?
According to an Economic Policy Institute briefing from 2005, if every worker who wanted union representation actually got it, the unionization rate among the workforce in general would have been 58%. In 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total unionized share of the workforce was 12.1%.
Essentially (and I know I’m comparing two different years of data but I strongly doubt there was much of a change in attitudes towards unions between 2005 and 2007) only 1 out of every 5 workers who want union representation actually have it. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the current policy, in my opinion. I’d also like to point out that the EPI briefing indicates that workers see managemet opposition as the biggest obstacle to obtaining union representation - that smacks to me of coercion, if not intimidation!
Stupid question: What if there are only TWO employees in a workplace? If one wants to go union and the other one doesn’t, what happens then?