Tammy Alonso's Blog

Left of Centre

Why I support EFCA

Considering the responses we’ve received to my earlier posting about the questionable polling data released by Susquehanna Polling & Research regarding Pennsylvanians’ attitudes toward “card-check,” I thought it would be a good idea to flesh out my position on the Employee Free Choice Act.

I’m sure it goes without saying that I wholeheartedly support the rights of workers to unionize to protect their interests and stand up for their rights. As our Founding Fathers were well aware, a system of checks and balances is the best one available to keep a check on power and protect the rights of all. Unions and organization are the best—and often only—defenses workers have against abuses and exploitation, and I don’t believe that anyone should have to endure exploitation at the hands of another.

If the current system was working, we wouldn’t be hearing about the constant horror stories faced by unprotected workers in non-unionized environments (Wal-Mart, anyone?). At the moment, EFCA is the best defense we have to offer to these people. If someone can come up with something better, I’d be happy to listen. But it needs to be now, not something we put on the back burner again for another decade or more.

As for the accusations that have been leveled at me about my lack of “real world” knowledge of the issues, well, I would beg to differ. I think I have a rather unique perspective on the issues.

Being from southwestern Pennsylvania, mill and mine country and the place where a lot of labor disputes occurred (Google “Homestead Steel Strike”), I’m well aware of often horrific history of treatment of workers by owners and management who knew they could get away with it because there was no one to stop them. This was the impetus for the labor movement in the first place. It wasn’t to put the screws to management, to destroy the economy, to socialize the country, or any of the other hyperbolic reasons being thrown around these days. It was to protect workers, who sorely needed protecting (and before you go trying to make the argument that “that was then, this is now, things are different,” I can assure you, human nature does not change).

Additionally, while my father, his brothers, and a number of other family members and friends, worked in the steel mills, the other side of my family owned and operated a rather successful auto dealership for decades and themselves employed a number of people along the way. When my great-uncles got too old to deal with the business any longer and decided to sell, my aunt, who’d been managing things for decades anyway, called a meeting of all of the employees, told them upfront what was happening, and promised to both keep them informed and to make every payday along the way, promises she kept.

A few years after the sale, my mother went to work for another local dealership also owned by a family, a very nice family who became not only her employers, but also our friends. However, friendship didn’t mean a thing when, a few years later, they decided to sell and never told the employees a thing. They heard rumors in the ether but weren’t actually informed until the deal had already gone through. My mother kept her job, that time, but just two years ago, after half a century in the business, she, along with every other employee of the then current owners, were given three days notice that the dealership would be closing for good. Even before the current automotive crisis, as a small franchise in a demographically undesirable area, their attempts to sell the dealership to another owner were turned down by GM. Their contract with the automaker had three more months until its expiration, so they could have stayed open at least long enough to give the employees, gee, I don’t know, a whole week’s notice. But they didn’t.

The bottom line is, you can’t always rely on the kindness and goodness of owners and managers to treat their workers with the respect, decency and dignity they deserve. And to those whose attitude seems to be that “those people should be happy with the crumbs they’re given,” well, I can’t really post here what I’d like to say to you—we can talk later.

But what I will say is that “those people” are human beings. Those people are your friends, families, neighbors and fellow citizens. And unfortunately, I think a lot of “those people” have become convinced that they really should be happy with the crumbs thrown their way, a situation we should all want to rectify.

If you can’t see your way clear to extend the basics of decency and respect to your fellow American, then you truly are part of the problem.

As for the supposed economic arguments against unionized workplaces, I’d point out that unions were very strong during the economic and political heyday of post-World War II America. And many of the corporate financial problems we’re witnessing today have more to do with lack of foresight, arrogance and a sense that the party was never going to end than they do with anything else.

Of course, skyrocketing health care costs have contributed more than just about anything to labor costs in recent years meaning U.S. companies can’t compete with those based in countries with government-provided health care and highlighting the crucial need to address our failing system.

Do unions have their problems? Yes, they do. Have they ever overstepped their bounds? Yes, they have. We lost one of our newspapers in Pittsburgh more than a decade back due to a refusal by union workers to accept the simple realities of the times. Unions are not perfect, and neither is EFCA. But neither are they the bogeymen and root of all evil they’ve been made out to be by those with their own agendas.

It’s unfortunate that we can’t just rely on each other’s basic goodness to keep the other guy’s interests in mind, but we can’t. As we have in our government, as we have in our judicial system, we must also have in our workforce an adversarial system that keeps power in check on both sides and leads us as close to a perfect solution as we’re ever going to get.