Eco Justice Can We Take Back America Without Confronting

Good question.

Danny Schechter: Eco Justice Fight Needs To Go Beyond Union Fight: Can We Take Back America Without Confronting The Debt Crisis? | BuzzFlash.org:

Writing on TomPaine.com, Dmitri Iglitzin reprised labor's challenge and eroding position.

'In many ways, the lack of overwhelming support for EFCA is surprising. Under current law, workers who want to form a union must currently undergo a risky, grueling, and time-consuming 'pre-election' period that culminates, if they're lucky, in an election held under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). If they're not lucky, the workers are instead fired or otherwise discriminated against. One recent study, conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, found that about one in five union organizers or activists can expect to be fired during the pre-election period.

'Should the workers succeed in unionizing, moreover, their chances of ever obtaining a collective bargaining agreement with their employer are grim. According to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a federal agency, nearly half of newly organized bargaining units fail to negotiate a first contract within two years of a successful organizing drive. The result of these barriers to successful unionizing is manifest in the steady decline of union membership, now 12 percent of the workforce (7.4 percent in the private sector), down from 20 percent in 1983 and 35% in the '50s.