In Midwest, fight over labor unions to be at heart of 2012 election

Although labor unions have had some reservations about President Obama, they're still looking to him as their best ally in the 2012 election. Meanwhile, Republicans who are hoping to further curb unions are putting stock in Mitt Romney.

In this June 8 file photo, President Obama talks about the economy in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. Four years ago, Obama won the upper Midwest, where union membership is densest. But since then, Republicans in this part of the United States have targeted labor rights.
(Carolyn Kaster/AP/File)

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By Mark Guarino

Chicago

The fight over labor unions in the Midwest is a big reason why this region is shaping up to be a major battleground in the general election this fall.

Four years ago, Barack Obama won the upper Midwest, where union membership is densest. But since then, Republicans in this part of the United States have targeted labor rights. Legislation curbed bargaining rights in Wisconsin and made Indiana a "right to work" state. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a law that limited collective-bargaining rights for all public-sector workers, although voters repealed it last year.

Moreover, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has proposed cuts to state pensions and closures of prisons, which has rankled organized labor because it would eliminate thousands of public jobs.

Confronted with such moves, unions have also mobilized. In Michigan, they're trying to put a measure on the November ballot that would make right-to-work legislation unconstitutional.

And overall, unions and their supporters are now spending big money: Whereas political-action committees representing unions parceled out $73.1 million for political activity in 2008, they've spent almost $2 billion since that time, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

Although unions have had some reservations about Mr. Obama, they're still looking to him as their best ally. Meanwhile, Republicans who are hoping to further curb unions are putting stock in Mitt Romney.

"The Midwest is absolutely crucial in the presidential race," says Jeff Hauser, spokesman with the AFL-CIO. "Those are not states that can be taken for granted."
Since Obama took office, the numbers for union membership have shrunk. Nationally between 2008 and 2011, public and private union membership dropped by 3.3 percent. The numbers in the Midwest are more dramatic: a 14.5 percent slide in Wisconsin, 13.9 percent in Indiana, 12.9 in Michigan, 9.7 in Ohio, 8.1 in Pennsylvania, and 6.7 in Illinois, according to UnionStats.com.

Mr. Hauser says that four of the six states that the AFL-CIO plans to focus heavily on ahead of the election are in the Midwest: Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and the western half of Pennsylvania. The strategy will be to pursue undecided voters through grass-roots organizing.

The economic uncertainty in the Midwest is expected to galvanize voter turnout, which is expected to help Obama, says labor historian Mike Smith of Wayne State University in Detroit.

"I would not be surprised if there was greater union turnout than what we had four years ago because so much has happened to labor unions in the Midwest, especially if you had thousands of members in each state who lost their jobs during the crisis," he says. "They're a group to be reckoned with."

But enthusiasm for Obama and other Democrats is expected to be somewhat blunted in certain areas of the Midwest where unions have felt betrayed, says Henry Bayer, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Among other things, such betrayal stems from Obama's absence and the lack of financial support from the national Democratic Party during the recent gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin, in which Gov. Scott Walker (R) retained his seat.

Still, such shortcomings don't amount to enough for unions to abandon Democrats for Republicans, labor experts say. "The fact is, the labor movement at large has not been happy with Obama because he hasn't done enough for them; but on the other hand, what's the alternative?" Mr. Smith says.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0724/In-Midwest-fight-over-labor-unions-to-be-at-heart-of-2012-election

Facebook, freedom and thin-skinned bosses

By Bruce Barry, Special to CNN

November 11, 2010 -- Updated 1434 GMT (2234 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Bruce Barry: Losing private-sector job over a Facebook remark doesn't violate freedom of speech
• Employers shouldn't view offhand remarks on Facebook as threats, he writes
• Barry: National Labor Relations Board says comments may be protected under labor law
• Workers shouldn't forfeit rights, he says, and thin-skinned bosses can scare away talent

Editor's note: Bruce Barry is professor of management and sociology at Vanderbilt University and author of "Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace" (Berrett-Koehler, 2007).

Nashville, Tennessee (CNN) -- The recent news item about a Connecticut worker fired for Facebook postings that annoyed her employer, like other accounts of employees sacked for private speech, was bound to draw a lot of attention. Americans hold First Amendment rights to free speech as a kind of sacrosanct birthright, and for many of us the idea that you can lose your job for expressing private thoughts away from work offends the core principle of freedom of expression.

In fact, though, firing a worker for off-the-job speech that unsettles an employer is pretty routine, and for the most part very legal. The First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights protect us from infringements on our liberties by acts of government, not from the oppressive acts of nongovernmental actors such as private-sector employers.

Combine that with the labor law concept of "employment at will," which makes it possible to fire someone without due process for just about anything short of discrimination, and you are left with an American workplace where free expression has scarcely more moral credibility than employee theft. A particularly eye-catching example is an Alabama woman who lost her job -- with no legal recourse -- during the 2004 election season because her Republican boss didn't like the John Kerry bumper sticker on her car in the factory parking lot.

Widespread use by just about everyone of online networks and social media opens new opportunities for workers to engage in personal expressive activity that might arouse the notice and disapproval of one's employer, and by extension opportunities for touchy or paranoid employers to police and punish essentially harmless extracurricular speech.

So in a sense, the situation involving Dawnmarie Souza, the Connecticut emergency medical technician fired by an ambulance services firm for posting negative comments about her boss on Facebook, is just the latest skirmish in an ongoing conflict between employers' desire to keep workers in line and the rights of employees to live their private expressive lives without unwarranted employer interference.

Holding a job should not require giving up your right to an expressive private life.
--Bruce Barry

Fired for Facebook?

Dare to trash your boss on Facebook?

RELATED TOPICS

• Facebook Inc.
• First Amendment Rights
• U.S. National Labor Relations Board
• Labor Law

But there's a wrinkle that makes this case important: the involvement of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which contends that Souza's Facebook comments could be protected activity under labor law. Americans don't enjoy general free speech protections against infringement by a private employer (with some limited exceptions, such as certain kinds of whistle-blowing). But federal labor law does grant union-eligible workers the right to engage in "concerted activity" for the purpose of "mutual aid or protection" -- essentially, to communicate with each other about working conditions and terms of employment. Those same federal laws bar employers from interfering with workers' efforts to improve their work situations.

If Souza had dissed her boss in, say, a blog post or a letter to the editor, her expressive act would likely earn no protection against her employer's wrath. But on Facebook her comments catalyzed responses from and interaction with some of her co-workers. That online "conversation" involving Souza and other employees of the same firm is what the NLRB alleges could amount to protected concerted activity. If the courts agree (at this point it's just a charge by the NLRB, with a hearing slated for early next year) then Souza's dismissal was illegal.

When this case does reach a courtroom, lawyers will tussle over the nature of social media sites. Does interaction within a closed Facebook circle of friends amount to private conversation, or are negative comments about one's job or boss on Facebook the equivalent of a public statement that could affect a firm's reputation? Does it matter how big one's network is? How many co-workers have to chime in to the conversation to make it "concerted" activity?

Until this works its way through the courts, employment lawyers are advising corporate clients to ensure that employee policies regarding internet use are not written so broadly that they chill workers' exercise of their associational rights under labor law.

Souza's situation turns more on labor law protections than on constitutional free-speech rights because she worked for a private-sector employer. The First Amendment does afford more protection to public-sector workers, but government employees reading this shouldn't get their hopes up. Federal court decisions along with developments in management practice have combined to make even the public-sector workplace rather inhospitable to employee free-speech claims.

Consider the cautionary tale of Ashley Payne, a Georgia public school teacher forced to resign last year when administrators learned in an anonymous email about pictures of her on Facebook holding an alcoholic beverage during a trip to Europe. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Payne kept her network settings private, and never friended any students. A year later, as her case crawls through the legal system and she awaits her day in court, Payne is still unable to find a teaching position.

A common reaction among working professionals to stories such as Souza's and Payne's is to advise people to manage their online presence and their digital footprints more carefully and prudently. Avoid giving your employer a reason to frown on your online expressive activity, goes the argument, even when you do it on your own time, on your own device, and on private networks. This is reasonable advice to the extent that it equates to "avoid being really stupid," but it's unfortunate advice if it counsels individuals to suppress their own private expressive life as a career strategy.

To be sure, employers need not tolerate any and all extracurricular speech by workers that might genuinely pose a legitimate threat to the firm's interests or to its workplace harmony. If I worked for CNN, with a spare-time hobby maintaining the web site timewarnerisevil.com, it certainly shouldn't behoove my employer to retain my services in the name of some abstract notion of off-work freedom of personal expression. Employers need not allow workplaces to become debating societies or free-for-alls for hostility and harassment.

But it's troublesome when employers favor a management culture so bent on predictability and control that even mild or tangential departures from expressive conformity are treated with suspicion and rebuke. Employees will kvetch about jobs and bosses until the day there no longer are jobs and bosses, and enlightened employers understand that new technological vehicles for said kvetching will inevitable emerge and evolve.

Holding a job should not require giving up your right to an expressive private life, even if you might be prone to the occasional untoward remark about the people who sign your paycheck. Cultivating a thin-skinned managerial impulse to treat workers' expressive activities as existential threats to the enterprise isn't how you manage a workforce; it's how you chase talent away to your competitors.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bruce Barry.

Union election ordered at Foxwoods casino

By Stephen Singer
Hartford, Connecticut (AP) 11-07

The National Labor Relations Board during late October ordered a union election at Foxwoods Resort Casino, which has been targeted by the United Auto Workers in a drive to organize 3,000 dealers.

The decision could set the stage for one of the first unions at a tribal casino. Foxwoods, one of the largest casinos in the world, has 340,000 square feet of gambling space in a 4.7 million-square foot complex.

Peter Hoffman, regional director of the NLRB’s regional office in Hartford, rejected the argument by Foxwoods owners, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, that the tribe’s employment law has jurisdiction in the matter.
“In reaching this conclusion, I have fully considered but find no merit to the employer’s claim that its ‘inherent authority’ to regulate employment and labor relations on its tribal lands precludes” the NLRB’s jurisdiction in this matter, Hoffman said.

Hoffman also said he found “particularly unpersuasive” a claim by the Mashantuckets that a strike against the casino would severely disrupt the tribe’s ability to provide essential services to its members.

A federal appeals court ruled earlier this year that Indian casinos are bound by the NLRB, and Hoffman cited that ruling in his decision.

The Mashantuckets said in a statement that the NLRB does not have jurisdiction “as the tribe is the governing body which has the inherent authority to regulate employment on its reservation and it has historically done so.”

Spokesman Bruce MacDonald said the issue is not about a worker’s right to organize.

“The issue is one of respecting the tribe as a government,” he said.

Foxwoods has 14 days to file a request with the NLRB in Washington for a review. MacDonald said tribal officials have not yet decided whether to appeal.

Bob Madore, director of UAW Region 9A, said the decision is a victory for Foxwoods employees.

“We were confident we would win this case,” he said. “It’s simple: Regardless of where you work, you have a right to form your own union. That’s the law, and that’s why the NLRB ruled in favor of an election.”

UAW officials during September filed for the election, saying it won a “supermajority” of the 3,000 dealers who signed cards backing a union drive. At least 30 percent of employees of a proposed bargaining unit must sign cards to force a vote, which is supervised by the NLRB.

A date for an election has not been set.

Foxwoods opposed the union’s petition to the NLRB for an election, prompting a hearing and the ruling that was issued.

Madore said UAW Region 9A, which represents university employees, legal aid workers and others in New England, New York City and Puerto Rico, decided to start its union campaign at Foxwoods with the 3,000 dealers. About 11,500 people work at a variety of jobs at Foxwoods, which opened in 1992.

“You walk before you can run,” he said.

Jacqueline Little, a poker dealer at Foxwoods for 15 years, said she was ecstatic at the news of the NLRB decision.

Little, of Coventry, R.I., said health insurance is inadequate and annual pay raises do not keep up with inflation. She even criticized cigarette smoke in the casino, which is exempt from Connecticut’s no-smoking laws.

Foxwoods and the nearby Mohegan Sun have been in the sights of unions for years. In 1999, the president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union declared Indian-operated casinos the new frontier for union organizing.

Both casinos have said unions are unnecessary because workers are paid well and receive good benefits. Tribal sovereignty also precluded unions, the Indian tribes said.

That argument was struck a major blow with the federal court ruling earlier this year.

Little said she believes the NLRB decision will pave the way for an ultimate union victory.

“It’s inevitable. We’re going to have a union at Foxwoods,” she said.

On the Net:
www.foxwoods.com 

www.uaw.org 

www.nlrb.gov

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