Attack Ads a New Low for Labor's Enemies

Nasty political campaigns are nothing new but the ugly TV, radio and newspaper ads slamming unions and the Employee Free Choice Act may be a new low in corporate America's assault on working families.

The anti-union players include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the inflammatory project called "UnionFacts," and the National Right to Work organization.

Flush with millions of dollars for negative advertising, they are trying to drown out labor, political, religious and social justice activists who want to help workers raise their standard of living by more easily joining unions and bargaining contracts.

The corporate spin is that they're trying to preserve the "right" of employees to have a secret ballot election, and that by doing so employers are the ones who truly care about workers.

"They're doing ads that are so ridiculous they'd pass for satire on Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show," CWA President Larry Cohen said. "The facts are this: Millions of working families are in dire straits because they don't have the good wages, health care and retirement benefits that bargaining rights can achieve."

Corporations are desperate to derail the Employee Free Choice Act, Cohen and others say, because right now all the balls are in their court. They are able to stall secret-ballot elections, threaten to close plants if workers unionize, intimiate, harass and illegally fire union supporters and generally make life at work so miserable that many employees quit or give up.

When and if the National Labor Relations Board catches up with the illegal tactics, employers shrug off the relatively minor penalties and fines.

"In 2005 alone, more than 30,000 workers were illegally fired or retaliated against for attempting to exercise their right to have a union in their workplace," Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in introducing the bill in the Senate at the end of March. "Clearly, the current system is broken.  It can't stop these illegal, anti-worker, anti-labor, anti-union tactics that take place every day.  The penalties are so minor that employers treat them as just another cost of doing business."

UnionFacts, a union-bashing website and source of anti-union advertising, was started in 2006 by a Washington lobbyist, Richard Berman, notorious for working on behalf of unpopular clients. His past campaigns have attempted to relax drunk-driving laws, championed big tobacco companies, argued against food safety laws and fought minimum wage increases.

Meanwhile, the Chamber — while claiming its national organization isn't funneling money to Berman — has been bullying Democrats who support the Employee Free Choice Act. Reuters recently quoted Chamber President Tom Donohue as saying, "We will go all out to oppose union efforts ... They will have a major fight on their hands."

The website American Rights at Work has pages of detailed research about the anti-union campaigns and who's behind them. Go to www.americanrightsatwork.org and click on the "Anti-Union Network" logo on the homepage.