I started the organizing drive from scratch with few worker contacts within the facility
and no “neutrality agreement.” In a neutrality agreement, a company agrees to
actually abide by the law and not interfere with an organizing drive. In other
words, they’re not allowed to fire workers for organizing, convince workers that
they don’t need a union, etc. In exchange, the union agrees to keep their
campaign quiet, not engage the public, the media, outside groups, and the
companies’ clients in the campaign. Companies usually only agree to remain
neutral when they see a real threat to their brand image, face considerable
public pressure in the past, or see something in it for themselves. Companies
rarely enter into neutrality agreements because they actually want to abide by
the law and allow workers to organize freely.
Anyway, I used the few contacts I
had within the nursing home to figure out if and what workers’ major complaints
or issues were. I also developed a list of new contacts, found the
leaders and people who would be active in talking to their co-workers, and
identified the workers who would be against the union or were close to
management. This strategy worked for awhile but eventually it hit a wall because I had no ability to speak to workers one on one since I did not have most of their contact information. One thing
was clear, however. These nursing home workers, particularly the certified
nursing assistants, face sweatshop-like conditions. You wouldn’t believe what
these hardworking caregivers, who pay for vocational training, have to go
through on a daily basis for little over $10 an hour. These are people who care
for our grandparents and go into the field because they honestly want to help
the sick and aging residents but they can’t, because of the pressure put on them
to act like machines. Vallejo Care Center has MANY issues and the majority of
workers wanted CHANGE! But could they get the changes they desired under current
labor law??? No.
I was advised to use a new strategy when organizing came to a standstill. I assigned the
leaders to start collecting signatures for a petition for workers to sign in
support of a union. Within a couple of weeks, nearly 50% of the workers had
signed on!! They really wanted a union ASAP! Under EFCA, workers would have already been able to register their union,
without going through a long and grueling election process. But under current
labor law, that was only the beginning of the struggle for workers. (The main
reason 50% came so quickly, was because nearly all of the evening and night
shift workers signed on. These workers have less contact with management and
were less scared of publicly supporting the union.)
As soon as the leaders started to
approach day shift workers, the !@#$% hit the fan. Management got a hold of the
petition or some of the flyers and started their “boss campaign”. They hired the
most notorious and expensive union busting firm out there and held a meeting
with pizza during work hours to scare the workers out of unionizing. They
passed out nasty flyers about union staff salaries which were fallacious and
distorted. They began to talk to workers individually, telling them lies about
dues, making us look like scam artists. They fired two obvious union supporters,
one who had been there for over 10 years and had no life outside of work!! With
a great deal of effort, these workers got there jobs back, thank god. The
company also tried to play the good cop and gave many workers a large
raise. These actions are completely typical
of the average union organizing drive.
Surprisingly enough, most of the
workers who originally signed the petition, continued to support the union
through the “boss campaign” because they could see through management’s lies.
But they were most definitely weakened and disillusioned. They were less eager
to act because they thought it would be impossible to reach the goal of 80% of
people signed onto the petition because so many of their co-workers had become
scared or swayed by management. Why did we need 80% onto the petition even
though the law requires that 30% can sign onto a petition to file for an
election with the NLRB? Because NLRB elections favor management so blatantly
that at least 25% of workers are likely to vote “no” or not vote at all after the wrath of an election campaign, even if
they were supporters from the start thanks to common management scare tactics.
After I left my job for personal reasons, I heard that the campaign was
abandoned because workers simply couldn’t move beyond 60%. All of that momentum
and enthusiasm, for NOTHING.
Well, I shouldn’t say, nothing. The
supporters and leaders who stayed strong throughout will always know that
collective action does get a response from management. And they’ll know not fall
for management’s lies that "they care for their workers but they can’t afford to
give them a raise". After all, the company paid thousands to hire a union busting
consultant and gave them a far greater raise than they had for many years, in
response to the organizing drive. Workers at that nursing home now know that the US needs EFCA to create
a fair playing field between workers and unions. As it is now, “secret ballot
elections” are nothing more than subsidies to union busting law firms and slimy
managers.
Take action now to PASS EFCA and allow workers to
freely make improvements at work!!!!