Unions, Newspapers Denounce NLRB Anti-Worker Ruling

Union members, workers' advocates and newspaper editorial boards across the country are continuing to express their outrage at the recent National Labor Relations Board decision that could cost millions of workers their right to union representation.

In Buffalo, N.Y., this week, CWA nurses and other health care workers represented by Locals 1168 and 1133, along with members of telecom Local 1122, joined other union and community activists for a noon rally in front of a business partnership building on Main Street.

The message to the community, Local 1168 President John Klein said, is this: "We represent health care workers and if our employer decides to challenge our bargaining unit, it could drastically affect health care in our area."

The 3-2 decision by the NLRB's Republican majority gives employers the right to classify many nurses with minor supervisory duties as supervisors, making them ineligible to belong to a union. Experts say the ruling could affect not just nurses but an estimated 8 million workers in many jobs and industries.

Klein said he's concerned that even many union members, let alone other Americans, don't yet understand the ruling or its potential impact. In health care, he said, nurses without union protection are less likely to speak out about issues affecting patient care out of fear for their jobs. "It's a huge impact, and that's what the public does not understand," he said.

The rally in Buffalo, which was covered by the local newspaper and a radio station, was organized by the community's Coalition for Economic Justice. Unions and their community partners were already e-mailing each other the day after the Wednesday rally to plan future events about the decision and workers' issues as Election Day approaches.

Meanwhile, many newspapers are decrying the decision:

• "This is one more step curbing the power of organized labor since President Bush came to office," the New York Times said in an editorial titled "Kicked While Down." "Far from balancing the scales, the anti-union drive comes when workers are already at a historic low in bargaining strength? We are getting closer and closer to a work force with no benefits and no substantive protections."
  
  
• "Spinning out this rationale means that teachers who direct classroom aides could be barred from union membership, as could any professional worker who has a secretary," the St. Petersburg Times wrote. "In a time of growing income inequality, union membership seems to be one of the few ways workers can still get ahead. For the NLRB to stretch the definition of a supervisor in order to exclude a large swath of the labor force from these potential benefits is just another way that workers are being stripped of their leverage in the workplace."
  
  
• "If you have just a tiny bit of authority at work — say the task of telling a custodian whose offices to clean — does that make you a supervisor? If so, then an awful lot of people could find themselves with a tiny bit of authority," said the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Companies that want to weaken unions may designate lots of employees as supervisors. Before you know it, the only person without a title would be the summer intern."
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  More information about the supervisor decision is available at www.aflcio.org and www.americanrightsatwork.org.