If you want to know just how broken the system that's supposed to protect workers' right to organize has become, read this story in today's Las Vegas Sun about three Wal-Mart workers in Nevada who tried to join together in a union -- back in 2000:
Seven years ago, as Wal-Mart corporate executives proclaimed Nevada ground zero in an attempt to battle unionizing the giant retailer, three workers at Wal-Mart stores in Southern Nevada took the first steps toward organizing. Avis Hammond, Norine Sorensen and Diana Griego talked to fellow employees about the union and passed out fliers in front of stores, activities clearly allowed under federal labor laws.
Management stepped in. The three employees were told to stop. They were questioned, threatened and insulted, according to later findings by the government. Wal-Mart stripped one worker of his union fliers and denied another a promotion...
Last month - seven years, two months and seven days after the first charge was filed - the NLRB issued its ruling: Wal-Mart acted illegally.
The punishment: The retailer must pay lost wages to one of the employees, which apparently comes to a few thousand dollars. It also must post notices in its three stores disclosing its federal labor law violations.
The workers followed the rules; the company didn't. And what's the result? The workers endure seven years of unfair treatment; the company pays a tiny fine and hangs signs reading "oops" in legalese in their stores.
In America, people who work hard and play by the rules are supposed to be protected, and people who break the law are supposed to be punished. But when workers try to organize, they too often find that it's the other way around -- that the system is rigged against them.
So, how do we fix it? The first step would be for Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would provide workers with a process for organizing in their workplace that's less open to abuse by their employers than the current system is, and provide much stronger remedies for those workers whose employers try to abuse their rights anyway.