Ad campaign targets Employee Free Choice Act
So you think it’s easy to form a union? Better think again
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Have you seen the ads? Center for
Union Facts, a business-funded anti-
union group, has been running a pair
of television ads in Oregon and sev-
eral other states. One uses humor, the
other sarcasm, but their key message
is that “union bosses” are trying to
change federal law to force people to
join unions without a secret ballot
election.
The ads are running in states that
have competitive U.S. Senate races
this year, because the fate of the bill
the group opposes is in the hands of
the Senate. It’s called the Employee
Free Choice Act (EFCA). It’s a labor
law reform that would make it easier
for workers to join a union and get a
union contract. It passed the U.S.
House by a wide margin last year, and
a majority of U.S. senators support the
bill. But President Bush says he will
veto it if it ever reaches his desk. Re-
publicans led a filibuster when EFCA
came to the floor of the Senate. It
takes 60 votes to end a filibuster, and
there weren’t enough votes to do it.
Oregon Republican Gordon Smith
voted on the side to kill the Employee
Free Choice Act.
Federal law gives workers the right
to join a union. If you think workers
have an easy time exercising that
right, you’d be wrong.
Some employers voluntarily sign
union contracts in order to get skilled
union trades workers. But in most
workplaces, employers turn work-
places into war zones when union or-
ganizers appear.
Consider the case of Rogue Valley
Door, in Grants Pass. It is a privately-
owned maker of wooden doors, with
around 250 production employees.
Ken Smith is a laborer there. When
he saw his wife, who works at Safe-
way, defended by her union, United
Food and Commercial Workers Local
555, he decided he wanted a union
too, and in October asked his wife’s
union rep for advice. He was given a
number for the United Steelworkers
(USW), and he talked to organizer
Pete Passarelli, based out of Auburn,
Washington.
Passarelli and Albany Steelworkers
leader Ron Rodgers met with Smith
and other Rogue Valley Door workers
boards were covered in glass and
locked.
Several company-wide meetings
were held at which employees were
shown anti-union videos.
Managers announced a new work
rule: Employees were forbidden to
talk about the union. They could
speak against the union, and they
could speak about other things unre-
lated to work, but pro-union talk to
co-workers was prohibited or limited
to lunch breaks. Two employees were
given written warnings for breaking
the rule.
Rogue Valley Door, like most non-
union employers, lacks a formal pay
scale. Pay, work assignments, promo-
tions, even continued employment,
depend on managers’ good will. Open
support of the union campaign would
not endear workers to management.
So the union campaign depended on
workers’ willingness to risk their own
future in the company. And the union
didn’t exactly look powerful; union
staff couldn’t even come onto the
property.
to tell them what it would take to get a
union. They’d have to form a commit-
tee, and get a majority of their co-
workers to sign union authorization
cards, then request a government-run
election, and get a majority vote in the
election.
In late November, Passarelli,
Rodgers and several others stood out-
side the plant gate during the after-
noon shift change and handed out
fliers announcing a union meeting that
night. About 25 workers showed up at
at a nearby pizza joint. The next night,
about 30 came. Pro-union workers
formed an organizing committee.
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But company owner John Dunkin
was also handed the union flier that
first day. And he didn’t want employ-
ees to have a union. Right away, man-
agement hit back hard to stop the
campaign.
The union had no contact list of
workers. Union staff weren’t allowed
on the property. Only Rogue Valley
workers themselves would be able to
talk to other workers about joining the
union. And managers put a chill on
that.
In front of workers, managers re-
moved pro-union materials from the
break room. The employee bulletin
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A handful of pro-union workers
wore union T-shirts that said “United
we bargain, divided we beg.”
Rogue Valley Door managers ap-
proached workers individually and
asked them if they supported the
union, and whether they knew which
of their co-workers supported the
union. Pro-union workers swallowed
their pride and played dumb. Anti-
union workers took the chance to get
ahead and named names. It became
harder for workers to trust each other.
It became scarier for pro-union work-
ers to appeal to co-workers to sign
union cards.
Known pro-union workers were
watched closely while they worked,
followed when they left their work ar-
eas, even watched on their way to the
bathroom to see if they talked with
anyone. Managers monitored their
conversations with co-workers.
With the housing downturn, sup-
port for the union looked even riskier.
Fewer doors were being sold. Rogue
Valley Door began laying workers off.
(Turn to Page 9)
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