Labor ready to fight Right to Work, but enemy may be hard to find

Organized labor in Michigan is busy gearing up for what it believes is the first battle in the push by conservatives to make Michigan a so-called Right to Work (RTW) state, but organized labor may not have anyone to fight in the initial round.

For months there have been rumors of a push by conservative groups and individuals from out of state to make Michigan a RTW state by collecting signatures for a citizen initiative. Proponents of RTW claim the law would do away with the requirement that workers must be in a union to be employed at a union shop. However, federal law already protects workers who don't want to join a union to get or keep their jobs, and the law gives workers the right to opt out of a union. But they must still pay union dues. RTW would give them the option of not paying dues while still enjoying the benefits of being in a union.

RTW bills are before both the Michigan House and Senate, but are stuck in committee. In the House, Rep. Jacob Hoogendyk, R-Kalamazoo, introduced Bill 4454, and Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer, R-Bellaire, introduced Bill 4455, both to make Michigan a RTW state. In the Senate, Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, introduced companion bills, 607 and 608. Union officials say they are hearing that petitions will be circulated to make RTW a ballot initiative, and organizers of the petitions will use the Jan. 15 Michigan Presidential Primary to collect the signatures. But union officials say no organized effort has stepped up to lead that effort, and there appears to be some concern among those pushing RTW that the high turnout expected in the 2008 General Election may hurt the cause because Michigan has such a high union membership that can be mobilized to vote.

“The latest info I have is there will be no signatures gathered at the polls here,” said Paul Hufnagel, the president of the Greater Lansing Labor Council.

To start a citizen initiative, supporters of RTW only have to collect the valid signatures of registered voters equal to 8 percent of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for governor in the last election. That comes out to 304,101 valid signatures of registered voters. Once the petition signatures are verified, the state Legislature has 40 session days to adopt or reject the proposal, and if it is rejected it is placed on the ballot for the next general election.

But although labor is not sure that signatures will be gathered during the primary, leaders are not conceding the point, and in case RTW supporters do mount a petition drive, labor is actively recruiting people to be at the polling stations where signatures will be collected and give the other side of the issue and ask voters to decline to sign. The plan is to have at least one person at each of 2,500 polling places across the state during the time the polls are open in two shifts. Training sessions are being held for those volunteers signed up right up until the polls open.

“The Michigan Republican Party may have placed this on the back burner, but it is still out there,” Hufnagel said.

Labor leaders say that even if there are no signature gathers at the polls this time around, the issue is not going away any time soon, and those pushing RTW see Michigan, as the home of the United Auto Workers (UAW), as a chance for a symbolic victory.

“(Senate Majority Leader) Mike Bishop has said his number one priority is right to work, but he knows he does not have the support in the Legislature,” Hufnagel said. “We could see the domino effect; as Michigan goes, so goes the rest of the country.”

Labor leaders say even if there are no signature gathers at the polls this time around, the issue is not going away any time soon, and those pushing RTW see Michigan, as the home of the United Auto Workers (UAW), as a symbolic victory.

“(Senate Majority Leader) Mike Bishop has said his number one priority is right to work, but he knows he does not have the support in the legislature,” Hufnagel said. “We could see the domino effect; as Michigan goes, so goes the rest of the country.”

NLRP says union members cannot use employee provided email for union business

The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling just before Christmas that will have a negative effect on union organizing by ruling that employers have the right to prohibit workers from using the company’s e-mail system to send out union-related messages.

The New York Times reported that in a 3-to-2 the board held that it was legal for employers to prohibit union-related e-mail so long as employers had a policy barring employees from sending e-mail for “non-job-related solicitations” for outside organizations.

The ruling is a significant setback to the nation’s labor unions, which argued that e-mail systems have become a modern-day gathering place where employees should be able to communicate freely with co-workers to discuss work-related matters of mutual concern.

Union organizers have limited access to workers; often reduced to passing out information to workers as they zoom out of employee parking lots with the windows of their cars rolled up in sharp contrast to employers who can make employees attend mandatory anti-union meetings.

“It will make it very difficult to get access to workers,” said Paul Hufnanagel, the president of the Greater Lansing Labor Council.

The ruling involved The Register-Guard, a newspaper in Eugene, Ore., and e-mail messages sent in 2000 by Suzi Prozanski, a newspaper employee who was president of the Newspaper Guild’s unit there. She sent three e-mail messages about marching in a town parade and urging employees to wear green to show support for the union in contract negotiations.

During the years that this case was pending, many companies were uncertain whether they could bar union-related e-mail. But the labor board’s decision gives companies nationwide the green light to prohibit union-related e-mail as part of an overall nonsolicitation policy.

Labor leaders attacked the decision, calling it part of board rulings that have favored employers and undercut workers.

“Anyone with e-mail knows that this is how employees communicate with each other in today’s workplace,” Jonathan Hiatt, general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O, told the New York Times. “Outrageously in allowing employers to ban such communications for union purposes, the Bush labor board has again struck at the heart of what the nation’s labor laws were intended to protect — the right of employees to discuss working conditions and other matters of mutual concern.”

The ruling comes as the nation’s labor unions continue to struggle to reverse their membership declines. They represent just 12 percent of the nation’s work force, down from 35 percent in the 1950s.

Hufnanagel said it will have a very negative effect on anyone trying to organize private sector employers over public employees or even trying to negotiate a union contract.

“You have more access to those employees working in the public sector simply because they work in public buildings,” he said. “I come from the public sector, so I am aware of that.”

The two board members who dissented asserted that the employees’ interest in communicating with other employees about union activity and other collective concerns should, with regard to the e-mail system, outweigh the employer’s property interest.

They wrote, “The majority erroneously treats the employer’s asserted ‘property interest’ in e-mail — a questionable interest here, in any event — as paramount, and fails to give due consideration to employee rights and the appropriate balancing of the parties’ legitimate interests.”

In many past cases, the labor board ruled that employers engaged in illegal anti-union discrimination if they barred workers from engaging in union-related speech on bulletin boards or telephones when they allowed workers to communicate on bulletin boards or telephones about other matters.

In its new ruling, the board’s majority wrote that employers can allow workers to use e-mail for personal communications while barring them from organizational-related communications. The majority redefined the meaning of discrimination and wrote that the Seventh Circuit’s approach “better reflects the principle that discrimination means the unequal treatment of equals.”

Adopting another new policy, the board appeared to allow employers to bar e-mail for certain organizational activities, like promoting a union or Avon products, but not organizational activities related to charities.

The dissenters said the majority’s decision, in allowing employers to bar solicitation with regard to some activities and not others, “would allow employees to solicit on behalf of virtually anything except a union.”