Jan. 02, 2005 - 19:53 PST

THE WONDERING JEW

Losing Ground

In the Sunday edition of The Register-Guard is an article by Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times. Bothers on old, retired working man. In Part:

LABOR BOARD CHURNING OUT CONSERVATIVE RULINGS

Union leaders and academic experts question a shift that favors employers over workers

The rulings of the National Labor Relations Board have poured out one after another in recent months, with many decisions tilting in favor of employers."

"The Republican-dominated board has made it more difficult for temporary workers to unionize and for unions to obtain financial information from companies during contract talks. It has ruled graduate students working as teaching assistants do not have the right at private universities, and it has given companies greater flexibility to use a powerful anti-union weapon -- locking out workers -- in labor disputes."

And in a decision that will affect 87 percent of American workers, the board has denied nonunion employees the right to have a co-worker present when managers call them in for investigative or disciplinary meetings."

"The party-line decisions have been applauded by the Republican Party's business base, which sees them as bringing balance after rulings that favored labor during the Clinton administration. But some academic experts on labor relations say the recent rulings are so hostile to unions and to collective bargaining that they run counter to the goals of the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that gave Americans the right to form unions."

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The article is quite lengthy and contains much pro and cons by the civilian professors and conservatives. Academic professors have their say too.

My opinion is that the working person, be they male or female, young or old, hi-tech or good old blue collar are in the process of being put behind the eight-ball.

And it looks as if the corporate part of our country will soon have working people of all classifications in a postion of having to live under the gun of the "company," continuously.

I do agree that over the past there has been union abuse of a company's rights, but compared to the centuries of abuse working people suffered from employers, all I can say I guess, is they sure had some professional teaching from the employers.

Just one thing more to mention here is the fact that a non-union employee can no longer be allowed, "to have a right to have a co-worker present when managers call them in for inverstigative or disciplinary meetings."

That takes the cake in my mind. One of the protections I had as a union member was that right. Just one thing to mention here, the place I last worked the guy next to the top dog in the factory made it a practise of firing a worker as he walked in the plant. The union managed to have those jobs reinstated with back pay. In my own personal experience my job was saved by a union-steward's attendance at a meeting headed toward my dismissal, it was only that he was there that I was not fired. Attendance was the thing in question, cause was my absence the week after a blizzard because of sickness. I had made it in to work through great difficulties during the blizzard but in the process caught a case of severe bronchitis which put me out of action for several days. Each day absent another count of absenteeism. Having seen labor questions from an early age, and the things workers had to cope with prior to the NLRB it is easy for me to think we are Losing Ground . . . . . . .

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