http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/12/04/heres-why-we-need-employee-free-choiceMarcy Rein, a retired member of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 29 who worked in the ILWU Organizing Department for most of the Blue Diamond campaign, describes how the Blue Diamond workers’ years-long effort to gain a union recently ended with a loss. Rein also vividly describes how that experience demonstrates yet again why we need passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
For four years, the workers on the Organizing Committee at the Blue Diamond Growers (BDG) plant in Sacramento, Calif., had done everything they could to avoid being where they were on the night of Nov. 19. They campaigned hard for a free and fair choice on whether to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). But there they were watching the vote count at the end of an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) run under the same old broken rules.
They stood around in the huge bare room where the election had taken place, in a cold storage building that doubles as the site of the annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway. Sounds bounced off the concrete floor and disappeared on the way to the 40-foot ceiling—sighs, a stray cell phone quickly squelched, a hiccup of distress.
From the moment the NLRB agent started counting the ballots, one “Yes” for the union followed by four “No” votes, it looked like the vote was going south. The final tally, 142 for the union to 353 against, only proved what the workers and the ILWU staff already knew: Only the rare union drive can survive the steady pounding of all-out union-busting that always comes before an election, and only changes to labor law will make the freedom to organize real. Randy Reyes, a forklift driver with 11 years at BDG, described it this way:
Management knows which people to pick on, like a predator trying to slam the people. Their tactics put fear in people’s minds and break the essence of their spirits. If the Employee Free Choice Act passes, it would eliminate 99.9 percent of the companies’ strong-arm tactics.
Randy and his co-workers do the work in the largest almond processing plant in the world. When they began organizing in September 2004, the sorters and packers—the largest and lowest-paid group of workers in the plant—had seen only $2 per hour in raises since 1990. Seasonal workers with as much as 38 years’ seniority didn’t qualify for paid time off because they didn’t log enough hours in a year even though they had more than 30 years of service. Carpal tunnel and other injuries were as common as dust in the plant. Many supervisors dished out daily disrespect and rudeness.
FULL story at link.
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