New Research: Workers Seeking to Organize Face More Intimidation Than Ever

A new study by labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner shows that private sector employers are more likely than ever to interrogate, threaten and even fire workers who try to form unions.

Cornell University Professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, right, listens as Angel Warner describes how she and her coworkers have been harassed while trying to form a union and bargain a contract with Rite Aid in California. Bronfenbrenner released her new report on employers' increasing use of anti-union tactics at a briefing on Capitol Hill.

The findings in "No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organzing," are more evidence of how badly the Employee Free Choice Act is needed, said Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University professor.

The bill "would provide a means to streamline the burdensome and terrifying obstacle course that the organizing and first contract process has become, while also offering more substantive penalties for the most egregious employer violations," the report states.

The report looks at data from 1999 to 2003 and compares it with previous studies of employer behavior toward worker organizing over the last 20 years. The most recent data show that:

• In 63 percent of private sector organizing drives, workers are interrogated about their support for the union in one-on-one meetings with supervisors.
• 57 percent of employers threaten to close the worksite.
• 47 percent threaten to cut wages and benefits.
• 34 percent fire workers who support the union.

The report finds that employers use 10 or more tactics in their campaigns to thwart organizing efforts. Even when workers overcome those hurdles and win an election, 52 percent are still without a first contract one year later and 37 percent don't have a contract within two years.

CWA Local 13000 member John Pezzana, a Comcast technician who fought for years to organize and gain a contract in Pennsylvania, said after reading Bronfenbrenner's study, "It is like she was right there with us in Pittsburgh."

"It's no secret that Comcast uses these types of anti-union tactics," he said. "This is how it keeps the percentage of organized work locations very low, about 2 percent of the 100,000 employees. Comcast has been charged with so many NLRB violations, I couldn't even begin to count them all."

It doesn't have to be that way, Bronfenbrenner said, noting that the United States' public sector models for organizing – which include majority sign-up – prove that workers and employers can cooperate in ways that benefit both parties.

"In 48 percent of the public-sector campaigns, the employer did not campaign at all – no letters, no leaflets, no meetings," she said. "The entire decision was left up to the workers. The remaining 52 percent of public employers did use some of the same tactics as private employers, but on an entirely different scale.

About 40 percent of the time, workers filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, describing threats, firings, interrogation, surveillance and wage and benefit cuts for supporting the union.

Research indicates that workers could file ULPs in many more elections but they fear that doing so will delay an election for months if not years along with retaliation for filing charges. Workers know that the resolution to a case can take years and that the remedies today are weak, the report says.

Bronfenbrenner found that 23 percent of all ULP charges and 24 percent of all serious charges – such as firings, interrogation and surveillance – are filed before a petition for an election, confirming that employers' anti-union campaigns are unrelenting from the first days of an organizing effort.

In about 45 percent of cases, workers win, through a settlement with the employer or an NLRB victory. In those cases, however, employers routinely appeal and can drag out the process for three to five years, sometimes longer.

Even when workers ultimately prevail, "in all the cases in our sample, the worst penalty an employer had to pay was back pay averaging a few thousand dollars per employee," Bronfenbrenner said.

The study is available at www.araw.org.