Defending the Right to Unionize

When Teresa Joyce and her coworkers at an AT&T Wireless call center in Lebanon, Virginia, tried to form a union four years ago, they wound up on the receiving end of threats and intimidation from their employer. “Once word reached management that we were trying to organize, they did everything they could to stop us from exercising our right to form a union,” recalls Joyce. “Our supervisors constantly threatened that AT&T Wireless would leave our town and that we would lose our jobs.” Some of her coworkers were fired because of their support for a union.

Then, when Cingular Wireless bought the call center, everything changed. Cingular agreed to let the employees decide for themselves whether to form a union. In 2005, a majority of workers signed cards authorizing a union, and as Cingular had promised, they got one. “Today, supervisors treat us with respect,” says Joyce. “We’ve been able to bargain for fair wage increases and affordable health care benefits.”

The purpose of the Employee Free Choice Act is to ensure that all workers have that same opportunity – if they choose – to join together to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The bill says that when a majority of workers sign cards authorizing a union, they get a union. Under current law, employers can veto a union even when workers choose one; the legislation would put a stop to that.

The fact is that examples like AT&T Wireless are too numerous, while examples like Cingular are too few. Workers are routinely denied the right to determine for themselves whether to form a union. Employers routinely intimidate, harass, coerce, reassign, or even fire workers who support a union. A recent Center for Economic and Policy Research report found that as many as one in five union activists are fired for legal organizing activities.

Corporate executives routinely negotiate lavish pay and retirement benefits for themselves – but workers have little leverage to negotiate for a better life for themselves and their families. If we want to strengthen America’s middle class, then we have got to restore workers’ bargaining rights.